I briefly mentioned in this post about the patch 2.1 notes that healing should have been designed to take into account tiered/greater rifts using a scaling system where those numbers aren’t static (they’ve been working on the whole Nephalem Trials concept well before the expansion launched such that healing should have raised a red flag somewhere during its design).
Higher level gear really should not have static healing numbers on them. What they should have is a base range that scales based on the difficulty setting of games as well as the difficulty on in-game content (such as how the difficulty of Greater Rifts will increase as one progresses).
Take a look at how both Paragon Life on Hit and Life Regeneration scales based on character level for example. At lower character levels, the numbers are a percentage of what they are at max level. On the flip side, at level 70, these numbers remain static regardless of the difficulty setting (Normal through Torment VI).
What I’m proposing is that the base number on gear should be the balanced around the basic game difficulty (Normal), and then scaled appropriately for each difficulty tick. What those numbers are in terms of percentages can depend based on design objectives. A similar scalar can also be applied for in-game content such as Greater Rifts were the progressive difficulty of each subsequent level, applies an appropriate amount of LoH and Life Regen to the base numbers on ones gear. I’m also proposing that Paragon Life on Hit and Life Regen numbers be revised to scale based on game difficulty setting.
Players will still need to make decisions because these percentages would still follow their design when it comes to balancing one group of stats (healing) against the others (damage and toughness). The above design is meant to allow the base healing to be scaled appropriately based on both game setting and in-game content difficulty, without relying solely on hardwired numbers for each item. This will provide more design flexibility with the actual content (as is the case with the bottomless dungeon concept of ever increasing difficulty).
