Which Mask? Face Sold Seperately

 

Vladimir's Offering

 

Cost: 2050

Radius: 900
Lifesteal: 16%
Bonus Damage: 15%
Bonus Armour: 5
Bonus Mana Regeneration: 0.8

Vladimir's Offering is perhaps the most commonly used lifesteal item in pub Dota. It offers a basic lifesteal passive that benefits you and your teammates, and comes with a great set of stats too.

 

Which heroes to build it on

Although Lycan's jungle capabilities have been severely limited following the nerf to his wolves, the average Lycan player will still rely on jungle farm to get him to carry stage, maybe throwing in a quick solo Roshan kill where possible. For this reason, a Vlads is crucial, because it gives Lycan the potential to farm without worrying about his health, and gives great sustain in the heat of a team fight. Not only that, but the aura effect of a Vlads will give your wolves a notable buff.

Ursa relies heavily on jungle farm, making some form of lifesteal necessary at low levels. A Vlads works particularly well with Ursa because his damage is based around short bursts of high attack speed. With any life steal, the more you hit, the more you'll leech, so grabbing a Vlads is effective on any hero with a natural ability to hit hard and fast. Ursa's main goal is always the same: Kill Roshan. The Ursa player will aim to start going for a solo Roshan kill at the first possible opportunity, and a Vladimir's Offering is essential for tanking the damage and giving you a source of sustain throughout the fight.

Meepo is something of a folk legend, little played, and rarely picked. Still, if you think yourself a Starcraft loving micro-management master that desperately wants to control a whole hoard of irritating little Meepo midgets, he might just be the hero you're looking for. Failing that, I suppose you can always become a pre-school teacher.

Meepo has a low health pool, and will need the lifesteal in order to get into the jungle at level 6 and above, which you'll want to do almost every game. Once again, the early game stats granted by a Vlads make it preferable, and the aura will greatly benefit your terrifying little Meepo army enough to make it a core item and a much needed pickup.

 

Other Options

A Vladimir's Offering is considered core on only these three, but the versatility of this item makes it useful as a situational pickup for many other heroes. Melee carries are the name of the game here, with heroes like Anti Mage and Juggernaut being among the many contendors that benefit greatly from a Vlads.

If you're ever playing a melee hero and find yourself in need of a little extra survivability and damage without breaking the bank, then a Vlads is a sound option. In rare cases, a support could even buy a this item, benefiting their team with the aura even if they don't directly benefit from the lifesteal. However, this is only viable in very specific situations. There are plenty of better options and aura items for a support, so you'll want to save buying a Vlads only for when you have a surplus of money.

 

Mask of Madness

Cost: 1900

Lifesteal: 17%
Active: Gives +100 attack speed and +30% movement speed but causes you to take extra 30% damage for 12 seconds.

A Mask of Madness is great for heroes that are particularly reliant on attack speed. Any hero with chance based passives affecting their right clicks will find this item invaluable. It's also a good pickup on heroes that don't build lots of agility, and will need the Berserker active to get the attack speed they forfeit as a result

Which heroes to build it on

Faceless void is quite a simple hero. You have 2 directives: Farm, then own. Lifesteal is extremely useful for helping you farm at low levels, as it will keep you alive against all difficulties of creep in the jungle. Furthermore, the Berserker active will speed up your farm in perfect synergy with your Battle Fury, allowing you to rush faster to the stage where you get to own people.

A Mask of Madness is the lifesteal of choice because as Faceless Void, a large portion of your damage and crowd control comes from "Time Lock" a passive that deals extra damage and stuns based on random chance. The more hits you can get, the more of these stuns you'll pull off. It sounds minor, but any seasoned Faceless Void player will testify to just how important Time Lock is, both for dealing high damage and for picking off fleeing targets.

Spirit Breaker is similar to Facless. His passive skill "Greater Bash" will hit people around like Rocky on fight night, stunning and dealing extra damage. Spirit Breaker benefits for exactly the same reasons as Faceless, minus the farming aspect. A Mask of Madness will also make up Spirit Breaker's comparatively slow attack speed. Being a strength hero rather than agility, Spirit Breaker won't be hitting very quickly and won't be buying items that will stack agility to help him do so, making the Berserker active highly useful.

 

Other Options

Both Sven and Magnus have the ability to cleave, Sven through a passive and Magnus through an active. The effectiveness of this cleave will be heightened by higher attack speed, making Berserker a great active for dealing maximum damage to multiple targets. A mask is very often a good pickup for Sven. This is because Sven is a carry 100% of the time, relied upon to be one of the tankiest and most hard hitting heroes on the team.

Mask of Madness helps in both these respects, increasing both survivability though lifesteal and damage through Berserker. Things are a little less easy as Magnus, and you'll usually only want to buy a Mask of Madness when you aim to become one of your team's major damage sources, whereas usually you'd be treated as a walking Reverse Polarity dispenser. If you're covered on the damage front, it might be better to consider a different item, prefferably one that would stack more strength to keep you alive at the center of a teamfight.

Still, Magnus can carry when the time is right, and if you ever need to start critting and cleaving with the bulldozing power of The Hulk on steroids, it might be worth a look. Being strength heroes, these two will also suffer from Spirit Breaker syndrome, failing to achieve the high attack speeds of their agility hero counterparts, and needing the extra attack speed granted by a Mask of Madness subsequently to deal out their damage.

Speaking of damage, have you ever met Drow Ranger? Her damage is bonkers. Ridiculously high with a few items in her arsenal. Although she won't gain any lifesteal, a Mask of Madness is a viable pickup on her and on similar ranged right click carries like Sniper, simply for the huge amounts of extra damage granted by higher attack speed. A Mask of Madness isn't by any means an amazing item on these ranged carries, but it's worth a look if you really want to rub your enemys' faces in how hard you're beating them.

Helm of the Dominator

Cost:

Lifesteal: 15%
Damage: 20
Armour: 5
Dominate: Take control of a non-hero, non-ancient target unit.

A bit of an odd one, this item. It's main draw is the active Dominate, allowing you to take control of any creep. The creep's active can be useful in fights, or could even be helpful as a kind of tank for lower level Roshan kills. There is however, one primary use of this item that makes it so worthwhile for some carries. It sounds mundane on paper, but it can be potent when used correctly.

Which heroes to build it on

All of these heroes want a Helm of Dominator for exactly the same reason: Ancient stacking. It works like this, use the active on a jungle creep, send it to your side's ancient camp, and wait. When the timer at the top of the screen reaches around 53 seconds into the current minute, walk your creep over to the ancients, and aggro them away from their spawn position, as far as possible before they begin to backtrack. On the minute, every minute, all dead or missing camps will respawn. Ancient stacking causes the camps to be far enough away from the spawn position for a new set to join the party, so that when the set you've just pulled return, you'll have twice as many ancients stood at the camp.

Do this with your dominated creep 3 or 4 items whilst farming the jungle with your hero. Return to the ancient camp, and you'll be able to kill a huge number of ancients in one go, giving you massive amounts of gold and experience. This is an extremely effective strategy on heroes that have an innate capability to farm multiple units at once. Luna's bouncing glaives will quickly dispatch high numbers of clustered up creeps, a level 2 Dragon Knight ultimate will hurt other units with each right click, and Troll Warlords AOE damage potential will work much to the same effect.

Hopefully this guide gave you a greater insight into the many varied benefits and uses of lifesteal, as well as an idea of which heroes need what items and why. Good luck, and have fun thieving your opponents' hard earned HP.