TL;DR: 0MF ACT II might be more rewarding in terms of more ilvl 62+ rares. NV buffs make the difference in MF not that noticeable.
Background:
I am sort of a below average noob player, so the only comfortable play style for me is to tank all the mobs with my face and only avoiding fires on the ground. Therefore I found ACT III progressing too stressful for my current gear and skill. So the farming option for me is just ACT I or ACT II. I can clear ACT I with my eyes shut and ACT II without dying in my current defensive gear. Thus, I want to try to get some MF gear and see which one is more rewarding: 100MF ACT I or 0MF ACT II.
Assumptions:
First I will show some simple math reasoning, which is based on the following assumptions:
1. Our goal in farming is to get the maximum number of ilvl 62+ RARE+ items while having fun.
2. MF will not increase the number of items nor the ilvl of items, only the likelihood of this item being blue/rare+.
3. The chance of getting a rare increase linearly with MF. For example, if you originally have 10% chance getting a rare item, with 100MF you now have 20% chance.
Results:
So now let's assume you have 30% chance of getting a rare off a champion pack. Then after 10 packs, in average you will have 3 rare items. But if you have 100MF, you will get 6 instead of 3. This seems quite an advantage. However, NV buffs come into play. You will get one guaranteed rare for every pack you kill. With 5 NV and 0MF, you will have 10 + 1.75 * 3 = 15.25 rare items. With 5 NV and 100MF, you will have 10 + 2.75 * 3 = 18.25 rare items. With some RNG, this will hardly be that noticeable.
Now considering the fact that ACT II drops twice as many ilvl 63 items and 50% percent more ilvl 62 items than ACT I, you might have a much more satisfying experience in ACT II in our current setting.
Indeed, I use quite a few made up numbers in these equations, but the ideas are the same. (I might be able to build some models using Bernoulli distribution for a likelihood ratio test and confidence intervals in order to obtain the probability of getting more ilvl 62 rare items in ACT I or II, but that will be even more boring to read XD).
Personal Experiences:
For the past week, I have been trying to farm ACT I with 100MF or ACT II with 0MF at the frequency of 2 hours every two days (an extremely small sample). I found 2 upgrades in each ACT, but I have to say I like ACT II a lot better. Personally I feel more satisfying to identify ilvl 62+ items, while in ACT I I sometimes need to identify and vendor several ilvl 55- rares in a row, which is annoying.
Sorry for the long post, and I do not know how to attach a photo of potato :-)
It upsets me when people say this, you truely do not understand/realize how good Magic Find is beyond a 5 stack.
I have zero MF. After 5 stacks I'm seeing 1-3 yellows drop per champ pack. Mostly 2-3 per pack. Rarely only 1.
Sure I could spend 10-20 million on GF gear.. or hurry up and switch out gear before the last of the pack dies.. but that seems like work to me. And I play this game for fun, not work.
I've had 100 base MF before.. and all that netted me was more blues from bosses. Blues don't sell. Everyone wants perfect stat yellows.
Now i'm slowly working on gold find gear. Only catch is it must be an upgrade or I don't get it. So it's going very slowly. But i'm up to 75% base. Love those 2000 gold drops from whites.
It upsets me when people say this, you truely do not understand/realize how good Magic Find is beyond a 5 stack.
I have zero MF. After 5 stacks I'm seeing 1-3 yellows drop per champ pack. Mostly 2-3 per pack. Rarely only 1.
Sure I could spend 10-20 million on GF gear.. or hurry up and switch out gear before the last of the pack dies.. but that seems like work to me. And I play this game for fun, not work.
I've had 100 base MF before.. and all that netted me was more blues from bosses. Blues don't sell. Everyone wants perfect stat yellows.
Now i'm slowly working on gold find gear. Only catch is it must be an upgrade or I don't get it. So it's going very slowly. But i'm up to 75% base. Love those 2000 gold drops from whites.
You lost my interest when you said "Blue drops don't matter cause people only want yellows" while your statement holds true about Yellows, Blues are salvage amazingness. Due to your lack of gold or lack of wanting to spend gold on crafting you probably don't actually understand how good crafting really is, why do you think people buy your Exquiste essence when you post it.
I run 336% MF after Valor in Act 3 and I can clear on average 35 Elite packs, 4 Goblins and two bosses (Cydaea and Azmo) in 45 Minutes, with 7 deaths on average.
Oh, and by the way i've netted 42 Legendaries, 2 Exalted Grand Sovereign greaves, 1 Exalted Grand Vambraces, Grand Armplates and 2 Grand Chests.
It upsets me when people say this, you truely do not understand/realize how good Magic Find is beyond a 5 stack.
I have zero MF. After 5 stacks I'm seeing 1-3 yellows drop per champ pack. Mostly 2-3 per pack. Rarely only 1.
Sure I could spend 10-20 million on GF gear.. or hurry up and switch out gear before the last of the pack dies.. but that seems like work to me. And I play this game for fun, not work.
