Lifesteal



Lifesteal is an ability which causes damage dealt by a card to also restore that much Health to the controlling player's hero. Lifesteal minions on the battlefield are marked by a broken heart at the bottom of their portraits.

The Lifesteal mechanic was first introduced in Goblins vs Gnomes on the card Mistress of Pain (later renamed Queen of Pain). It was officially keyworded in Knights of the Frozen Throne. Prior to Patch 9.0.0.20457, Lifesteal was represented by the text "Damage dealt by this minion also heals your hero".

All classes have access to Lifesteal, but Demon Hunters and Warlocks have more then other classes, and to a lesser extent Priests.

Cards with Lifesteal
This section lists cards which have the ability to Lifesteal or can gain the ability to Lifesteal when played. (This section needs to be edited, because Ashtongue Battlelord appears twice on this page, anf I can not do this editing on mobile)

Lifesteal-generating cards
This section lists cards which generate cards that have the ability to Lifesteal.

Lifesteal-granting cards
This section lists cards which grant the Lifesteal ability to other cards or to itself.

Trivia

 * Prior to the introduction of the Lifesteal keyword in Patch 9.0.0.20457, if a Lifesteal card dealt damage while combined with Auchenai Soulpriest or Embrace the Shadow, the converted Lifesteal healing would count as damage dealt by the Lifesteal card itself. This would cause the Lifesteal card's effect to trigger again and again, resulting in an infinite loop of damage until the controlling player's hero was killed. More precisely, the infinite loop was believed to stop once the hero had been in negative Health following three consecutive triggers or after 61 triggers, whichever happened first. In Knights of the Frozen Throne, this interaction was changed to deal damage only once.
 * When a Lifesteal effect restores health to the controlling player's hero, the healing is accompanied by a unified visual style.
 * Holy Fire, Drain Life, and Tidal Surge were not changed into Lifesteal spells with the release of Knights of the Frozen Throne, as they always restore the same amount of Health to the controlling hero and changing them to Lifesteal would cause the healing to scale with Spell Damage. In the case of Drain Life, Game Director Ben Brode has also expressed a reluctance to add a new keyword to the Basic set.
 * Lifesteal is the second non-launch keyword to continue to appear on cards outside of the set it was introduced in, the first being Discover. It's also the first non-launch mechanic to later be given an official keyword.

Patch changes

 * This effect is now named as Lifesteal. Lifesteal minions on the battlefield now have a unique icon at the bottom of their portraits.