How much MF do you play with and farm with?

**Karth** · 18-07-2012, 19:09

125 base MF for farming A2, ~75 base MF when in A3+.

**Spankalot** · 18-07-2012, 21:17

~120 base MF, swap some pieces out for goblins to around 280mf. Seems to be decent.

**Muggs** · 19-07-2012, 23:35

Originally Posted by alockmey

More MF equals more affixes, which make for better itens.
Therefore, I farm with 280% MF in A1.

What you don't know and can't account for is what the base % of drop is from a mob.

if a monster has a 4% chance to drop a 6-affix rare item and you have +50% magic find, it now has a 6% chance to drop that item.

So until you know what the base percentage of a mob to drop what your farming act1 with 280% mf is a possible exercise in futility. I can say this with certaintity I have gotten better drops running act3 with no MF besides NV than I ever did in act1 with a ton of MF. And this is coming from a person who currently has 71million in the bank.

Also kill speed has to be taken into account too.

To the OP It really depends on my mood on how much MF I decide to run. I can get up to around 200% after NV and still feel like I am killing at a decent enough speed to not die of boredom. But I truely love killing and clearing as fast as possible. Currently sitting at 70kdps on my DW Fury barb or 58k with a sheild.

**galzohar** · 20-07-2012, 08:22

63 rares have ~double chance to drop in act 3 compared to act 2 and ~4x chance to drop compared to act 1.

We don't know the ratios of 6 property 63 rares, unfortunately, but if (and that's a rather big "if") they follow the same ratio, you need 175% MF to make act 2 farming as effective as farming act 3 at the same speed. If you farm faster then you should of course take that into account too.

The real question is what the actual chances of 6 property rares, how important they are (as after all 4 property rares can be pretty damn good too), and what about 62s, and then of course if getting 175% MF is actually easier or more difficult than getting gear that can allow you to clear act 3 equally fast.

**Doppel** · 21-07-2012, 22:53

I'm primarly running with a 0% MF, 140k (after Insanity) DW Barb. I also love killing quickly like Muggs does. I might consider doing the switcheroo but most battles are quite hectic and over before i know it. I do desperately want to drop some good items for a change though.
(Last run i had one champion drop two level 60+ unique weapons at once, good for about 160k gold i guess since they're utterly useless)

**Peter** · 23-07-2012, 16:03

MF IS POINTLESS unless you can farm act4, because of the base % a mob has to drop ilvl 61+ items

e.g. you could stack 4000% mf and it wouldnt come close to simply .. getting better gear and farming higher ilvl mobs.

p.s. im talking about endgame gear, if u want a lot of ilvl 59-61 rares, by all means farm your brains out in act2

**Peter** · 23-07-2012, 16:05

many people simply do not understand this simple concept muggs

read my post above for more clarification

Originally Posted by Muggs

What you don't know and can't account for is what the base % of drop is from a mob.

if a monster has a 4% chance to drop a 6-affix rare item and you have +50% magic find, it now has a 6% chance to drop that item.

So until you know what the base percentage of a mob to drop what your farming act1 with 280% mf is a possible exercise in futility. I can say this with certaintity I have gotten better drops running act3 with no MF besides NV than I ever did in act1 with a ton of MF. And this is coming from a person who currently has 71million in the bank.

Also kill speed has to be taken into account too.

To the OP It really depends on my mood on how much MF I decide to run. I can get up to around 200% after NV and still feel like I am killing at a decent enough speed to not die of boredom. But I truely love killing and clearing as fast as possible. Currently sitting at 70kdps on my DW Fury barb or 58k with a sheild.

**Karth** · 23-07-2012, 16:32

Originally Posted by Peter

MF IS POINTLESS unless you can farm act4, because of the base % a mob has to drop ilvl 61+ items

e.g. you could stack 4000% mf and it wouldnt come close to simply .. getting better gear and farming higher ilvl mobs.

p.s. im talking about endgame gear, if u want a lot of ilvl 59-61 rares, by all means farm your brains out in act2

Unfortunately, if you can kill elites in A2 twice as fast as you can in A3, you're better off farming A2; as galzohar has pointed out in other threads, you're finding the same number of ilvl 63 items while finding more ilvl 62 items and nearly twice as many ilvl 61 items. You're also probably doing this, in my experience, with greater safety and more magic find. That MF increases the quality of your drops, making them more valuable on average per drop, thus moving the advantage even more towards farming easier content with more MF if you can farm that much faster in an earlier act.

**Doppel** · 23-07-2012, 22:31

I toned back my damage to go with a more sturdy build and went with the switcheroo just before enemy death tactic. Not a huge amount of MF yet though (i just scraped together some mediocer MF gear i had lying around) but i have to say i'm quite pleased with the results so far (dropped my first Set item, Tal's chest).
I think it might be the optimal way to farm regardless of what act you're in, unless you can afford to forgo survivability for MF on your main gear (pure ranged glasscannon character). Unfortunate maybe since switching gear in mid battle really shouldn't be a deciding factor of the game.
I'm farming Act 2 btw, even with more then above average Inferno gear i still have huge troubles in Act 3+. I believe there really isn't a point in going through the bother of trying to farm a later Act when it takes 3 to 4 times longer.

**Peter** · 24-07-2012, 16:08

i dont wantt o flat out say youa re wrong but form testing it seems

a1 - 1/10 are ilvl 63
a2 - 2 / 10 are ilvl63
a3 - 4 / 10
a4 - 8 / 10

so you see it double every act so farming act2 in no way gives u more 63 per hour unless u can clear it 8 times as fast, and in endgame gear a3 clear is as fast and smooth as an a1 clear

Originally Posted by Karth

Unfortunately, if you can kill elites in A2 twice as fast as you can in A3, you're better off farming A2; as galzohar has pointed out in other threads, you're finding the same number of ilvl 63 items while finding more ilvl 62 items and nearly twice as many ilvl 61 items. You're also probably doing this, in my experience, with greater safety and more magic find. That MF increases the quality of your drops, making them more valuable on average per drop, thus moving the advantage even more towards farming easier content with more MF if you can farm that much faster in an earlier act.