As most know before 1.6 Critical surge had a self heal that would heal for a sufficient percent from critical strikes inflicted. This meant sorcerers could literally AoE bomb a pack of normal mobs surrounding them in cloth and come out alive if they knew when to block, move from heavy AoE attacks, etc.
That is now completely gone. The 1 second CD barely registers a proper heal and it is usually from the weak AoE crits that proc it.
ZoS Live! said they planned to make the crit healing base line for Surge and its morphs but this change effectively shuts down AoE small healing, leaving only Single target healing the only viable way to get a bit of health.
I have no idea why they changed it this way, did they think Champion points system would cover that? Because it doesn't, and as cloth wearing mage you will be shredded before a sufficient heal helps.
It wasn't even powerful in PvP either as a pack of players would make huge work if you stood there hoping the heal from AoE damage would keep you alive. The usual strategy for the sorcerer to hang back and drop AoE attacks and Critical Surge to heal you if you sustained any damage. But be completely useless when players focused on you.
Honestly the best morph now is Power Surge as it seems to give more spell damage instead, which ZoS Live! said would give us proper spell damage at baseline.
Honestly I am dumbfounded by this and hope this doesn't go live. There is already very little reason wear cloth PvP, I don't want my class to be pigeonholed into pet damage because the lead class skill designer couldn't think ahead and ask if all Sorcerers wanted was to use them.
I know where that route leads to. Pet damage nerfs and a broken skill line till this game gets an expansion which is very unlikely.