The thing about 1.0 SC that was great was - the more targets it hit, the more likely you get crits, the more likely you get healed. So it worked out in this great way that the higher the risk, the higher the reward.

1.0 WAR could tank every mob in Wolf Pit near Dragonhead at once, using SC to go from near instant death to full health > repeat. It was chaotic, but beastly fun.

In fact I think Blood Price > Dark Arts > Abyssal Drain tries to copy this design. But in 3.x content just doesn't seem to work as well I guess