I havent played for 10 years and after making a frozen orb soso I cannot believe just how many creatures are cold immune. Has this always been the case, or has this increased with recent patches??

always

Your memories are better than reality it seems 😁

Yeah always been a thing.

Just skip them or have merc take care of them, ideally run areas with as few cold immunes as possible - Ancient Tunnels in Act 2 Lost City is a great spot for cold sorc!

In 1.09 it want that extreme, also cold mastery could break it back then.

I remember before, when mage was casting iron maiden, chaos sanctuary was a pain in the ***

Yeah that was er... "fun"

I didn't mind them casting Lower Resist though, I dunno why they got rid of that.

people dying and crying in hardcore