Cold sorc nerf rant

General Discussion
42

You’re doing 1000 Blizz Damage.
Enemy mob has 95 res after being sundered.
You do 50 damage per hit.

You’re doing 800 Blizz Damage
Enemy mob has 55 res after being sundered because of CM
You do 440 damage per hit.

Cold mastery is always better.

Also I wouldn’t be sacraficing ice blast. Glac spike doesn’t need any points. If you really want to min max it would be blizz, orb, blast blast and repeat with CM maxed. You’d do way more damage to the mobs you’ve broken immunity on.

Btw cold immunies aren’t just on those bosses. If you’re trying to run through chaos your damage would still be resisted at 95% max capability on the normal mobs that had their immunity broken.

43

oblivion knight aren’t in large quantity so i would not worry about them…i’d just rather let them resist a bit and ice blast them if they’re a pack leader…alternatively…i prefer doing tz farming where there is no cold immunes…more efficient than chaos

bosses dont have immunity(except Ubers ?)…non-uber Meph is at 75% but for just 25% less i dont think worth it

no point in Glacial mean -100% to blizz dmg(1/3 of total synergies)

Glacial Spike is also great support to Blizzard for a whole pack dispatching(easy triple cast while blizz is on cd)

NOTE AHEAD: list bellow also include areas not yet part of tz
list of TZ for cold sorc(with 0 or 1 single immunity(super elite pack lead)
Act 1
Cave lvl 1-2(cold plain)…Coldcrow(Cold,Light)
Burial ground,Mausoleum,Crypt…Bonebreaker(Light),Blood Raven(no immunity)
Tristam…Griswold(Poison)
Tower Cellar 1-5…Countess(Cold,Fire)
Jail…Pitspawn Fouldog(Light)
Cathedral…Bone Ash(Cold)
Catacomb 1-2&4…Cata 3 has Cold immunes but gotta go trough to get Andy

Act 2
Sewer 1-2…Sewer 3 has Cold Immunes pack(1 out of 4 packs)…Radament+Horror Mages(rada minions)
but its pack of enemies…so consider it after lvl 1-2

Stony Tomb1&2…Creeping Feature(Cold,Poison Immune)
Far Oasis…Beetleburst(Light)
Maggot Lair1-3…Coldworm the Burrower(Cold,Poison)
Ancients Tunnels…---------
Palace 1-3…Fire Eye(Fire)

Act3
Arachnid Lair…---------
Spider Cavern…Sszark the Burning(Fire)
Swampy Pit 1-3(DOLLS&Souls !)…---------
Lower Kurast…---------
Travincal(Council Members except Toorc)…Ismail(Fire),Geleb(Light),Toorc(Cold)
Durance 3(Council Members and Meph only)…Bremm(Light),Wyand(Light),Maffer(Light),Meph

Act 4
-=-=-=-=-

Act 5(included areas which have small chance to come accross an immune)
Pit of Acheron(Arreat Plateau)…1 Cold immune out of 10 possible enemy type
Frozen Tundra…1 Cold immune out of 10 possible enemy type
Nihlathak Temple…Pindleskin farm only

Cave(cold plain caves), Jail and Cata 1-2 are marked as having cold immune packs on Maxroll but its not exactly the case
these cold immunes are Coldcrow(a Super Unique)…and Gargoyle Traps

44

Sorry I’ve misread that, freeze length was the applier for a different ability. Regardless the bonus damage does not outweigh negative resist.

Now as for you target farming the proper areas sure, that’s a great idea and you by far need way less negative resist in those areas. But if chaos hits TZ and you’re not farming it you’re wasting time. If you aren’t lowering their resists you are lowering your DPS far greater than any synergys plus damage. There is no way around that if you’re farming any area where you could have lowered an enemy’s resist and didn’t you have less DPS.

I agree there are plenty of places to farm where cold immunes aren’t dominate, also where cold immunes life pool is so small that it doesn’t matter as well.

45

storm caster 0% cold resist
doom knight 20% cold resist
venom lord 50%
oblivion knight 180%

totaly skippable except Lord De Seis

Ice Blast dmg: 9196 - 9425(5 skiller gc out of 9)…rest of gear is the good stuff for mf
Ice Blast dmg(by reducing points in Frozen orb(Ice Blast Synergy) to power up Cold Mastery) 7167 - 7335(28% dmg lost vs non immune)

but lets say 235% master vs 150% vs immune monsters(+17% gain at 1/5)
so
9196 - 9424 vs 34% Resists = 6069 - 6220
7167 - 7335 vs 17% Resists = 5949 - 6088

so Ice Blast actually deal less dmg vs sundered immune just for maxing out blizz
dmg…basicly…Blizz dmg will be stronger sure…but unlike Ice Blast its not 100% hit the target…although thats not a huge gain for ice blast…

for Blizzard its a clear +17% dmg for the extra levels

here…if you wanna see yourself by messing with the skills
maxroll gg/d2/d2planner/e70206eh

so vs immunes Blizzard get 17% bonus for maxing mastery
but Ice Blast loose 28% dmg for bossing(since they ain’t immune)
Andy 66% cold resist(about no difference for Andy without infinity)
Duriel 95% cold resist(who does him anyway ?)
Mephisto 75%(dps lost vs Meph by not powering mastery to at least 175%
Diablo 50%(dps gain by keeping mastery at -150% vs Diablo)
Baal 50%(dps gain by keeping mastery at -150% vs Baal)

ummm…though decision…especially since can static field those immunes(blizz probably terminate them in 1 hit after static
since my sorc isn’t in full solid gear nor have infinity…i can’t test Blizz dmg see if 1 hit is enough after using static on sundered…

but what i can say though
no infinity = 175% is enough(should not farm immune areas anyway at this stage)
with infinity 150% should be enough if static then cast blizz on sundered enemies
assuming the follow is being wield…fathom,nightwing,2 skill amy,spirit,CoH/Nigma/Skuller, 5 Cold GC, torch, anni + Infinity on merc

