questions about MF

[azumun]

ok ive been playing this game for a while now, since 08... but i never really made a pure mf char. nor took the time to actually understand the MF rules to take effect.. right now i play both ladder and non... mainly ladder.. i have an 89 zealer/smiter to which im using for mf... seeing i havent made a hammerdin or sorc to take over the mf runs.. well he has about 360 - 380 mf
with using shako, 37 gheeds, nigma, travs, last wish pb, 30 nagel... amoungst some 7% smfc's... now i barley ever find anything worth keeping, im just wondering what i should do? .. i mean i do andy, countess, meph, shrenk every game... now i am doing these runs in a solo game, where as i know id get better drops if there were more ppl in the game , but still cant i get decent drops flying solo? i mean, on his way to lvl 89 i got there doing mf runs solo, not baal games... so i do enough runs, and id say the best ive found is either a 38/14 dungos or 174% gores... nothing great... just once id like to see a fathom or griffons drop or something like that... what do i have to do get more mf? lower my mf ? well any help is appreciated... thanks

[thegiantturtle]

what do i have to do get more mf? lower my mf ?Lowering your mf would in no way increase the chance of a good unique dropping. You have to understand that mf increases the chances that a base item (that the game has already decided to drop) will be magic, rare, set, or unique. You said you're running Andarial, Countess, and Mephisto. None of those bosses can drop a Fathom or a Griffons. You might want to run level 85 areas for a while. The chances for a unique or lower, but there is a possibility of a higher payoff. Good luck.

[azumun]

ok great thanks i will try that... and i only mentioned lowering my mf cause i hear alot of people talking about how right around 300 mf is the best to have cause of the more mf you get from there on out , the more magical items start to drop rather then the chance of uniques.. but yea i just found the area post that tells the lvl areas... so i will try a higher lvl area.. i also mentioned fathom and griffons only cause i know there really high value on the game but, i figured i should be atleast be getting far better stuff than what i am from meph andy coutess, i mean andy has the lvl to drop i think almost any ring in the game... i get rings all the time.. but the best ive gotten was a dstar....blah...

[Evrae Altana]

i hear alot of people talking about how right around 300 mf is the best to have cause of the more mf you get from there on out , the more magical items start to drop rather then the chance of uniques..That's not true. The more MF you have, the more uniques you'll get in the long run. It's just that MF suffers from diminishing returns. The general rule is: cram on as much MF as possible without hindering your survival and killing speed.

[Elgar]

everything else being constant, extra MF always helps get more uniques. The problem generally is that the more MF comes at a cost of losing killing power, therefore lowering your overall chances of getting a unique. (ie Its worse to have 400% MF than to kill 2X as fast with 300% MF) Also the diminishing returns of MF hit hard when you get higher.

[buttershug]

Kill kill kill kill again and again and again.
As fast as possible as much as possible.
Open every chest.

The chance of finding something worthwhile is very to extremely low with each monster.

Make your char to kill as much as possible at as high a level as possible. Then add MF but take away if your killing speed goes down.