Greetings all!

I am looking for advice from the most successful (highest quantity of green and gold in the shortest amount of time) item finders.

I have been struggling to understand why my item find berzerker barb isn't discovering much in the way of uniques, sets, or even mid-tier rares.

I was running him with > 500% MF, sometimes going above 700%. I had no trouble killing stuff, however, I wasn't getting anything in the way of drops that was desirable. This includes not even getting low level uniques like Venom Ward or basic stuff from act 1 normal.

I usually run in a large group of 3 or 5 people and I will item find CS and last hit Diablo and Baal every time. However, nothing but blues and maybe 1 yellow. We genuinely didn't understand.

As an experiment, I dropped the MF to 397%. Suddenly I saw far more uniques and sets. Basic to be sure, but the colours were there.

Does anyone know why this is the case? When does MF% no longer add to MF? Is 399% the cap for finding anything unique or set?

I understand the concept of diminishing returns: (pure example: when 100MF increases drop chance by X, 200MF increases drop chance by X*2 and 300MF increases drop by X*2.5). However, I see no reason why it should be 300-400% = X drops, whereas 400% or above = 0 drops. The former is diminishing returns, the later is no return on investment, period.

I hope to learn more from you all!

Thank you!

More is always more effective. However after about 300% mf it is much less efficient. There is no such thing as too much only too slow killing time

I never have a problem killing. Only slightly slower after 6 players.

Shako and Enigma gives plenty of mf

Doesnt matter that much.
I wish mf decreased nodrop chance or smth

No, there is no mechanics that would make 399% better than 700%, all other things being equal.

Why do people try so desperately not to understand the mf mechanics and the role of rng in this game…?

You were unlucky, that’s all.

Here is the mf chart. It never goes down. It does suffer from diminishing returns though.

If you have 400% mf you get 153% towards uniques. If you have 750% mf you get 187% towards uniques. It’s a small difference which is why it is not surprising that you might just have had worse luck running 700% than 400%. That’s all there is to this.

Good to see that graphic. Though judging by the share of the graph taken up by blue, compared to that of the other colours, it seems to me that the high your MF, the more likely most drops will be blue rather than anything else. This is a judgement based sole on that fact that looking from top to bottom, blue has a much larger share of the graph.

I am not well versed in statistics or mathematics, but i get the impression that above 300, you're more like to get uniques, yes, but also WAY more likely to get blues to a point that it overrides the other colours appearances.

I am I correct in thinking that?

No, not really. The game first rolls to check if the item is unique. If the unique roll fails then it rolls to check if it’s a set. Then a rare. And only at the end, if the previous rolls failed, it checks if it should be blue. So the higher % of finding blues does in no way influence the chance of finding a unique.

This post was edited by kayko on Jun 25 2022 06:06am

I didn't know that was the priority order for checking items. So it just turns out that I have been REALLY unlucky throughout the non-ladder and into the ladder (except for the last two days experimenting with < 400% mf)?

Well that's a bummer.

That’s what it looks like, sorry to hear that.

Actually the perceived difference between 400% and 750% is even smaller than what the absolute numbers present.

Think about it this way.

1. Let’s say you run 0% mf for some time, until you find 100 uniques.

2. Then you do the same amount of runs, the same locations, the same equipment but with 400% mf. You’d get 253 uniques on average (= 100 + 153).

3. Then you do the same with 750% mf. You’d get 287 (= 100 + 187) uniques on average.

So, the relative difference when going from 400% to 750% is: (287-253) / 253 = 13%.

The 750% is only 13% better than 400%. Not to mention that in reality you might have had to sacrifice something else to get to this high of an mf value.

This post was edited by kayko on Jun 25 2022 06:28am