It's way better than lifesteal, since the healing is frontloaded after pressing one button, and is percentage based instead of a flat amount.
Why does he get a gap closer that increases his damage against low HP targets AND heals him? Many champions are lucky to get one of those, that's not even taking into account the rest of his kit.
He's more mobile than half the melee champions in this game, while also having more mitigation, more sustain, and is a decent duelist. To make things worse, he scales with AP, making it much easier to simultaneously build defense, damage, and CDR without sacrificing anything like an AD bruiser does. This champion is beyond busted. I don't complain about specific champions too often but this is beyond ridiculous.
Trundle's nerfs could all be reverted and he still wouldn't be half as strong as Sylas is currently.