Healing is the act of refilling a player's current Life, up to the maximum value, regaining Life previously lost (typically in combat). Healing is actually the opposite of dealing damage, and an alternate way of protecting from damage to Absorption and Immunity.
Unlike most RPG's, there aren't many ways in Diablo series of directly healing other characters. While the Paladin, Monk, Crusader and Necromancer each have pretty effective ways of healing themselves and other party members, other classes will have to find other ways to heal themselves if these classes aren't available.
In Diablo III, the Character Screen has a designated stat called Recovery, which shows how much Life and Toughness the character can potentially regain (in average) per second from all currently active sources.
There are several ways of healing, most of them stacking with each other:
Life Steal / Life per Hit / Life Leech
This refers to attacking with a weapon or skill that causes damage done to also leech Life from the enemy, healing the attacker.
Necromancer's Life Tap curse gives this bonus to anybody attacking the affected monster or player. Blood Golem has a very powerful built-in Life Leech that also heals the Necromancer, as well as the golem, for a small amount of life for each successful attack made by the golem. These two effects do stack, so combining them can be quite potent if one decides to specialize in the Blood Golem, since the Life Leech via the Blood Golem scales with the amount of skill points invested.
In Diablo III, the two effects are different:
- Life Steal (previously known as "% of damage dealt goes to Life") restores a percentage of damage done as Life; monsters have a Vampiric affix of similar functionality. Both effects were removed in Reaper of Souls.
- Life on Hit heals fixed amount of Life for each damaging attack, regardless of its Proc Coefficient.
Simplicity's Strength is a Legendary Gem with a hefty bonus to Life per Hit.
Life per Kill
For every enemy killed or assisted, regardless of how tough that enemy was, restores a fixed amount of Life to the killer. Note that in Diablo III, an item cannot have both Life per Hit and Life per Kill.
Arthef's Spark of Life heals the character when killing an Undead enemy.
Life Regeneration
Also known as Life per Second; passively heals fixed amount of Life per second, both in and out of combat.
Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard is a Legendary Gem with a hefty bonus to Life per Second.
Life per resource spent
In Diablo III, heals fixed amount of Life for each point of primary resource consumed by skills. The resources include Spirit, Fury and Wrath.
Skills
Skills that can restore Life include:
- Heal (Spell)
- Heal Other
- Heal (monster skill)
- Templar's Heal
- Scoundrel's Vanish
- Breath of Heaven
- Consecration
- Laws of Hope
- Prayer
- Cleansing
- Meditation
- Holy Bolt
- Mantra of Healing
- Near Death Experience
- Revenge
- Inspiring Presence
- Juggernaut
- Shadow Power
- Brooding
- Leech
- Awareness
- Blood Ritual
- Spirit Vessel
- Grave Injustice
- Life Tap
- Nerves of Steel
A variety of Skill Runes will add a healing component to other skills, even if those naturally don't restore any Life.
Special Effects
Many sets and legendary items provide healing or bonuses, such as:
- Invigorating Gemstone increases Life restored from healing on delivering a successful hit
- Chaingmail heals the character quickly if their Life drops below 10%, but they survive afterwards
- Salvation heals the bearer and their allies when blocking
Potions
Healing Potions restore Life instantly (D1, D3) or over time (D2); Rejuvenation Potions do so instantly in D1 and D2.
In Diablo III, they instantly heal 60% of maximum Life, with a cooldown of 30 seconds, and legendary potions also add other interesting effects when used.
Health Globes
In Diablo III, they drop from monsters, healing 10-15% of maximum Life if picked up. This replaces the Potions as they were known in previous games for in-combat and inter-combat healing.
Shrines
These make the character be healed once when touched, restoring all Life. They need some time to recharge after use.
Healing Wells restore 100% Life when used, but need 60 seconds to recharge.
Pools of Reflection restore 100% Life when used, but do not recharge.
Leveling up
Taking a new Character Level fully restores Life and all resources.
Healers
In all games of the series, players will come across at least one healer throughout their journeys. All healers are found within the safety of towns, and will fully restore Life when interacted with. In Diablo II, interaction with a healer fully restores the player's Mana and Stamina values also.
In Diablo III, the red heart found on the character's automap in town is where the healer resides.