How to improve Magic Finding odds?

[amrobinson]

Despite many long hours of hell questing, cow runs and Baal/Meph runs, it’s clear there is a whole level of higher set and unique items out there I do not own.

I have a mf of 285, and a 90th amazon with the usual bow-clearing abilities. Every item on my miserable body has some kind of magic finding, a minimum of 20% (save for my bow, which has none), the largest being my rune word armor (100%). What items should I attempt to trade for (i.e. which ones are common enough that people will trade them)?

What kind of mf can I expect to get up to, without first owning the godly items, what level of mf do I need?

Finally, what tactics should I employ? Only hunt in games with the maximum number of players possible, party or not party with others, look for areas of prime magic drops, etc?

Just so you know, I have done hell cow runs. I have done many, many hell cow runs. The cows and I are on a first name basis.
:(

[Archon_Wing]

The fact of the matter, is unfourantely, it's all luck. Having 300-400 mf improves a bit. However, considering that an elite item has to turn up before it can roll elite and there's not a unique for every unique items, it becomes really hard.

You can 10000 mf and not find a thing or find lots of things with 10 mf. The thing is, Mf helps out in the long run, so you have to many, and I mean many. I used to do around 100 runs a day, and only have several elite uniques to boot.

Anyhow stuff you could try to get- chipped gems will suffice for most of them:

Note: if you know mf items vary in %, get lower % ones. People value them less and thus you greatly cut down the chance of getting a dupe. Plus the 10 or 20 mf isn't worth the trouble

5% or 6% mf small charms : Everyone wants the 7% ones, thus these should not be hard to get. These drop now and then

War Travelers (Less than 35%) Honestly 35% mf and 50% mf won't make a big diffrence in the long run. Thus, try to get a low mf one. People value them much less

Skulder's Ire: This is harder to get...

Stealskull, tarnhelm, or harelquin's crest. (Preferrably Stealskull) Once against settle for the lower mf ones, easy to get

Rare Mf gloves- just gamble them, or find Chance Guards

Goldwrap- easy

Mf on rings, Imo is not worth it. Go for leech.

Playing the game:

More players increase the drops for regular monsters, not bosses. Thus, don't go running meph in a 8 player game, it's too much to bother. If you want a sheer quanity of drops, simply play Act4/5 hell games, as people will want to desperately get pass these acts. Help them out and leave a 2x4 space for drops. The cow level is great too, but I find that the clutter is really annoying. Plus the leeches are more likely to get zapped in the Chaos Sanctuary then in cows. :)

Run Pindleskin, eldrtich the reciftier (Frigid), and Shenk

Clear out the Crystaline Passage and kill Frozeinstien (Frozen River). Good experience here too.

In general, mf'ing is a tedious and boring process. Thus, patience and more patience is necessary. Take a break every now and then, if you don't, you'll probally faint or something. :)

[Swarmalicious]

Hi amro,

I item hunted er..."professionally" and had similar issues. Its long been a mystery to me how people get 'dream set-ups', because finding/trading for l33t things just doesnt seem to work. I don't know how anyone does it... I assume that that many people are involved with duping, but that's a pretty grim thing to acknoweldge.

My MF formula consisted of a lvl 88 HC barbarian, with 400+ MF (~600 if my merc got the kill) and these 2 words:
"Find Item". Known as 'horking', this skill is mighty impressive on things like the Council. I'd offer a demonstration if i didn't delete him recently...

Uh, so yeah ...I ended up collecting multiple 'decent' items, rather than risking my warrior's life for a chance at a l33t itam. My mf runs boiled down to Nightmare Council runs in the end, because I could get to them/kill them/hork them very quickly, and they always yielded something valuable... but what is valuble?

Is Razorswitch valuble? How about Clegaw's shield? Its up to the player I guess.

