MF% vs. GF%

[RaxX]

This does not quite pertain to only the beta, and it is a bit more general than theorycrafting, so I decided to post this here.

Do you think MF or GF will be worth stacking at the beginning of the game?

For starters, D2 fans might automatically think MF is the way to go if you are not stacking pure dps gear. More MF, better items right? I ran across a post about an MF survey: that is, number of items found in a complete SK run, first with 0% MF and then with something like 100%. I cannot source the post at the moment but the difference in magic items was minimal. With the introduction of crafting in D3 and the quality of items you get from it, it seems like it might be more viable to stack Gold Find.

If the beginning of the final game is anything like the beta, gold should be more important than salvaged materials. I have something like 70% MF and 60% GF and after an average SK run, I end up being bottlenecked with gold rather than materials. This is from crafting something over and over again, hoping for that elusive +intel mod for my Wizard.

The difficulty curve also plays a role here. We really don't know exactly how Act II will differ from Act I from a difficulty perspective. Will we be forced to craft better items at the end of A1? Or can we simply rely on drops throughout the act?

Thoughts?

[Amarules]

Ill be running max gf until I upgrade my artisans and unlock all my stash. Having spare gold to socket items at jeweller while leveling will keep the stats boosted also.

Mf becomes more important towards endgame and if beta is anything to go by, crafted items will be more than sufficient to see you through to atleast hell.

[Meldora]

I wrote a similar post about Gold Find vs. Magic Find at Diablo 3 Artisans. I made the decision that GF was superior because gold is a larger portion of your income per minute when you run stuff than random magic items are. The key here is "random" magic items. Most of the magic items you find running SK are 100% drop rate (off elites or rare packs). Your resulting income from random magic items is actually very low. This is based on the fact that most the junk you find is... well, junk, which might not be the case when you're tooling around in highly specific areas in Inferno.

[ElementEight]

Magic find is a worthless stats in a world for where, early, magic drops are overshadowed by craftable items which are better due to an extra affix and the certainty of what one will be.

Note that this changes later where drops become better than crafted items.

[RaxX]

Magic find is a worthless stats in a world for where, early, magic drops are overshadowed by craftable items [...]

There's no arguing that craftable items are superior to drops in the beta, but what's to say we couldn't just ignore crafting at the end of Act I and rely on Act II drops for upgrades? If we're only worried about leveling as fast as possible, one might even argue that stacking pure dps gear would be better than stacking GF gear, assuming you could get decent dps items from drops alone. Crafting takes time and people might try to bypass it entirely if they are worried about speed.

[ElementEight]

There's no arguing that craftable items are superior to drops in the beta, but what's to say we couldn't just ignore crafting at the end of Act I and rely on Act II drops for upgrades? If we're only worried about leveling as fast as possible, one might even argue that stacking pure dps gear would be better than stacking GF gear, assuming you could get decent dps items from drops alone. Crafting takes time and people might try to bypass it entirely if they are worried about speed.

Yes, obviously, but I'm talking for 99% of players here, the majority who won't try to rush through the game in a race against no one for no prize. The crafting system isn't that long to use, and if you are, as you said, speeding through the game, taking 2-3 minutes to craft a new weapon, assuming you have the required gold to upgrade the crafter, is a good time investment that'll be made up by killing at a faster rate.

Now, we were comparing GF/MF, and I see your point about damage. In fact, I almost stated it myself, but I felt it wasn't really the point of the thread. I personally will be getting damage over both of these stats because progressing faster means better drops faster. Sure, the GF/MF player might have more, but I'll be 1, 2 or 15 levels ahead, so I won't care about lowly blues.

[Abomb]

I will level/speed through the first 2-3 difficulties with found/crafted gear. Any pieces of gear that has % Gold Find will be prioritized over MF purely because the gold I find will ALWAYS be useful (now and later), whereas the materials salvaged from the blue/rares I find will not always be useful (ex: Outleveling Nightmare crafting materials). Once I hit a point where the game becomes difficult with my current gear, I will start swapping out my GF gear for pure dmg/survivability gear.

Once I can farm late hell/Inferno pretty well I will start forming another Gold Find set little by little. I imagine your artisan will take a large amount of gold to max out and the first to craft high level items will make a pretty penny. I also imagine gold will be trading pretty high compared to real money. Considering people will be putting ALOT of real money into the system straight away, gold will be by far the biggest profitable commodity on the early d3 market.

TLDR: GF > MF when leveling. It probably evens out in Inferno and as weeks/months pass. I expect GF to be very strong as your primary farming stat.

[Mn_Swe2]

You find ALOT of info at links here,
http://www.diablo-guilds.com/forum/t...s-gold-salvagi

[SirAdis]

We dont know the stats on lower level Legendaries and how well will they work at higher levels ( SoJ in D2 is a level 29 ring and people wear it up till 99 ), if there are lower level Legendaries that are awsome and useful even in Inferno then stacking MF since Normal is a good idea, if they're not ( I really hope they are ) then just go for kill speed.

[ElementEight]

We dont know the stats on lower level Legendaries and how well will they work at higher levels ( SoJ in D2 is a level 29 ring and people wear it up till 99 ), if there are lower level Legendaries that are awsome and useful even in Inferno then stacking MF since Normal is a good idea, if they're not ( I really hope they are ) then just go for kill speed.

I highly doubt the SoJ case will come back