Life leech

Life leech is a utility effect that can turn a percentage of damage dealt into Hitpoints restoration. Life leech can occur actively through some special attacks or more passively through chance on hit effects. This effect is often sought by advanced players to increase the margin of error during harder content, or increase sustainability on longer outings. Some powerful monsters possess methods to leech health from players in return.

Not all sources of life leech are equal and each method may have unique limitations. For example onyx bolts (e) cannot trigger when facing undead monsters and the Saradomin godsword can restore health when fighting some enemies which are completely immune to the sword's damage like a kurask.

Sources of life leech often share a similar graphical style, a visible upwards flourish above the target when triggered in combat. This makes them easy to spot compared to attacks that do not trigger the effect.

The following methods can provide a percentage of damage dealt as hitpoint restoration.

Passive life leech methods are often prohibitively expensive, each having an associated cost-per-hour for continual use. These methods can replace food entirely, and tend to be reserved for content that generates profit at a higher rate than this cost.

Life leech from the Saradomin godsword or Ancient godsword does not have a per-use gold cost. However restoration attempts are limited by the player's special attack energy pool. These special attacks can miss or hit for low amounts of damage and should be considered supplementary, instead of an outright replacement for food.

Special attack energy naturally recharges at the rate of 10% every 30 seconds, allowing one restoration from a godsword every 150 seconds (2.5 minutes) of recharge. The Lightbearer ring doubles natural energy regeneration speed, reducing it to 75 seconds (1.25 minutes) of recharge between special attacks. For this reason Lightbearer is strongly recommended to double the potential leech from these weapons.

On a successful hit, the Saradomin godsword guarantees a minimum of 10 health restored, even if dealing less than 20 damage. The following table is a rough estimate of how many hitpoints per minute may be restored with this method.

On a successful hit, the Ancient godsword heals for 15% of the target's maximum hitpoints. The following table is a rough estimate of how many hitpoints per minute may be restored with this method.

Some monsters have a life leech mechanic that a player may have to deal with uniquely during a fight. This usually displayed as a with the amount healed above the monster's head but should not be confused with other healing effects that use the same graphic.

• Corporeal Beast - When the smaller magic projectile successfully hits, it will heal itself a small amount.
  • Dark energy core - Leeches up to 13 health per player of all players adjacent and heals the Beast by the same amount.
• Guthan the infested - heals the same way his armour set does.
• Nex and Cruor - Using blood spells during the third phase, also Soul Split for the latter in the final phase.
• Rune dragon - Occasionally uses the onyx bolt special effect, where it heals itself 100% of the damage dealt.
• Sarachnis - Leeches 10 health when successfully hitting a player with an attack.
• Vorkath - Vorkath's acid pools leech health from players to himself, up to 10 per tick.
• Zebak - Zebak's blood clouds will leech health every tick a player stands next to one, as well with certain invocations Zebak gains access to blood magic spells.
• Phantom Muspah - Heals if the player is caught in a spike or when its Soul Split is active in the shielded phase.
• Vardorvis - Auto-attacks heal Vardorvis for 50% of the damage dealt.
• The Maiden of Sugadinti (within the Theatre of Blood) - Throws blood spots that when stood in, heal Maiden as well as drain the player's prayer.
• Lowerniel Drakan fought during the finale of The Blood Moon Rises.

There are some instances in which players cannot leech health from certain enemies or bosses:

• Zebak - Has immunity to Blood spells and other sources with the life-leech tag.^[1]
• Tumeken's Warden and Elidinis' Warden cannot be healed off of blood spells.
• The wights fought during the final act of Desert Treasure II - The Fallen Empire are unaffected by life-leeching effects.^[2]
• Sotetseg within the Theatre of Blood is immune to Blood spells.
• Lowerniel Drakan fought during the finale of The Blood Moon Rises.