we all know the chart and (afaik) the conclusion that 'too much MF' causes drops to succeed the early roll and become a blue item way more often than desired:



But what does that chart mean for drops that had no chance to be white (non-magical) in the first place?

A ) For example, jewels or grand charms can't be white, so do they skip over the "roll to see if they are magic (blue)"? What effect would 1,000% MF have on the chance that a jewel is a facet or that a GC is a Gheed's? Is higher MF a pure increase to the chance of those 2 uniques?

B ) What about weapons and armor that drop from act bosses and couldn't be white? Does higher MF still jack up the odds of seeing a lot of blues from Meph?

This post was edited by Kayeto on Sep 30 2017 05:07pm

This graph is only a part of the drop mechanism.
You won't have a clear idea of what happens if you look at it, without figuring out other features.



Excessive blue items with high %mf is a consequence of "set" items being selected.
'the early roll' you're talking about is the roll occuring for set quality. Is it what you had in mind ?



For jewels, having a high %mf equiped :
- increases the probability of droping unique jewels (Rainbow facets)
- increases the probability of droping set jewels, that doesn't exist, and that are replaced by magic (blue) jewels.
This second part is the reason why it decreases the probability of droping rare (yellow) jewels.

For small or medium charms, %mf has absolutely no effect. Everyone of them will be blue.
For grand charms, a high %mf simply raises the chance of findind Gheed's fortune (and thus, decreases the chance of finding magic grand charms).

When killing unique monsters, or Act bosses, the base chance for magic quality is 100% (even with 0% mf equiped).
It doesn't mean that every drop is blue (as you know), it means that every drop is at least blue.
Quality rolls are performed following that order :
1) unique check
2) set check
3) rare check
4) magic check
5) superior check
Each time a check is succesful, the other checks are ignored and the item is generated.
As you can see, set check takes place before rare check.
If it doesn't fail (and that's what a high amount of % mf is supposed to do), the item will be either of set quality (generally worthless), or of magic quality (blue) in the case it's impossible to create such set item (like a set Berserker axe).


Short answer :
- if you're looking for unique items only, there's no limit on the usefulness of % mf.
- if you're looking for rare items, you must not go over 200~250%. Otherwise, you're chance will start to decrease.

Thank you for this.

ah ok, I could have sworn I read an article years ago that said rolls were taking place in a different order, so thanks for correcting me. That was basically the source of my confusion.

great post man

It's highest quality to lowest quality.
That's why you find rares and magics with bonus durability.
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=77296801&f=169

it rolled a unique circlet, but there is no unique circlet. so it spawned it as a rare with triple durability.
a berserker axe with one billion durability would be a set berserker axe. but there is no set berserker axe. so it's a magic with one billion durability.

I used to play Diablo 2 10 years ago and recently came back. I'm trying to get caught to with some of the changes so I've been looking at Magic Find thread guides and most of them are dated 2005-2007. Have there been any distinct changes in to the way Magic find works that I am not aware of or is the guide such as the popular one I've linked still a reliable source?

https://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Magic_Find


Background: One of my friends who has been playing this game for a while keeps telling me that if i have more magic find past about around 400-450mf, its not got. Note, i understand mf has a diminishing return, that's if it still holds true in the current state of the game.

Scenario: I'm doing MF runs in nightmare at the moment and I have 450MF which takes me 10 minutes to complete my MF cycle. Lets say I increase my MF to 550, and it still takes me 10 minutes to complete my MF cycle. Does having more MF have a detriment to getting good loot such as unique and sets items?

My point to my friend is if the balance in how long it takes to do my magic find run is unaffected, then having more magic find is good. He says I'm absolutely wrong, which makes me question my research i did looking at the link I have above.

Any knowledgeable individuals who can help clear this up for me?

Thanks!

More %mf never hurts for getting unique items.
It may be counter-productive for finding set items (past ~300-400), or rare items (past ~200-250).

sorry for offtop, but...

did you think about 100-200mf build, running hell pits, mausoleum and some cheap super uniqs like bosh and ash?



isnt it better to sell 1 hr instead of 10 1fg exceptional uniqs?

Does the linear movement of magical item drops hinder my chances of getting uniques/sets if i have more magic find? I believe the following answers my question but I just wanted to confirm:

"When killing unique monsters, or Act bosses, the base chance for magic quality is 100% (even with 0% mf equiped).
It doesn't mean that every drop is blue (as you know), it means that every drop is at least blue.
Quality rolls are performed following that order :
1) unique check
2) set check
3) rare check
4) magic check
5) superior check
Each time a check is succesful, the other checks are ignored and the item is generated.
As you can see, set check takes place before rare check."

Im trying to find SOJs currectly is why.

I think your right though in terms of my overall return, however, why would I need to reduce my MF from 450 if runs/hr wouldn't change? Rune drops are unaffected by MF to my understanding?