Lifesteal

Lifesteal
Damage dealt also heals your hero.

A minion with Lifesteal

Lifesteal icon

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, Warlocks and to a lesser extent Priests have more than other classes.

Notes

• Whenever a Lifesteal card or Hero Power deals damage, it will restore the exact same amount of Health to its controlling hero too.
  • This includes minions with Battlecry, Deathrattle, and triggered effects that deal damage.
  • Health restoration from Lifesteal is applied after the Lifesteal source deals damage.
• If a hero deals Lifesteal damage while also taking lethal damage, the Lifesteal heal will save the hero if it would be enough to restore them to 1 health or more (or, put another way, if the damage taken minus the Lifesteal heal is less than the hero's health).
  • For example, if a rogue with 5 health remaining equipped with a Kingsbane which has been granted Lifesteal (by Leeching Poison) attacks Dr. Boom, the rogue will survive if Kingsbane has at least 3 attack.
• If Betrayal is cast upon a minion with Lifesteal, the Lifesteal effect will activate once for each minion hit.
• If a Lifesteal card deals damage to a minion protected by Divine Shield, it will deal 0 damage and thus also restore 0 Health, while also removing the Divine Shield.
• As with all healing effects, if combined with Auchenai Soulpriest, Embrace the Shadow or Auchenai Phantasm, Lifesteal cards will instead deal damage to the controlling hero. Because this damage is not counted as damage dealt by the Lifesteal card itself, however, the effect will not trigger a second time.

Cards with Lifesteal

This section lists cards which have the ability to Lifesteal or can gain the ability to Lifesteal when played.

Collectible

For Wild format listings, see Lifesteal/Wild format

Sources of Lifesteal

For Wild format listings, see Lifesteal/Wild format

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.

Achievements

	Category	Name	Description	Rewards
	Gameplay - General - Neutral Keywords	I Vant to Suck Your Blood	Play 5 cards with Lifesteal.	10
	Gameplay - General - Neutral Keywords	I Vant to Suck Your Blood	Play 15 cards with Lifesteal.	10
	Gameplay - General - Neutral Keywords	I Vant to Suck Your Blood	Play 50 cards with Lifesteal.	10
	Gameplay - General - Neutral Keywords	I Vant to Suck Your Blood	Play 150 cards with Lifesteal.	10
	Gameplay - General - Neutral Keywords	I Vant to Suck Your Blood	Play 500 cards with Lifesteal.	20
	Gameplay - Darkmoon Faire - Paladin	So Judgey…	Restore 60 Health with Lifesteal weapons.	10
	Gameplay - Darkmoon Faire - Paladin	So Judgey…	Restore 180 Health with Lifesteal weapons.	20
	Gameplay - Stormwind - Paladin	Dark Side of Light	Lifesteal 300 Health using Paladin cards.	20

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

• Patch 9.0.0.20457 (2017-08-08): This effect is now named as Lifesteal. Lifesteal minions on the battlefield now have a unique icon at the bottom of their portraits.