Itemization overhaul series: I't time for a lifesteal fix

It's getting ridiculous, the amount of healing, on many champions

But lifesteal is a big offender

As are the support items, but god forbid we take power away from the supports because nobody wants to play them, well not enough people becasue we still have autofill. So let's not make things worse by gutting supports

No lets just balance lifesteal

There is actually a super simple fix here

Make it non interactive with any sort of bonus damage or damage amp so it only applies to the AD part of your attack unless specifically stated otherwise in the on hit effect like botrk for example

So if you have 300 AD and 20% lifesteal and you crit for 1000 damage you aint getting a 200 heal no you would just get 60

There balanced Now everyone is equal as far as lifesteal is concerned

Right now lifesteal scales with your total damage it shouldn't its ridiculous

That leaves us with an item to address for 3700 gold this one is going to lose a quite bit of value as it's main power comes from lifestealing, with excessively powerful heals on critical strikes no longer in existance it's passive shield will be difficult to appreciate so ill make changes there, and i will make the item more useful for champions besides the ADC class

The 80 AD and 20% lifesteal is really nice ofc. But perhaps the biggest reason to grab it is the shield passive the one which let's you overheal. It has always been the other multiplicative scaling option for lifesteal besides crit. Because lifesteal is only useful if you are not at full health, Those 200+ crit heals aren't worth shit if you are full health until you got BT and suddenly you could overheal making any application of lifesteal that would heal you beyond full hp suddenly worthwhile. With the fat heals gone this part of the item could use a buff and at the same time a little counter play to it's over healing in combat

Now with weakened lifesteal we could simply make the item cheaper but why should we when we can give compensation buffs, nobody likes gutted cheap items just ask tank players.

So here is what i am going to do to remedy this I will buff it up and make it strong again

4000 gold now, but with some adjustments

85 AD 100% Health regen Unique passive - 20% lifesteal Unique passive - You can now over heal from all sources of healing & health regen (excluding fountain) granting a shield Shield is 10-180 based on level + 7,5% health + 50% AD Goes on cool down for 1,5 seconds when broken

What will this do? So 2000hp will get you 150 shield and you also get 50 shield per 100 AD and the reason for doing it like this are champions like Jhin & Zed and the existence of fire drakes etc

There a fat ass shield in the late game to compensate, for an adc, lets say he or she has 350 AD and 2k hp this will get them like a 500 shield which no longer decays, in fact it will automatically be generated from your hp regen if you are full hp, so to compensate for that i added a minor cool down for counter play in combat instead. Now it gives more reliable up front defense and is harder to generate in combat if you cannot successfully kite.

The item is now more useful for every AD champion and synergizes with every source of sustain like regen and other healing items or healing from supports and allies. And since it now works with regen i decided to add it as a stat since there aren't any AD items with regen besides the hydra items

Conclusion

I think this change will balance lifesteal, most lifesteal items have other strengths and uses besides the lifesteal and will be fine except for bloodthirster so i changed it a bit to keep it strong.

I don't think lifesteal is a bad concept at all, but it has been too strong for a while now, mostly on adc and the culprit was mainly the interaction with critical strikes allowing to heal back up to full hp with only a couple attacks. With that out of the way we could start to address the over abundance of grievous wounds and how it works Because right now it hurts a lot of champions who have this as a core part of their kit, while ADC are barely affected by it and in their current state are still overbearing considering all the other defensive options in itemization they can opt into as well as protection from the team and their itemization.