Added Cold Damage

Level 26 Ranger with level 3 cold gem.

Use this as a support for Poison Arrow.

At level 10 or whatever it was great. But adding 1-1 damage per skill up is meh.

As I start cruel, I think I need to unsocket it. It moves my cost per shot from 10 mana to 15. I find myself running OOM just trying to kill random white/blue mobs of equal level.

So if I do 100/shot or whatever using poison arrow, thats 135 + 45 dot + 15 cold.... say 195 dmg for 15 mana

Or I could unsocket it and do 180 dmg for 10 mana.


Seems odd for a character that should be growing in power to have to go backwards. Maybe I should just link it to Rain of Arrows instead and maybe using it on an AoE will help keep it relevant for another difficulty level?

Edit: This post was for .94c

Edit: Update for .94d I've put this back in my primary attack and it's no longer draining my mana pool (carrying 2 mana flasks and 1 vial) to use it. Quality of life++

I second that: added damage does not scale well with level increase.

At level 19 (I think it was when a got it) it does a great deal of additional damage with my cleave. Now my duelist is at level 55 and I've abandoned this support stone some time ago. The reason is that added damage does not increase well with levels, and as a result other support gems, which effect multiplies with the weapon base damage, become more and more efficient.

Here are some numbers.

Skill gems used in experiment:
Cleave lvl 13 (+2% quality)
Added fire damage (+F) lvl 13
Added cold damage (+C) lvl 13
Faster attacks (+A) lvl 13

Just cleave:
DPS: 874.9
Attacks (per second): 2.08
Mana (cost): 13
DPM (damage per 1 mana): 32.36

Cleave+F:
DPS: 1266.0 (+44.7%)
Attacks: 2.08
Mana: 16 (+23%)
DPM: 38.04 (+17.6%)
(compared to: just cleave)

Cleave+C:
DPS: 1004.7 (+14.8%, -20.6%)
Attacks: 2.08
Mana: 18 (+38.5%, +12.5%)
DPM: 26.83 (-17%, -29.5%)
(compared to: just cleave, cleave+F)

Cleave+F+C:
DPS: 1395.8 (+59.5%, +10.3%)
Attacks: 2.08
Mana: 23 (+76.9%, +43.75%)
DPM: 29.18 (-9.8%, -23.3%)
(compared to: just cleave, cleave+F)

As a reference, I'm using Cleave+F+A combination.

Cleave+F+A:
DPS: 1564.2 (+78.8%, +23.6%)
Attacks: 2.57
Mana: 19 (+46.2%, +18.75%)
DPM: 32.03 (-1%, -15.8%)
(compared to: just cleave, cleave+F)

As you can see, this one has maximum DPS. It is slightly less mana-efficient than Cleave+F but offers a better attack speed (less chance that your attack would be terminated by stun, more chances to stun enemy).

And all combinations with "added cold damage" are clearly inferior: they add very few damage but increase mana cost too much.

Version: 0.9.4d

0.9.5 feedback below this post

Echoing what was already said.


Chill duration is kinda useless to me, and the damage is pitiful.

Would like to see some positive changes to this gem.

It's great with Firestorm. Since Firestorm has so many chances to hit and crit, the chill and freeze work great for protecting you from enemies in melee range. Of course, plenty of things are great with Firestorm.

any updated news about this gem so far ?

There are many gem threads exist without even a normal quality gem within topic, could any dev add them to their missing locations ? Started to see "more of nothing" gets annoying, pretty fast.

I'm really mystified on how chances to chill/freeze works.

I used this on my Raise Zombies and it makes them chill somtimes, but how do I figure out what the chill chance is?

I also can't tell how much damage the zombies do normally, so I don't know how much damage they're gaining with this gem compared to the increased % damage gem.

I think there is a bit of a problem with the skill descriptions.
Sure it says "Minions deal and Increased 7-10 cold damage. Minions deal 64% damage" but I want to know their actual damage, attack time, the chill chance, and freeze chance if there is one.
And I want to see those stats after all my passive buffs, not before, of course.
Also, like when I use a %increased minion damage support gem I don't know if it's 1.64*1.49, 1.64+0.49, or what, as it doesn't display their total or the actual damage.

I also have additional elemental damage from items and passives, but don't see that increase on the skill description on my bar.

The mechanics of this game is great, and it's amazing that that cold support gem works with zombies how you hoped it would, but it's really confusing not having the information on display to confirm that things work how you wish they did.

@ innociv: i see your points dude, but unfortunately this is nothing only to do with this gem, but all of informative system. Hope GGG would give heads up as soon as possible, cause everything starting to turn out more questions after each day.