Lifesteal is great when you're creeping in the jungle, but I've never seen it be formidable enough to keep you going toe to toe with something like Krul. Go with the latter, burst damage is what taka was made for

If you play him right, defense Items are mostly pointless (except of course for situational things like atlas pouldron to counter krul/glaive speed builds) as you should be able to kaku out of most situations. Since his main role is that of an assassin, trying to make him balanced kinda defeats the whole purpose of playing him. You should be spec'ing to hit hard, hit fast, and if that doesn't kill the enemy, getting the hell out of there and trying again in a bit.

I think it's more situational than anything. Works well for melee characters facing a team of long range guys, and especially for assassins like taka and koshka, being able to slow a petal down with their chase abilities then finish them off with basic attacks can come in handy. I play taka and I'll usually grab a frostburn if I see the enemy team building lots of speed, but otherwise I think there are generally better choices

I would argue that something of a hybrid build works best for Taka. You have to think about what his primary role in a team is, and really that job comes down to being a badass assassin that takes enemy heroes down quickly. And because he is squishy you don't want to be stuck in a prolonged fight with anyone *caugh*Krul*caugh*, so I've personally found that going pure WP with him isn't always a good choice, since it forces you to to bulk up your defenses as you're intentionally exposing...