After hacks & duping ruined the ebay thing for legit item farmers, Diablo went back to being strictly recreational for me - and so I used my itemslut barb to dig up easily attainable 'decent' items to put toward tweaking variants, which is my favorite style of play. If you play, say, a salvation paladin, you can pretty much let go of any heightened expectations of rocking out in hell cow games, and the game becomes fun for other (I believe the INTENDED) reasons. There's no reason why a character who's ability peaks at level 45 should be any less fun to play than a cookie cutter. These kinds are actually WAY more fun to play, if you take into consideration how repetitive cow & blood runs are. Talk about making your eyes bleed with boredom...

When the average person is super-duper (pun intended :)) it becomes the role of the real players to shrug off those standards and do their own thing.

[Logic_X]

My personal style for doing mf:

aim for 300-400% mf (like archon said) - more's not really worth any sacrifice because of the sharp diminishing returns for unique/set drops - the rest focuses on damage/speed of attack.

Good weapons:
-Silence bows (Crusader or Hydra are my fav) - but they're very expensive.
-Langer Briser (Arbalest) - Great for a switch weapon on boss run mf, can have 30-60% mf, moderate damage, etc.

If you're a hybrid - rhyme (shael eth) makes a good shield with 25% mf, cannot be frozen, and good resists.

Good Armor:
-Skullder's Ire - +1 all skills, and great mf%
-Tal's Armor - Good resists, and 88% mf (still great) - also great if you have Tal's Mask and Belt (resulting in superb mf)
-Wealth - +dex, 100% mf, 300% gf......good armor, cheapest choice for real mf armor
- Atma's Wail - 20% mf, good mods, rep life, etc. good overall armor (nice for a character not designated for mf, but you'd still like that chance).

Good Sets:
Sigon's Gloves + Boots: 30% ias, 10% ll, 50% mf (mf is green bonus on boots)
Tancred's ammy + any other part of the set (I prefer boots): 78% mf (green bonus on amulet)
3 parts of Tal's set (I like Armor, mask, and belt combo): 65%mf + mf on them (88% armor, 10-15% belt)

A few tips:

The way I got my mf equip (I will have my target mf equip as soon as I am able to pry a Tal's armor from a friend's hands ;) ) - Is i got mediocre mf equip (kinda like what you have now.....think i had a little less) - then I ran nightmare mephisto with some friends *we divvied on reserve drops - ie if we called an item and it dropped we got it.... any other items were divvied at end of run*. - Got items that I traded for a friend's Skullder's Ire, found a Tal's Belt, goldwrap, perfect chanceguards, etc. from it....good way to build up your items.

Then I started running hell - tips I have for there:

If in 8 player game: Glacial Trail, Crystalline Passage, Ancient's Way, and Worldstone 1, 2, 3, and Throne are great for mf because you have a good concentration of enemies, some fairly easy (I don't like frenzytaurs so I avoid passage, and worldstone 3, and throne - Glacial trail is my favorite place though) - the monsters here can drop high level items....and a few of them can drop all the items in the game (The unique guy in Glacial trail is one of the top level droppers....he's like a cold pindle :lol: ) .

If solo: I prefer long mf games solo - here's my run pattern:

Mephisto
Council (Travincal)
A5 superuniques (Pindleskin, Shenk, Eldritch, Threshsocket, Eyeback, Sharptooth, Frozenstein, Bonesaw, Snapchip - using wps...which i'm glad i went through and got all of - this long list is high drop uniques..and you pass through areas with decent mlvls so you have a random chance of additional good items)
Baal & his minions (I don't usually do this in solo games....but I do occassionally....best drop from him was a 123% shaefer's)

And then if i don't feel like making a new game yet I run - in no perticular order (until I feel like making a new game..which comes any point in here):
Andariel (her and duriel are the best for finding unique ammy/rings)
Rakinishu
Grizwold (aye, what can I do fer ye.. - Gimme that buriza you refused to tell me about in d1 ;) - yes, he can drop it)
Countess
The Caves lvl 2s (all the level 2s of the caves are great)
The Tombs Act 2/Duriel (duriel, and gold chests......good)
Coldworm (fat worm, easy kill....go for it)
Act 2 Tomb things (not duriel related ones)
Act 3 Temples (gold chests, unique enemies...good)
Diablo
Hephatso
Red portals in act 5 (gold chests, unique enemies...act 5 mlvls....they're really nice..)
*thinks*.....that's about the entire list I think.....there may have been a few places I missed....but those are a few of my favorite places (hums the song from The Sound of Music) hope that helps.

