Question about Life Steal

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

The character screen description of Life Steal says: The percent of weapon attack damage you deal which also replenishes your health. However, the description for ADCTH (which I understand is the underlying mechanic for Life Steal) only mentions percent of attack damage.

Which one is true: Life Steal only calculates weapon damage, or the whole damage done by skills? I understand that pets do not trigger ADCTH.

If my Dual Pistol char had 26% Life Steal on my Main Hand, and 23% Life Steal on my Off Hand, and he used Grenado which does 73k damage per hit, would Grenado proc Life Steal? Grenado doesn’t have any weapon damage component in its damage calculation…

And which percentage of Life Steal that would be used? The main hand or off hand?

And if that char used Fire Strike, will the Life Steal calculates only the weapon damage component, or the whole damage (including the bonus fire damage)?

So many questions… thank you in advance for any and all answer.

2

Flat Life Steal (like from Seal of Blades and Lifegiver Signet) only works with weapon damage and it needs 100% weapon damage to get the full stat. Grenado can’t use flat life steal because it has no weapon damage, unless you have a skill modifier that adds weapon damage.

If your character fires with the main hand, you heal 26% of the damage dealt. And with the off hand, 23%. It depends on the skill, some only use the main hand and some use both at the same time.

More fire damage means more damage, means more heal.

3

Thank you for your prompt answer. Is there any way I can tap into Grenado’s huge damage to replenish my health bar?

4

https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/7739

https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9402

Only these two add weapon damage. At best you can have 60% weapon damage on Grenado with Mythical Adversary.

5

Even then, you won’t life steal from the base damage of Grenado, just from the % weapon damage part one of these items give you.

6

I guess it’s an intentional design choice by the devs, then, so that big burst damage skills can’t be used to replenish health.

But then there are skills with ADCTH component like Sigil of Consumption. These skills will give Life Steal even when I don’t have Life Steal in my stat card, right?

7

Yeah, skills like Devouring Swarm and Sigil of Consumption and devotion procs like Bat Fang and Mark of the Wendigo have built in ADCTH. Meaning they will heal you by that percentage.

8

ADCTH works for whole direct damage, caused by skill (both Weapon Damage and flat damage added by skill itself). However, ADCTH added not by skill itself (i.e. on items, etc) is penaltized if skill deals less than 100% Weapon Damage (accordingly to % Weapon Damage). If skill doesnt deal any Weapon Damage (so Weapon damage = 0%), ADCTH “multiplier” for it will be 0% as well (except ADCTH added by skill itself - it is always in effect at 100% power).

DoT damage types (bleed, burn, etc) dont count for ADCTH.