How do I counter a hard hitter who has lifesteal?

Question

I recently played an all random 3 vs 3.

I was Centaur, and became primarily responsible for stopping Wraith King, which I failed at. (My teammates were Tusk and Witch Doctor)

We quickly dispatched of the other opponents, and managed to kill WK once, but then his reincarnation would kick in and we'd be out of mana/life/everything else, and the best we could do was to scare him off.

Because of his life-steal, it took way to long to kill him.

I'm trying to figure out what I should have done?

When we lost I was trying to build a Heaven's halberd, hoping that him loosing his lifesteal would be enough, but I only finished it at around the time they got mega-creeps, and everything was over.

I'm now trying to figure out more generally how I should deal with damage heavy life stealers.

Some options I see.

1. Heavens halberd allows us to disarm the opponent for a while, hopefully allowing us to kill him.
2. Butterfly. Permanent evasion should be a direct cost to the opponents lifesteal.
3. Diffusal blade. Take all his mana away and deny him reincarnation. (Somewhat specific to Wraith King, though other heroes could have other abilities we'd like to deny them.)

Other options? How should think when I try to decide which item will give me to largest upper hand?

Answer 1

There are many ways of countering hard right clicker (lifesteal or not) :

Kite him

Use any slow (or stun) you have at your disposal and stay at a safe distance while throwing nukes/attack at him. In this fashion he won't be able to either kill you or lifesteal his health back. In the situation you are describing you had one of the most (if not the best) slow in the game in Frozen Sigil (Tusk). The sigil at max level reduce both movespeed by 25% and the attack speed by 60 which is huge especially when you rely on lifesteal to stay alive. Icing on the cake, the Sigil's slow goes through magic immunity and cannot be purged.

Items you can buy

• Ghost Scepter : when activated you become invulerable to physical attack (right-click) for 4 second. Usefullness is self explanatory. Note that it's upgradable in Ethereal Blade with the same properties.
• Eul's Scepter. You can use this item defensively (on yourself) : to disjoint (=avoid) a projectile or to temporise the duration of the ennemy BKB (if he has one and uses it). Offensively (on an enemy) so you can run away for the duration of the cyclone and disable the ennemy Blink Dagger (if he has one).
• Heaven's Hallberd : not only this item give you 25% chance to dodge an attack but it also allows you to disarm an enemy (3 second for melee and 4.5 second for ranged) making him simply unable to attack for the duration.
• To a lesser extent Crimson Guard can be usefull. It won't preven any lifesteal however the active will allow you to negate some damage on every attack.
• If you are tanky a Blade Mail will allow you to negate the lifesteal and deals some more damage since the damage you take is reflected to the attacker. The more HP you have, the more damage you can return which can be really usefull. However if the target is magic immune the Blade Mail won't do much.
• Finally Force Staff or Blink Dagger to kite more easily

TL;DR

Slows or Stun the target and stay at a safe distance. If he closes the gap, use any of the items mentionned above to kite or prevent the target from attacking. You can temporise an enemy BKB by using Eul's Scepter / Ghost Scepter on yourself.

Answer 2

Against hard hitting melee heroes one of the best things to do can be keeping your distance.

Throw some slows on him (which is difficult with BKB/Rage/Other magic immunity) and then kite him around, the person he's targeting runs while the rest hits him.

You can also use a ghost blade so you can't be attacked while bursting them to death.

Basically: Lifesteal only works if they're hitting you, run away to fight another day :)