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There are many studies, like the one you posted, that report the relation between MF% and quality level of items dropped.
The problem about those studies is that they do not include the single most important factor : what is valuable
They show results as if uniques > sets > rares > magics > whites
And they show these results without looking at the fact that for most item base, their related unique/set will never have any value, while if they were either rare/magic/white they could have had value.
Agreed
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Now, just look at this graph shown in the link you posted...
This is true for andy and duriel that are now permanently quest bugged in D2R.
What's more valuable?
A potential gg rare ring/amy?
Or increased chances with each % mf to transform this rare into something suddenly almost garanteed to be a useless magic or cathan or manald or whatever charsi food (because yes, that's what you're most likely gonna get)
Now, if you look at other bosses and super uniques, the graph is gonna feel like more mf is more profitable when farming those... only if you don't understand the facts behind it.
Andy (and really all bosses) are not representative of what we were originally talking about though. I dont think most people play a nova sorc to target bosses. If someone was target farming bosses for rares then 0 mf is surprisingly the right move.
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Here are the odds of what you'll get in hell / TZs :
Normal Items: 67.84870452%
Exceptional/Elite Items: 20.29650961% (of which ~2/3 are exceptional)
Class Specific Items: 11.85478587%
Understand this.
There are no normal/exceptional items rolled as set/unique that are valuable, except for a very few exceptions that we can name since the list is extremely short :
magefist, chancies, goldwrap, vipermagi, waterwalk, wartrav, gores, Soe, Tgods, suicide branch.
That's it... and let's be honest, those items are only worth picking up early ladder and are soon 5fgs items that most people just skip as the market gets saturated.
But there are normal/exceptional tier items rolled as rare that are valuable and there are many many items rolled as non-magic that are always worthless.
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11.85% are class specific items?
You're almost guaranteed that a white base would have been better.
There are many unique/sets versions of class specific items, but among them the only good ones are :
titan, tstroke, arreat, DF, ravenlore, Hoz
Again... that's it.
Among the very long list of class specific items, just for a minor chance to find one of the above with increased mf%, you fucked up so many potential great drops.
GG mosaic GT base? Nope, its bartuc's !
GG eth rare claw? Nope, it's Nat's set !
45@ auric shield? Nope, its a trash blue/yellow or a alma negra/dragonscale, sorry
GG pelt? Nope, its aldur !
some super easy to sell socketed sup armor/helm/shield/weapon? Nope it's still a rainbow of shit !
Even here you have to admit that there are plenty of worthless non-magic base items.
GG 6/40 javs? Nope, it's +1 jav skills 3%ed javs!
GG 5 nado pelt? Nope, it's +2 nado white base
GG circ of any kind? Nope it's a sup 8%ed circlet
It's a logical fallacy to think that your failed drops only work in one direction and only on the items that you hand pick out of the crowd.
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And everything get's even worse when you look at drops from regular mobs...
Bases are definitely worth way more than magics.
In fact, the only very few magic items that can be valuable have chances so low that's it's not recommended to lose time picking them up and id'ing them.
The blue items you see on the market are either a lucky shot while gambling, but most likely shopped by bots.
No matter how high you push your mf%, regular mobs will most likely just convert bases to magics.
And unless you're exclusively elite/boss sniping, regular mobs are still the main portion of your drops when density destroying (which is the most profitable way to mf).
Oh cmon bro dont play the "nothing good ever drops so dont even ID it" game lol. The part I underlined I dont think is true but I'd be interested if you could post something that proves otherwise. QualityFactor/UniqueFactor seems to greatly affect items becoming unique/set/etc. For normal mobs that number is 0 and would mean that even with lots of magic find youre still going to see a pretty considerable number of white drops from normal mobs. If someone was target farming rares it seems like they should be hitting every boss that has a high quality factor and using 0mf:
And as an alternative it seems like farming elite packs with ~500mf is "ideal" for rares based on this graph:
"Chance for Unique upgrade flatlines rather quickly. It goes from 3.510% at 500 MF to 3.959% at 1000 MF. Chance for Set upgrade basically maxes out at 300 MF. Chance for Rare continues to rise slowly but it is because of Normal item types. Exceptional/Elite reaches max around 490 MF and Class Specific reaches max at 220 MF."Quote
Oh trust me, you'd lose your own bet.
It's a known fact that, yes, you can indeed have better odds at finding very specific items / affixes by target farming specific area levels.
But it's also a known fact that you greatly reduce your potential profit, due to the smaller and smaller quantity of potentially valuable items you restrict yourself to.
I know quite a bit on the subject, I'm a stubborn nerd who likes to find very specific items that way (see my guide in my sig!)
But I also know how bad it is, in terms of profit, to do so... and I still do it cuz I'm done playing the jsp game since long ago :p
I dont think I would. Because of TZ's you can "pick" the mlvl based on your clvl. There is a relationship between the qlvl of an item dropped and mlvl of the monster that dropped it. The greater the difference the more likely the item is to roll unique/set/etc. Looking at rings that have a qlvl of 1 is a good example: show me a d2 player that doesnt hate green ring drops and I'll show you someone with <100 hours played. So at least in theory there's an ideal level to farm TZ's with a specific amount of mf to maximize magic/rare drops with specific modifiers. I'm sure someday someone will take the time but it wont be me lmao.
Anyways I think the premise of what youre saying is totally valid for as long youre the only one farming with 0mf lol. As soon as you convince other people to stop using mf then mf is useful/valuable again. I want to believe you but I dont think you have the data to prove what your saying.
This post was edited by BrianPeppers on Mar 27 2025 02:36am