Life Drain can be referring to either an effect or a modifier.
Effect[]
Life Drain, Lifedrain or Life Steal allows characters to gain Health when they deal damage. In general, life drain from different sources will stack. For those with a % chance to life drain, they would normally have separate chances to activate, not adding the chances together, and therefore, both can activate on the same hit.
Overkill damage from a single hit that applies Life Drain will still heal for the full amount. Life Drain will also heal from hits that do no damage due to the target having some form of KO prevention (e.g. Reverse Flash and Shazam/New 52 passive).
Gear[]
Life Drain as a statistic can be found on certain gears.
Black Lantern Ring is the only piece of 2/3-star gear with lifedrain, having lifedrain chance on Special 1.
3/4-star life drain gear has lifedrain as a character-specific effect on a special, with a 20-30% chance to activate, and will heal the user by 50% of the Damage dealt if activated.
- Special 1: Kahndaq Royal Garb
- Special 2: Supercharged Yellow Power Ring, Thermafrost Necklace, Netherrealm Kama, Demonic Cloak
Legendary gear have more powerful life drain effects.
- The Gauntlets of Azrael and Overpowered 5-U-93-R both have a high chance of healing any character (and their teammates as well with the former) by 100% of the damage dealt by their Combo Ender
- LexCorp Chest Armour V2 has up to 99% chance to life drain 45% on special 2.
- Soultaker Sword has up to 50% chance to life drain 50% on special 2.
Passives[]
Martian Manhunter/Blackest Night's passive has a life drain phase that allows him to heal his whole team by full damage dealt by Basic attacks and DOT (40% for Special Attacks and Super Moves) for about 6 seconds.
Darkseid/Apokolips's passive gives his combo enders a chance to do an additional hit for massively increased damage (5x of normal) and heal himself for full damage dealt.
Life drain is one of the "random effects" in both The Joker/Suicide Squad and The Joker Unhinged/Suicide Squad's SP1.
Life drain is also in Lord Joker/Batman Ninja's passive, where knocking out an opponent allows him to life drain on all attacks while healing from enemy life drain for a limited time. While on the other hand, Batman/Batman Ninja can be immune to life drain as part of his passive.
Similar effects[]
There are some effects that are technically not life drain, despite their similarity. The difference can be seen when used against Batman/Batman Ninja when he is outnumbered, as he is immune to life drain, but not to these effects.
- Raven/Prime swaps her health with her opponent twice per match whenever she falls below 20% health.
- Raven/Teen Titans has a chance to do extra damage and heal herself after her specials.
- Wonder Woman/Dawn of Justice heals her whole team by half of any damage dealt during her specials.
- The Joker/Batman Ninja copies enemy life drain while his passive is still active.
Modifier[]
Life Drain (called Vampire during the Hal Jordan/Red Lantern and The Flash/Earth 2 challenge boss fights) is also one of the Modifiers where opponents gain health equal to a percentage of the damage they deal. The percentage varies depending on the match in question. Life Drain can be encountered in Challenge Mode, Survivor, or regular standard battles.