46

1/5 effectiveness is still good but it was quite a severe nerf. I play lightning so this only really affects my gearing for lightning/nova phase. It was really overpowered with the only requirement to do all content a cold sunder charm and bam you have 100% cold damage against immunes with CM. I agree with others in this thread that 1/2 value would have been a more sensible nerf not 1/5.

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47

Hard disagree. Let me cite Howard Collins’ Mu’s Unbelievably Long and Disjointed Ramblings About RPG Design:

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48

you can use Doom instead of Death’s Fathom, 3 cold 20 fcr 2 sockets instead of Nightwings, etc.

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49

Cold sunder was the only good sunder. Now they are all equally piles of garbage.

Someone please explain how its better to hit a monster 20x or more because they were immune vs actually breaking their immunity. The sunders are woefully underpowered, especially on hdin!

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50

Damn this thread is just nope. Complaining about S+ build being back in S tier. Blizz Sorc is still better in d2r than it was in LoD. It’s played for years every ladder. It’s still freaking op I don’t understand the issue. There are so many other builds and more important things to look at.

I don’t get why people want only buffs, clear players 8 easy and at the same time complain there isn’t enough challenge. As the name says it’s difficulty made for 8 players not 1. It shouldn’t be soloable by anyone. Come on.

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51

Or cap pierce. Going from Immune to zero is far more impactful than going from 0 to -100. All of these hoops around which pierce effect is allowed to have full potency is a ridiculous system.

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52

Cold sorc is too strong when looking only at popularity. The game is already super easy so accessibility is not an excuse imo.

But then they make it stronger…

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53

Popularity doesn’t make it an overperformer. Sorc is the most popular class by miles, which means any sorc build is a popular build. Among sorc builds, Blizz sorc has the lowest gear requirement to attain the majority of its power. It starts strong and scales poorly; it’s why the build stays behind lit and fire in bis gear.

Citing that blizz sorc is popular means nothing about the build’s power if actually bother to scrutinize why it’s popular.

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54

If you had all this time and were bored why not just play last seasons ladder and experience the sorc there?

Sounds like a ton of crying from a baby tbh.

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55

If you have to max CM, BlizzOrb will be harder if not impossible to achieve. That was a fun build compared to straight Blizz and/or Glacial Spike or the Frost spells. Orb just doesn’t get enough damage without maxing it out or real close to be worth using. But it was very nice to catch the monsters that didn’t get in the Blizz cast or walked out of it. And to instantly chill a large area to focus with Blizz casts. This definitely changes a lot for what made Cold sorc fun last season. We can’t have fun in a game. That’d be silly. People have confused OP with viable.

It was nice running CS on a cold sorc, smoothly, for the first time, well, ever. Not too fast compared to other builds, but also not feeling like your struggling the whole time and in peril. Now you’ll have to over-invest in skills and gear to get that back and it still won’t be the same.

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56

You have Ice Blast to hit which Blizzard didn’t. Frozen Orb can be its own separate build. You really wanna fix missing mobs issue by increasing damage of skills? Might as well buff Hammerdin cuz it’s also hard to hit. Try melee builds with their hit chance and aoe then you’ll appreciate what you have. If you want fun then maybe buff Rabies to be finally viable instead of same build every ladder.

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57

This is kind of a separate discussion from the sunder charm, because even with low point investment into CM, truly maxing Blizzorb takes a level 99 character, depending on +skills to pump CM. There’s a massive issue in general with the number of synergy bonuses on an individual skill. It’s stupid that blizzard has 3 synergies + CM. It’s stupid that Meteor has 3 synergies + FM, and so on. It’s the same issue across every class. It’s why immunities are a problem at all. Synergies destroyed hybrid builds for every class, and it ruined the game. These slap dash, haphazard sunder charms are an attempt to reconcile some sort of balance without removing or severely, very severely reducing synergy reliance for skill damage.

It is a far more immersive RPG element to have immunities that are answered by expanding the class toolkit than it is to have some item that just strips it.

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58

Translation;

“My cold sorc went from OMEGALAWL OP to just SUPER OP so im going to play a different game while i wait for the same company that did this to me to release the next game in the same franchise because I know they wont change things on me there…”

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59

Even in season 2, cold sorc was so much slower than lit or fire, assuming all 3 were in bis gear, that there was still plenty of motivation to grind for the gear to swap builds.

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60

I prefer D2 where certain builds are better in given situations or time periods in ladder. In other words I don’t think cold sorc ever needed a buff.

Maybe completely useless builds could use a buff, but not cold sorc.

61

Cold sorc wasn’t specifically buffed. The whole game was “buffed” with sunder charms. Now any reason to ever use these charms has been stripped off of most builds. It begs the question as to why they were ever implemented if they’re not meant to change how or where people farm.

3 Likes