To start let me say that I usually play a barb with smash spec. 59% crit chance, and my crits fall between 600k and 1.2mil with HotA:Smash. Needless to say, Lifesteal is an important stat for me.

So prior to 1.05, the way health link worked was you would deal full damage to each of the monsters in the elite pack with the affix, and then the HP would be redistributed among the monsters within a certain range. It seemed to work well to me, but whatever.

Now, Post 1.05, Health link has been changed, and as far as I can tell, it was an undocumented change, since I didn't see anything in the patch notes. The way it works now is, the damage you deal is immediately divided by the number of monsters in the elite pack so your attack will only deal 1/3 to 1/4 damage (depending on how many monsters there are) and it affects the monsters anywhere on the map, even if they are far apart. The overall affect is the same as far as how much damage the monsters take (unless you relyed on a strategy to split them up in order to bypass the affix), BUT this winds up being a HUGE nerf to anyone who relys on Lifesteal to sustain themselves in these long fights with monsters that have 50million HP. Lifesteal only heals you for the damage numbers you do, and it only accounts for the primary hit you deal on the main target. Therefore, if you only hit 1 target in a Health-Link pack with an ability, you are only getting 1/3-1/4 of your normal lifesteal (on top of 80% lifesteal reduction in inferno).

What I want to know is, was this change meant to make Health-Link packs much more difficult for people who rely on lifesteal to keep themselves alive? Health-Link is for me, the worst affix a monster can have. Not because I try to focus 1 target down as quickly as possible, but when you are used to getting 20k+ hp back when you crit and that number is cut by 2/3, you REALLY feel it. Is lifesteal (along with reflect dmg) supposed to be the most challenging affix for people with high gear levels?

It seems to me that this is an unintended affect since they didn't try to nerf lifesteal any other way, but I would really like someone who knows to respond to this.

Edit: accidentally said reflect damage a couple times when I meant health-link. Brain is going too many directions at once.