Lmfao

Never seen more speculation in my life.

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That was actually a pretty amazing trick you had me going for there.
Congratulations, Germain! :)

But, really, it was BOTH of us who collectively reached the correct answer:
Me[/u], by first pointing out that Cold mastery is working through some obscure mechanic IN MY VERY FIRST POST IN THE THREAD, and then observing that Uniques with special mods don't get affected by it at all.
Then[/i] you had the enlightened idea that CM's resistance reduction is applied to the monster's base[/u] resistances, and before the monster gets its bonus resistances from the respective mods.

So... thanks for that[/i]!
But... you trying to appropriate the entire merit for this discovery -- NO thanks for that. ;]

--



Well, yes, because "thanks" to the way the game was coded back then, a very important and needed skill was rendered (almost) completely worthless...

...for the duration of 3+ years until patch 1.10 came out in late 2003.

That's honestly realy, really sloppy.

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This post was edited by LaughingSkull on Jun 14 2022 09:52am

talk to

Before patch 1.10 CM took a percentage of the total cold resist.
In 1.10 and later patches (including D2R) CM is a straight subtraction from enemy's cold resist.

Example:

1.00 - 1.09d
Enemy 300% Cold Res
You slvl 38 CM, 95% Pierce
Actual Cold Res : 15% (300 * 0,05)

1.10 and later
Enemy 300% Cold Res
You slvl 42 CM, -225% Cold Res
Actual Cold Res : 75% (300 - 225)

This means that before 1.10 CM was a one-point wonder. There is no use to spend more than one point in it.

I hope I was clear.

/e: In 1.07 CM was able to break cold immun, but only in that patch.

This post was edited by -joey- on Jun 14 2022 11:07am

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Um...

First of all, we already established all of this multiple times since post 1.

Second, what the hell was that:




wut? That's like.. not the case at all! :O

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On the contrary, if you're playing Single Player, you'd have to spend MORE points into CM pre-1.09d than you would have to post-1.09d.

This post was edited by LaughingSkull on Jun 14 2022 02:12pm

Good luck with 1.06 then.

This post was edited by -joey- on Jun 14 2022 09:24pm

This is close but not the good answer.

The way how CM worked back then is reducing the resistances by the listed percentage of the target resistance value. This means that if a monster had zero cold resist, CM had zero effect (simple math).

What is important to know is that before LoD, monsters FINAL resistance was capped at 75%. This means that even if a unique mob spawned with cold enchant (+75% to cold res) and magic resistant (+75% to all res), at the end the monster was not immune to cold attacks (150%) but was capped at 75% cold res.
CM however calculated with the UNCAPPED resistance, which means, if a unique monster spawned with multiple resist mods (or already had base cold resitance + resist modifier), CM reduced the percentage of the TOTAL value.

Example:
Unique mob with 150% cold resist (cold ench + magic resistant mods)

Scenario A - you have no points in CM. In this case the mob will have a final cold resist capped at 75% Hit it with 100 cold damage, the mob will lose 25 of its hit points.
Scenario B - you have 4 points in CM (1 hard point + 2 SoJs and a +1 amulet). In this case CM will reduce 49% of the monster's total cold resist --> 150*0,51 = 76,5 rounded up to 77 cold res, but capped at 75. Again, hit it with 100 cold damage, the mod will lose 25 of its hit points.

If you compare the two scenarios, at the end there is no difference, therefore in such cases OP could easily have thought that the skill did not work (also in cases where the mob had zero cold res).

As a summary, I would say that CM works as it was designed, but in many case it has no or very little effect on your cold damage.

Also CM had diminishing return, so it was not worth spending more than a few hard points on the skill.



This post was edited by -joey- on Jun 14 2022 11:38pm

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^ yeeeesssss, now it all makes sense now!!

This is it!!!

This is why reiterative discussion that continues to question and question and question is so important!!!

--

You see, we theorized a lot in the previous pages, and at each step that we found something new that potentially solved the issue, we always thought that we had figured it out completely.

BUT THEN some new piece of info or investigative breakthrough revealed itself only to show that we don't yet have the complete picture.

And now, finally, after several such steps, we have achieved it!!!