[kandrathe]

I sometimes MF as you do, sweeping various good droppers rather than go for lots of games. I mostly use one of my oldest characters, Diana, a lvl 88 Buriza using multi-zon. I've never traded for any of this equipment, just improved on it as I have found it. I do MF, because I hate trading yet, I would like to at least see some of the cool items in the game in my lifetime. I look at it as kind of adding the frosting to completed characters.

I found a Stealskull, then socketed it w/P topaz, along time ago and that has been her most stable piece of equipment(61%). Recently upgraded her lower level 4Ptopaz armor to a 4 socketed Archon Plate I found (96%). She wears 2xNagels (2x28%), and a Amulet of Luck (29%), Goldwrap (30%) and Chance Guards (40%). I've no good MF boots for her, so she wears Rite of Passage. For charms 3x7%, 5x5%. So her MF is, 61+96+56+29+30+40+46=358. So no resists, or defense and, nothing that special.

I opt to carry poison damage charms, (890 over 46 seconds, 19.35/sec).

Some of the most coveted stuff (elite unique armor, most elite unique weapons), I've not found yet. But some I have. I don't do enough of it to yield that much, but every once in awhile I'm pleasantly surprised. Last weekend I found a Homonculous, which rounds out my high level poison and bone skills necro nicely.

[amrobinson]

>> Anyhow stuff you could try to get- chipped gems will suffice for most of them:


Do people really trade for chipped gems? Why? All anyone has to do is troll through Act I normal to fill up on them. Besides, I have over a dozen each of each perfect gem, and skulls, too, aren't these more valuable?

Special Note: Has anyone else noticed there are runes for which there is no known rune word?

[Dozer]

To the first question: people are lazy. Really, really lazy. Perfect gems are also valuable, too - you can trade ~20 for a skullders, maybe.
To the scond question: It's called an incomplete game ^^. Hopefully in 1.10 there will be runewords that cover every rune. even "Sur" :) (Seriously, Sur has to be the most useless rare rune ever - Hit Blinds Target??? wtf??)

[Obi2Kenobi]

What is a good MF setup that includes mana leech? I am thinking maybe Tal's belt, armor, and mask... :) (Armor and belt add MF, plus the MF bonus for partial set.)

[Archon_Wing]

I believe people will give you sojs for two dozen chipped gems. -_-

[BlackLightning]

Here's some information which may prove useful. By the way, you can find lots, and I mean LOTS of information on The Arreat Summit as to how much MF% you should get.

-The character able to obtain the highest MF% is (ironically) the barbarian, due to his dual wield ability.
-Try to get Ist Runes, since they're very useful in weapons and shields.
-Aim to get around 600 MF, which is about half of the maximum attainable (1118%)
-Try to look out for good unique MF'ing items, a list provided The Arreat Summit - Items: Magic Find

Hope this information helped you!
BlackLightning

[Archon_Wing]

(Seriously, Sur has to be the most useless rare rune ever - Hit Blinds Target??? wtf??)

Well it does give 5% bonus to mana in armor *cough* Which pretty much loses to a perfect skull and a skull is much easier to find. :P

[Bowa]

What you can also do is put an Ali Baba with 2MF jewels + Rhyme on a weap switch, and switch to those for the killing blow. You can add at least 115% MF at level 90 - not counting the jewels.

Also - Sculder's MF is better than Wealth, where it scales per level, AND you can stick a pTopaz into it, giving you 136%MF at lvl 90 vs. 100% of Wealth's. Try to get your hands on that.

Just those two things alone will boost your MF% by a minimum of 250% :).


Hope that helps.

- Bowa

edit: spelink countz?

[kier]

Barbs are fine for mfing, as they are as fast as sorc if your good (due to the fact they kill some things faster and dont die). I have a barb with 4-500 i think, been a while since I've played because I'm on exams. The trick with mf runs is to get the correct mix between speed, damage and mf.

