I recently got the strange urge to play some TRUE Classic Diablo 2. This means pre-D2R, this means pre-LoD. This means an unadulterated 1.06b! :)

I discovered [URL=https://github.com/fearedbliss/Cactus]Cactus[/URL], and, using the instructions found [URL=https://odysee.com/@TheCactusSanctuary:f/-Diablo-II--How-to-play-any-version-of-Diablo-II-with-Cactus-(2.4.1+,-Short-Version):a]here[/URL] I was able to set it up and get to playing quickly.
EDIT: No clue why URL tags don't act like they're supposed to.

My immediate choice was a Cold Sorc specced on Glacial Spike, Frozen Orb and Cold Mastery.

After reaching level 30, somewhere around the Black Marsh in Act 1 Nightmare, I decided to do a little test: Level up Cold mastery a bit (say 3 levels) and go back to Act 4 Normal to see just how much more crushing my Glacial Spike is against the monsters I had known previously in the River of Flame area.

Well, I levelled to 32, which had my Cold Mastery up to level 3, and with +1 to sorc skills from staff it was level 4.

This showed a -49 cold resistance on the skill tooltip in the menu.

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Then came the EXTREME disappointment:

Going back to River of Flame in Act 4 Normal, I didn't see ANY improvemet in my Glacial Spike's performance against the enemies I'd known there back at levels 25-29.

My Glacial Spike is at the same level as back when I was level 26 -- lvl 10 -- and I assumed that it would deal a SIGNIFICANT amount of extra damage thanks to the newly-skilled and leveled Cold Mastery.

However, it doesn't seem so: Maw Fiends still take 3 spikes to kill, and Stygian Hags still take 3 too, sometimes even 4.

As if I had NO Cold Mastery at all !!! :((



What's going on here? :(



My assumption now is that rather than a direct subtraction from resistances (like in LoD), Cold Mastery reduces multiplicatively:

So say if a monster has 60 Cold Resistance, Cold Mastery's "50 percent reduction" would bring it to 30 (50 percent of 60) rather than 10 (60 minus 50).

Is that so? Even if it were, I should have STILL seen an increase, yet I do not! :O



Also, if that were the case, then how does Cold Mastery affect monsters with 0 (ZERO) Cold Res?

Does it even work... AT ALL ??? o_O



Just... help me out, please, oldskool hardcore D2 players!! :)

This post was edited by LaughingSkull on Jun 12 2022 07:21am

This is just an assumption, but maybe most normal monsters have close to 0 cold res, and cold mastery couldn't bring them below 0 at this patch?

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I had this theory as well; now that I think about it, I should have also included this in OP.

Initially I suspected the same: Cold Mastery only affects monsters that DO HAVE COLD RESISTANCE in the first place and is otherwise without effect.

HOWEVER, this demonstrated itself as CLEARLY not true when I faced uniques with mods such as Spectral Hit / Cold Enchanted / Magic Resistance (which grant Cold Res) and my Glacial Spike proved to be just as impotent against them as it was before lvl 30 and my skilling of Cold Mastery.

Trust me: Cold Mastery simply DOES NOT WORK, or, if it does, it is through some very obscure mechanics that are not immediately logical.

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This post was edited by LaughingSkull on Jun 12 2022 09:36am

maybe this will help you, not sure tho.

https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo2/comments/6xfwl6/cold_mastery/

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^ um... I hope you realize my thread is about Diablo 2 Classic, version 1.06b...? :D
So, clearly nothing to do with the issue of the redditor, who is concerned in the modern version of the game... :)

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To summarize:




So, given that there have been no changes to this skill from 1.01 to 1.06b, which means that people at the time considered it as working correctly...

...NOW the question is:

Just WHAT does it do? Because it clearly does not do the same thing as what us, LoD-hardened players have become used to and have come to expect from this passive skill.

Yet, people who were around at the time of Classic and playing actively, apparently didn't find anything wrong with the skill... so it remained untouched up until 1.09 (I believe?).

This post was edited by LaughingSkull on Jun 12 2022 12:00pm

Iirc the difference back then was that you couldn't stack res to counter it. Not sure pvm wise though.

The way I remember it was that Fire- and Light-based sorceresses were considered completely useless and unviable in pvm due to monsters' resistances achieving too high a value later on in the game, leading to your respective spells dealing close to no damage.

EVERYONE in PC Cafes who was playing a sorc, was hooked onto the glacial spike-frozen orb meta, precisely due to the presence of Cold Mastery, which actually made the Sorc viable AT ALL.

What I also remember from these days was that the barb was considered OP as fuck, spearzon was imba (jab speed...) whereas bowazon sucked.
Paladin was rad, but everyone was fearful of getting Zeal-locked (unlimited number of hits, as opposed to limited to 5...).
Necro summons sucked, unless you perused bugs, which then made them OP.
Sorc was considered the weakest, due to her extremely woeful hit recovery rate, and complete uselessness of Fire and Lightning.

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This post was edited by LaughingSkull on Jun 12 2022 03:08pm

I looked at patch notes of 1.07 (I guess you did it too before posting?)
https://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Patch_notes_v1.01-1.13c


You can read that conviction could not reduce resistance below 0 (no negativ resistances), chance are very high that cold mastery couldn't either.

I looked at the first line of your post and stopped reading. (I guess you did the same before posting?)

No wonder you didn't find your answer if you don't read everything until the end.

edit: I easily confirmed that CM woudn't not lower mob's res below 0., thanks to google.

This post was edited by Germain on Jun 13 2022 04:06am