Cold Mastery and Lower Resist

[abigmoron]

How does Lower Resist interact with Cold Mastery with cold immune monsters? I know Cold Mastery doesn't affect immunes, but does it if Lower Resisit breaks the immunity?

[Merick]

If convciton or lower res break an immunity (and these work at 1/5th effectiveness while resist is over 100%) then cold mastery will work as normal.
For example, if something has 105% cold resist, and your conviction lowers resists by 30%, then the conviction brings it's res down to 95%, then cold mastery is applied as usual.
This is why an infinity merc is very nice for cold sorcs.

[RTB]

Actually, it isn't. When looking at base resistances of monsters, there are less than 10 of which the cold resistance can be broken by Infinity.

[Merick]

Actually, it isn't. When looking at base resistances of monsters, there are less than 10 of which the cold resistance can be broken by Infinity.

There aren't a huge number of cold immunes in the first place, and -45% cold resistance for the non immune is very nice. And your merc won't miss much.

[RTB]

There aren't a huge number of cold immunes in the first place, and -45% cold resistance for the non immune is very nice. And your merc won't miss much.
CM is the source for -% cold resists, and it's all you need against non-immunes. Adding Conviction onto that is quite pointless. For sorcs, Infinity was made for Fire and/or Lightning sorcs.

[Merick]

CM is the source for -% cold resists, and it's all you need against non-immunes. Adding Conviction onto that is quite pointless. For sorcs, Infinity was made for Fire and/or Lightning sorcs.

Isn't -100% the lowest possible resist? You'd need something like a level 35 cold mastery to make conviction not affect near immunes. I'm not saying it's as useful for fire and lightning but it is certainly a considerable boost in damage.

[krischan]

If both are used, most of -%res from cold mastery will be useless. Conviction is better than cold mastery, of course, because it's higher by 10%, everybody benefits from it, it applies to cold, fire and lightning tat the same time and it also breaks immunities. As RTB said, it's not "completely pointless", but "quite pointless" :rolleyes:

Regarding damage considerations, it doesn't depend just on -%res, but on -%res in combination with +%damage. The more you have of the one, the more you will benefit from the other. The best result will be achieved if -%res = +%damage (taking the monster's base res into consideration). For that reason, conviction (as well as Infinity) will help fire and lightning sorcs far more than cold sorcs BTW.