I've had 100 base MF before.. and all that netted me was more blues from bosses. Blues don't sell. Everyone wants perfect stat yellows.
Now i'm slowly working on gold find gear. Only catch is it must be an upgrade or I don't get it. So it's going very slowly. But i'm up to 75% base. Love those 2000 gold drops from whites.
You lost my interest when you said "Blue drops don't matter cause people only want yellows" while your statement holds true about Yellows, Blues are salvage amazingness. Due to your lack of gold or lack of wanting to spend gold on crafting you probably don't actually understand how good crafting really is, why do you think people buy your Exquiste essence when you post it.
I run 336% MF after Valor in Act 3 and I can clear on average 35 Elite packs, 4 Goblins and two bosses (Cydaea and Azmo) in 45 Minutes, with 7 deaths on average.
Oh, and by the way i've netted 42 Legendaries, 2 Exalted Grand Sovereign greaves, 1 Exalted Grand Vambraces, Grand Armplates and 2 Grand Chests.
Edit: 450 Hours of play time.
Those statistics say more about the insane gear you already have than about MF. I run without MF gear and get about 70 rares in 1 act 2 run, I kill about 20-30 Elite/Champion packs and the three bosses of course.
I ran about 10 complete act 2 runs, so the sample size isn't too big, 200-300 elites with 2-3 rares on average. So I really don't see the point of stacking MF gear, unless you're incredibly wealthy (gold or real life money), or you're a ranged class.
Those statistics say more about the insane gear you already have than about MF. I run without MF gear and get about 70 rares in 1 act 2 run, I kill about 20-30 Elite/Champion packs and the three bosses of course.
I ran about 10 complete act 2 runs, so the sample size isn't too big, 200-300 elites with 2-3 rares on average. So I really don't see the point of stacking MF gear, unless you're incredibly wealthy (gold or real life money), or you're a ranged class.
Magic Finds change in drop is "feelable" if that's even a way to describe it, its difficult to really sit here and tell you how it changes it beyond what you already know about Magic find giving more blues, ect.
There's something about that Archon Crown, Arch Axe or that one Exalted Grand Vambraces that drops off of a white scorpion that makes you really appreciate your Magic Find on your gear.
Those statistics say more about the insane gear you already have than about MF. I run without MF gear and get about 70 rares in 1 act 2 run, I kill about 20-30 Elite/Champion packs and the three bosses of course.
I ran about 10 complete act 2 runs, so the sample size isn't too big, 200-300 elites with 2-3 rares on average. So I really don't see the point of stacking MF gear, unless you're incredibly wealthy (gold or real life money), or you're a ranged class.
Magic Finds change in drop is "feelable" if that's even a way to describe it, its difficult to really sit here and tell you how it changes it beyond what you already know about Magic find giving more blues, ect.
There's something about that Archon Crown, Arch Axe or that one Exalted Grand Vambraces that drops off of a white scorpion that makes you really appreciate your Magic Find on your gear.
I simply can't agree because rares/hour is a measurable value.
Does MF give you more rares/hour? The answer shouldn't be a secret, it just takes some testing.
What is your average return per 10 points of magic find? Again, shouldn't take tons of testing to figure out.
Doing things based on "feel" and without testing is silly. These things are measurable and we shouldn't have to rely on what people "feel" works and what they "feel" doesn't work. In fact, there was a front-page post about a guy's MF data collection.
That should give you an idea as to how much MF is going to impact your white/yellow/blue rates. However, it does not show how changes in your gear impacts your killing speed (which is the variable that is independent to each of us and our class, gear, spec).
The simple fact is the monsters in act 1 have so much fewer hitpoints than in higher acts that you will get more i63s / hour farming act 1 than any other act, whether your gear is godly or garbage, or anywhere in between. The percentage drop rate is lower but you get so many more rares per hour in act 1 that it negates the lower drop rate.
The clincher is that you can easily stack MF in act 1, while MF will hurt your dps too much for you to effectively do acts 2-4. Gear swapping is temporary, it will be nerfed. Even until then, it takes time, and when we're talking about maxing rares per hour, time is money.
This is poor game design. This is the new Blizzard. Reel in its stench.
The simple fact is the monsters in act 1 have so much fewer hitpoints than in higher acts that you will get more i63s / hour farming act 1 than any other act, whether your gear is godly or garbage, or anywhere in between. The percentage drop rate is lower but you get so many more rares per hour in act 1 that it negates the lower drop rate.
getting so many more rares doesn't mean crap when they're all junks. you only want the ilvl62-63 rares. anything below it is just garbage except for rings and ammys. that's why you want to farm a3 if you can.
mf does work. however, if you're focusing on mf too much while sacrificing survivability and dps, it's just not worth it.
A3 > A2 > A1 regardless of how much MF you have (and assuming you have the ability to do each act in a reasonable time).