GOOD JOB EVERYONE !!!

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This post was edited by LaughingSkull on Jun 15 2022 12:25am

I post AGAIN for two reasons:

1) to ask

-joey-

about something he wrote:



First of all, doesn't the "Magic resistant" monster affix only grant 40% to all res? You wrote "75%".
If this was different in pre-LoD then in LoD, then where do you get that info? What's your source? Is there a wiki dedicated to pre-LoD Diablo?

Second, in LoD, the Magic resistance affix is designed so that it actually DOESN'T add ANY resistance AT ALL to a specific element,
IF[/I] the monster's resistance to said/same element was at or over 100%.

Did Classic, pre-LoD behave the same?
So, if a monster was already at MAX resistance (which was 75% in Classic), it would NOT gain extra res from the Magic resistant affix?

What was the expected behaviour?

--

2) I actually rerolled my Cold sorc with a fresh start because I wasn't happy with my build, so that I can test Cold Mastery more thoroughly

AND I REACHED THE VERDICT THAT COLD MASTERY DOES WORK, BUT STILL NOT THE WAY WE EXPECT IT TO, as outlined above by Joey.

Here is HOW and WHAT I tested:

At level 29, with level 16 Glacial Spike (12 hard points + 4 skills), I noticed the perfect target for my test object:

GROTESQUES !!!

Reason was simple: They would either die from 2 Glacial Spikes, OR the 2nd spike would leave them at a very, very TINY sliver of health.

So, my conjecture was that once I've skilled Cold Mastery, the situation would change:

Grotesques (who have 40% Cold Resistance) would now ALWAYS die from exactly 2 Glacial Spikes, always.

...

Well.. come level 30, and I skill CM. In fact, it's now at level 2, because I have +1 to sorc skills ammy.

So, Grotesques would now have 40% - (34% of 40) Cold resistance, which is approximately 26% Cold res.

Which means that my Glacial Spike, when aimed at Grotesques, would now deal 74% of its damage, up from 60% of it, which is roughly a 23% increase of damage output.

Which guarantees that NOW, Grotesques would ALWAYS die from only two (2) Glacial Spikes, right?

Right?

...

WRONG.


The situation would remain EXACTLY the same as it were before I had skilled Cold Mastery at all:

Grotesques would either die from 2 Glacial Spikes, OR the 2nd one would leave them at a very tiny speck of health (same size as before), requiring a 3rd Glacial Spike to finish them.

...

So, CLEARLY Cold Mastery DOESN'T WORK.

Right?

...
...

WRONG.


I levelled up one more time and AGAIN skilled Cold Mastery, this time bringing it to level 3, (2 + 1), leading to 42% Cold Resistance pierce (according to the tooltip).

Well, gues what?

Now Grotesques would ALWAYS, consistently and inevitably die in exactly 2 Glacial Spikes

What is more:

Their health bar percentage remaining after the first spike is ALWAYS the exact same, every time. Trust me on that one -- I MEASURED IT MANUALLY xD!!!

...

SO WHAT IS GOING ON HERE, THEN ???

Well, here is my latest theory:

Cold Mastery in pre-LoD D2 works neither as a percentage-reduction, nor as pure arithmetic subtraction...

Rather, it works by either removing the monster's ENTIRE resistance altogether, or not removing it at all!!!

* Grotesques have 40% Cold Resistances.

* Up until level 3, Cold Mastery's "percentage reduction" progression is thus: 23, 34, 42.

* The first two levels, despite already offering a significant "reduction", however, don't really affect the strength of your Cold Spells' performance against the Creature at all !!!

* Level 3, however, is the first one that "reduces resistance" by more than 40, namely 42....

* ...which leads to the Grotesque's ENTIRE resistance getting removed, and leaving her with 0.

* Thus, FINALLY, your Glacial Spike's damage actually benefits from the "bonuses" given by the passive skill's "resistance reduction"

---

VERDICT:

Cold Mastery DOES work, but in the most unexpected way possible.


P.S. Will require a bunch of more tests, for which I shall need a CM with a resistance reduction value of 60 or greater. Will report back once I've reached it.[/SIZE]

This post was edited by LaughingSkull on Jun 22 2022 08:00pm