This depends on the boss, if needs be go to town and equip your mf gear. My barb does meph as he can do a run every few minutes (please note, I do not use mh, or any other hack for that matter), so I dont need to much damage, just speed and mf. The problem with meph is he can't drop higher level items. I think there's 17 items he can't drop. The best I've had off him is sazabis balrog skin.

Baal is amazing for mf runs, if you can handle lister (the last uni summon). I had a friend who used to play, only used 4xx mf, and did baal runs. He found alot, often a tals armour (i have yet to get one :( ). Allthough it took him a long time to do each run, baal seems to have a better drop rate. Also, baal has good exp, well, his summons do.

Pindle and the other mf monsters are ok as they either give you exp as you get to them, or are close so you can do runs very fast. They are also easier to kill. The problem with them are is they have imunities, and there drop rate is considerably lower.

For Your ama i would try out Baal, as he will give you good exp, and if you find your self some knock back gloves (crafted recipe=rare heavy gloves/bracers/vambraces +ort rune + perf saphire + magic jewel or cleglaws chain gloves-these are really good as they slow as well) you will survive alot better, wether it be cows, or mf, or anything. Then just have good damage, your wits about you, and TPs/potions. This way you do not need to trade/find really high mf.

Hope I've been some help,
kier

[Logic_X]

Just a little thing that might interest people: The Red Portals in Act 5. - In hell difficulty the one on arreat plateau contains normal monsters (as well as a fair share of unique enemies....i usually run into 3-5 randomly spawned ones each time I run it) - Enemies in this portal can drop EVERY item in the game. - so can defiled warriors (the reraising dead on level 1 of worldstone)

[Brista]

Actually only Nilathak can drop 450 poison damage small charms :D

Cranium Basher too does not drop from level 90 monsters although bosses can drop it (qlvl 91)

[kier]

There are 5-7 (i can't remember these days, will change after patch) monsters/things that can drop any item due to the fact they are level 99. This includes pindle, baal, some scary guy on frigid highlands and a couple of others. They can all drop the 450 small poison charm, but the chances of getting it are very remote.

[kandrathe]

Baal is amazing for mf runs, if you can handle lister (the last uni summon). I had a friend who used to play, only used 4xx mf, and did baal runs. He found alot, often a tals armour (i have yet to get one  ). Allthough it took him a long time to do each run, baal seems to have a better drop rate. Also, baal has good exp, well, his summons do.

I usually end up parking Lister. Many times he spawns with stone skin, PI, or LEB so he's just not worth it. He's not that fast so you can just lose him outside the Throne Room, then run back to Baal's senseless laughter (I mean I just killed all your minions, fool!)

[kandrathe]

I think you can get them by re-rolling SC that drop from high level bosses. Right? I've gotten quite a few good charms this way, but never 450. I'm happy with anything over 100/4 on a SC.

[Fragbait]

.. this line I read on the Arreat Summit:

.........Suffix: Does:........On:...................Level Requirement:
...........|........|.................|.......................|

Vita +36-50 Life Large Charms(77)[36-40](91)[41-45](110)[46-50]

Level Requirement 110 ???? :blink: ------------------------------^

Please explain that to me.


Greetings, Fragbait

[Logic_X]

requires the charm to be ilvl 110 for the effect to spawn (would be a respectable level to equip the thing to....don't remember the actual equation though).

basically......46+ life gc's can't be dropped, rerolled, spawned out baal's left buttocks....nothin (which I find annoying.....I want a +50 life gc :D)

As for high charms, that is true only high mlvl's can drop things that can be rolled to that (I was thinking more in reference of set/unique/rune drops....or item type drops. - if you were lucky I think you can find mlvl 93 bosses down there (heck....you don't even need to be lucky......there's always at least 1 unique or group of champions down there *usually frenzytaurs from my experience <insert shudder>* ..... Champions = mlvl 92, Uniques = mlvl 93) - so all but those wicked charms (although if I'm not mistaken you can make some pretty nice small charms from them...all but Hibernal small charms from the looks of it - the others are <93 ilvl..... and shccking is the only one that isn't <90 ilvl.....if i'm not mistaken that is)