Lifesteal vs Auto Heal

Lifesteal and Auto Heal are easily the 2 best healing bonuses in the amiibo metagame. Both are very effective at turning a match around or keeping it one sided. But despite being remotely the same yet very different at the same time, it can be tough to choose which is best for your amiibo. I personally prefer Lifesteal because I train my amiibos to be very aggressive and try to finish a match with as a big of a lead as possible. However, some of mine tend to extend matches to sudden death very frequently making Lifesteal useless to them since they don't hit their opponent much. Of course, those are the advantages to a character with Auto Heal. If paired with a good bonus effect like improved dodge ability, it can hover around 0% for the entire match if they can finish it. And that would mean making them think almost 100% defense than landing a hit on their opponent.

In the end, it really only comes down to your style of training. Lifesteal for the aggressive, and Auto Heal for the defensive. But what do you think of the topic? You have my ears.

I don't think either Lifesteal or Auto-heal is "'better" than the other, they each fill their own niche. I personally like both of them, as they can both work with a defensive playstyle - Lifesteal activates for out-of-shield counterattacks, while Auto-heal capability activates every three seconds to support a more distanced and passive playstyle. I definitely don't think Improved dodge ability is good, though, as it merely increases invincibility frames on dodges by 10%. That might sound like a lot, but each dodge takes less than a second to perform, so a 10% increase only accounts for a fraction of a second, and ultimately, this isn't useful enough to warrant running over something like Critical hits or Improved escapability. I think Improved dodge "caught on" because Glenn (Amiibo Trainer guy) used it in one of his guides.

Dodge may be useless in other ways but I believe it assists those who have negative speed stats in order to get as little contact from them as possible.

I agree, auto heal and lifesteal work really well together but then again it takes two whole bonus effect spots. I personally use improved escape in all of my amiibos so adding the two of them together like that can make you miss a bonus that may help a character's specific trait.

Well, using the Smash Wiki to determine the power of the bonus effects we're comparing...

- One Lifesteal bonus grants a 50% chance to heal for 50% damage dealt, which is approximately 25% damage dealt returning as life.
- One Auto-Healer bonus grants 2% healing every 3 seconds, or 180 frames.

Which one is more effective depends on how much damage your amiibo will be dealing.

- Lifesteal is more effective if your amiibo deals an average of 8% every 3 seconds, or 2.666% every second.
- Both are equally effective if your amiibo consistently deals an average of 8% every 3 seconds.
- Auto-Healer is more effective if your amiibo deals less than 8% every 3 seconds.

Also Lifesteal doesn't trigger for every kind of melee hit. Swords and wing hits from the likes of Palutena and Charizard can trigger it, but melee ranged things like Mii Gunner's f.tilt won't. Some moves and throws can trigger it multiple times. Keep in mind if your amiibo's move pool can take advantage of Lifesteal effectively if you're using it. Autoheal is a good options for amiibos that play less aggressively.