Patch 1.0.4 Preview: Barbarian

[Concillian]

I must be some sort of freak then, because I made it through Act II inferno with a 2H build with no LOH at all, just some life regen and revenge.

I didn't say it wasn't possible. The guy I saw streaming Act III had no LOH and no Lifesteal, he was using Furious charge and +xxxx life on health globe as his primary heals... but he also died quite a bit. He chewed through stuff quick enough it didn't really matter that he died, though.

Not at all viable in hardcore.

Also, one important advantage of life steal is that it isn't scaled by a proc coefficient, or more accurately there's a global coefficient of 20% in Inferno. That's par for the course for most AoE skills, and lifesteal has the advantage of scaling with your damage. So with the new stronger lifesteal affixes on 2-handers, I can see lifesteal quickly becoming superior for 2H builds.

On top of the life steal 20% coefficient, there is the availability of mods. 2H can currently get 3% on weapon and 3% on belt and 3% as a passive. Compare to 1H @ 1.8 speed with Frenzy with 1000 LoH (750 per hit) and you'd need 75k DPS to be equivalent... that's topped out on life steal, but far from topped out on LoH. You can accumulate LoH without spectacular DPS, but for Lifesteal, you're talking pretty great gear to get equivalent to a reasonable LoH amount. What's the equivalent at the 700 LoH I had when first geared at 60? It would take 9% life steal and 50k DPS to be equivalent... hardly starter inferno gear. LoH is valued because of it's gear values. If it had gear value like "does xxx damage when hit" then nobody would be using it.

You have to consider availability of the modifier too. If they're buffing modifiers on 2H weapons, then sure, It gets more interesting. I already said I thought they'd need to increase life steal to make it truly interesting, and it sounds like that's what they're doing