Awesome! I'm glad it helped.

You nailed this one. On ranked pvp (rather low, only T3), you can be really a destructive especially when you fire up on the heroic perk on heroes running away. Easily 1 hit KO if life is low. Just saying.

Oh yes, being extra annoying is when you load up flare gun as early as 3/5 minutes into the game. Bye to getting gank.

Hey there I'm glad I inspired you! I'm happy to offer opinions on your build, but keep in mind this is purely my opinion, if it works for you go for it!

I personally don't like Alternating Current a CP Samuel doesn't really benefit from basic attacks much. It wouldn't be my choice in a build. I think you'd be far stronger with a Frostburn. Samuel is nearly impossible to escape if you're getting nailed with Malice & Verdict and being slowed the entire time. Plus with the empowered Malice & Verdicts doing splash damaged you can apply the slow to their entire team at the same time.

I think Clockwork doesn't get much bang for the buck with Samuel. His cooldowns are so small you don't save any time from the cooldown bonus, plus when you are in Drifting Dark the Malice & Verdict cooldowns are almost nonexistent. If you are looking for more cooldown on Oblivion you're better off going with Echo, which will also give you the extra energy that you get from Clockwork. It's not my preference to go with 4 offensive items, but if you are I think this is a better choice.

Otherwise your build looks solid, although I'd get rid of the Crucible option Aegis is a much stronger defensive item if you are only going to pick one, plus the CD on Aegis is better than on Crucible.

Samuel actually says "you should subscribe to my blog" in the game. I've heard it like a hundred times before.

I'm assuming you are talking about Corrupted Genius and not just lifesteal in general. The life steal and energy regen of Corrupted Genius does not scale. So no, regardless of the build the Corrupted Genius lifesteal perk doesn't change. I touch on this explanation more in items section when I talk about Alternating Current

Thank you I'm glad you enjoyed it!

lol. Thanks for the advice, tho it's unlikely to be heeded :)

Thanks for the props! Don't forget to give it a vote. So let's look at Eve of Harvest in regards to your question.

First, I do have a build in this guide listed with Eve of Harvest, so there's that. But that's besides the point. So, I move on.

Second, you aren't really amping his lifesteal. Corrupted Genius doesn't scale with anything it only restores 50-160 health depending on level. You are however adding 10% to all of your crystal damage. Here's what I mean by that: If you were amplifying the lifesteal he already does then it would increase the lifesteal you are already doing, that would mean that your 160 lifesteal from Corrupted Genius would turn into 176 lifesteal, but that's not the case. So it's not a true amperage of the lifesteal. I'm sure that's not what you mean, I'm just being literal. So again I move on.

So let's look at some actual stats, which is probably at the core of what you are asking. I'm going to use the build I have here that includes Eve of Harvest. That's the More energy less CP build. So let's assume that your opponents are going to build Aegis against you. That means with that build you are going to deal 139 damage with Corrupted Genius at level 12. This means you'll get 160 lifesteal from Corrupted Genius (remember this doesn't scale based on damage, and doesn't lower based on enemy shields so it's a true 160 lifesteal). On that particular hit you'll also deal 139 damage against the Aegis which turns into 14 lifesteal (or 35 if you are within the 25% lifesteal passive). This means you'll have to do that somewhere between 5-12 times before you get an extra 160 lifesteal from the bump of Eve of Harvest. [[corrupted genius is a far superior lifesteal mechanism. If I had to guess I'd guess you may have 1 instance a match where that exta 14-35 lifesteal keeps you alive in an encounter, that's just a guess, no way to actually measure that.

Moving on. I could get into every ability, but I'm simply going to look at Malice & Verdict since that's going to be your most common form of dealing crystal damage. Now, an empowered Malice & Verdict with this build will deal 588 damage. So if we put that up against an Aegis on Reim (I use Reim because he has the lowest shield of all characters so this is best case scenario), it will deal 250 crystal damage, which turns into 25/63 lifesteal, if you land both Malice & Verdict shots you're talking about 50/126 lifesteal from that one ability. Still less than your Corrupted Genius. Remember, these numbers are even smaller prior to level 12.

Is it viable? Yes. Watching the NALC the past couple of days Eve of Harvest has appeared in every Samuel build I've seen. That being said the analysts all said the same thing, Samuel is falling off late game. I'm not a pro by any stretch, but it's my belief that he is falling off because they are using Eve of Harvest instead of Shatterglass. For example look at my jungle build. That tops out at 400 crystal damage.

In an NALC match I saw a player named Oldskool on team Phoenix Reign use nearly my exact jungle build except he used Eve of Harvest instead of Shatterglass (he also used a different set of boots but that doesn't effect the CP so it's irrelevant for this conversation). It was a long match so he actually completed the entire build. So let's look at it.

So a build including Eve of Harvest, Broken Myth, Frostburn, and Clockwork offers 281 CP. Using the same Reim example above the empowered Malice & Verdict in that scenario will deal 263 crystal damage, which turns into 26/66 lifesteal or 52/132 if you land both shots. Now if you build it as I have on this guide with Shatterglass instead of Eve of Harvest, you loose the lifesteal, but you deal 329 per empower shot of Malice & Verdict. That's a 66 damage increase (exactly the same as the 25% version of the lifesteal) so in a sense it could be argued that's the same damage. However, in my eyes dealing more damage will kill or make your enemy run away faster. You might heal yourself with one version, but you have to ask yourself if 66 restored health means much at level 12. For comparison the worst unbuffed basic attack of any character is 80 (That's not including Lyra or Celeste who have basic attacks listed at 10, but use their CP to influence their basic attack). So one basic attack erases your lifesteal. So would you rather postpone the inevitable for one more basic attack, or would you rather prevent them from making that basic attack by killing them faster?

You ask a great question. It has a plethora of possible answers, with numerous variations, but I hope that answer gives you some insight as to why Eve of Harvest has fallen out of my favor after using him. I think more CP scales better than lifesteal does, that's my opinion.

Thank you very much! I enjoy Samuel. I think he's balanced very well, although I fear the always looming nerf. Glad you enjoyed it.