Types of damage and mana/life steal

[Dirtycamel]

So after an 8 year D2 vacation, I've started playing again, with a couple of my sons playing along with me, which makes for a lot of fun. I decided to try some different builds, starting with a holy trinity ranger and possibly a bow using enchantress. My ranger is at lvl 18 now, and does well for damage, but is quite fragile. So I thought I would add some life steal to help. But i do not seem to gain any life on my hits.

So my question is in regards to how damage is applied in the game. Is elemental damage applied first then physical damage? Right now I'm running Holy Fire aura with a socketed bow with a ruby/sapphire/topaz in it. Is my elemental damage killing the mob before my physical hit is counted so there is no life steal? Any insight someone can throw at me I would appreciate.

[Ladvarian]

I do not know about when different types of damage is applied, probably better asked in the statistics forum, but I do know that only physical damage is applied to life/mana leach. If most of your damage is elemental damage, which it appears to be, you will get next to nothing in return for your life/mana leach items; see below.

http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Suffix
+ % Life Stolen [per hit]
Probably the most valued mods in the game for combat characters. Life leech keeps melee characters alive. Leech works with all types of physical damage, melee or ranged. Elemental damage on weapons or from skills doesn't count for the leeched value, nor does damage dealt by minions. Example: If you had a sword that had 5% life steal and you hit a monster inflicting 50 damage you would steal 2.5 points of Life. Leech stacks and you get the total percent from weapon + jewelry.

Life and mana leech are cut to 1/2 on Nightmare and 1/4 on Hell difficulty. As a result, most characters find they need to increase their leech % once they reach Hell, barring a very high damage weapon.