Bnet's Bashiok leaves some insight on the current role of Diablo 3's Health Globe system.



The health globes are actually, in my opinion, really cool. Playing the game and actually seeing what types of strategy they encourage, you can start to see what they add and how they make the combat more interesting.

I'll set the scene. You're a barbarian, you're in the wilderness and after fighting wave after wave of ghouls, skeletons, demons, what have you, you're low on health. You're out of potions, and after using a strategic leap out of the fray you turn around and seismic slam the skeletons charging you. Two of them drop health globes, but the globes dropped behind the skeletons that are still advancing. If they reach you, you're not going to survive. Are you able to leap safely to snag the globes before they can tear into you? Can you throw out another slam and try to remove the remaining enemies? How can you survive? You have a fraction of a second to decide.

The health globes help to create situations just like this, where you're not just sitting there spamming potions, you're using your abilities and strategy to stay alive. Possibly most importantly, you're encouraged to keep fighting, and not just run away.

With random spawns, random drops, and of course the randomness of combat, the health globes add to creating situations that are just more... interesting, and in my opinion, fun.

On the side of potions, they still exist, but they're likely to be on a cooldown of some type. They'll also likely restore health based on a percentage that's relative to your character. They may heal an instant amount, they may be the old over time type system. They're probably going to be filling an emergency-heal role more than anything though.