Changes

Area Damage (also called Splash Damage) is a 20% chance of all attacks dealing X% damage to nearby enemies. This means that every time a character hits an enemy, all nearby enemies have a 20% chance of taking some % of the base attack damage.

That said, some players are fans of the property and swear by it. It's possible that builds or play styles will be found that utilize high Splash Damage very effectively, especially if uncommon Reaper of Souls legendary items add unknown bonuses to the property.