This pretty much sums it up.
It's not that simple. First off, act 2 is slow to farm because there are very few elites that you can count on being in specific locations like you can in act 1. It's a lot more running around. If you have the gear to completely mindlessly crush act 2 I still recommend doing act 1. You're just going to get so many more items per hour that the higher chance of getting ilvl62-63 in a slow act 2 isn't worth it. Also, I can do act 1 in a very high amount of MF gear and still pretty much plow through it. You just have to get good MF gear with stats on it and make good choices on what gear you swap out for MF gear. Doing this will net you a ton of extra rares and will get you some legendaries as well. Note, I don't swap MF gear, I wear it. Doing so gets me a TON of rares off normal mobs.
I farm act 1 a lot. There are certain points in my routine where I used to portal back to ID and sell. I can say that since I changed to MF gear I've had to modify when I go back. It's a lot earlier now. The million dollar question is time. I have never timed my routine. I think it's about 40 minutes. If running with MF gear adds 10 minutes then I'm not so sure MF is a giant payoff in my specific situation.
Swapping MF gear is a slowdown too. You're using up bag real estate to carry it which means a lot more trips back. Also, let's be honest, you can call yourself super gamer all you want but opening your bag and swapping everything over and closing is gonna get you killed sometimes. You have to do it early too otherwise you risk killing them too fast. Swap too early and it becomes a slow kill or you get 2 hit and die. Don't get me wrong, swapping MF is efficient if you do it right and quickly but there's nothing wrong with relying on 5 stacks on NV getting you that guaranteed rare on every elite kill and 2 on every boss.
A3 > A2 > A1 regardless of how much MF you have (and assuming you have the ability to do each act in a reasonable time).
This pretty much sums it up.
It's not that simple. First off, act 2 is slow to farm because there are very few elites that you can count on being in specific locations like you can in act 1. It's a lot more running around. If you have the gear to completely mindlessly crush act 2 I still recommend doing act 1. You're just going to get so many more items per hour that the higher chance of getting ilvl62-63 in a slow act 2 isn't worth it. Also, I can do act 1 in a very high amount of MF gear and still pretty much plow through it. You just have to get good MF gear with stats on it and make good choices on what gear you swap out for MF gear. Doing this will net you a ton of extra rares and will get you some legendaries as well. Note, I don't swap MF gear, I wear it. Doing so gets me a TON of rares off normal mobs.
I farm act 1 a lot. There are certain points in my routine where I used to portal back to ID and sell. I can say that since I changed to MF gear I've had to modify when I go back. It's a lot earlier now. The million dollar question is time. I have never timed my routine. I think it's about 40 minutes. If running with MF gear adds 10 minutes then I'm not so sure MF is a giant payoff in my specific situation.
Swapping MF gear is a slowdown too. You're using up bag real estate to carry it which means a lot more trips back. Also, let's be honest, you can call yourself super gamer all you want but opening your bag and swapping everything over and closing is gonna get you killed sometimes. You have to do it early too otherwise you risk killing them too fast. Swap too early and it becomes a slow kill or you get 2 hit and die. Don't get me wrong, swapping MF is efficient if you do it right and quickly but there's nothing wrong with relying on 5 stacks on NV getting you that guaranteed rare on every elite kill and 2 on every boss.
Act 2 has a lot of elites that you can count on being there. I'm not sure if it's currently bugged or not, but the Forgotten Ruins (where you get 1 out of 2 blood for Zoltun Kulle) has 8-15 Champion/Elite packs in it. Always. I'm farming this dungeon 'till it's completely empty and then head off to Zoltun Kulle and Belial. I do these runs in about 20 minutes, where I on average kill about 10 Champion/Elite packs. I have a full bag with rares in the end, which is about 20-25 rares. This is completely without MF gear.
So yes, I agree with you. I had a full set (335% MF with 5 stacks), but I found it only worthwhile when farming Goblins. It doesn't work on bosses at all in my experience. To clarify this last statement: I have killed the Assault Siegebreaker with the Barbarian Weapon Throw build with 200% MF (before I entered the room and never took it off!), it only dropped 2 blues, all 5 runs that I tested this. Now the 5 runs isn't that much, but with 200% MF, the loot should've been substantially better than 5 stacks of NV, but by far it wasn't. It was horrible.
So to all the people who say "I have a feeling that with MF gear I get a lot more rares." or something like that, I wouldn't be so sure until you publish hard numbers. Goblins are the exception, of course.
Also: gear swapping is (except for Act 1) 99% of the time not an option as melee.
The simple fact is the monsters in act 1 have so much fewer hitpoints than in higher acts that you will get more i63s / hour farming act 1 than any other act, whether your gear is godly or garbage, or anywhere in between. The percentage drop rate is lower but you get so many more rares per hour in act 1 that it negates the lower drop rate.
getting so many more rares doesn't mean crap when they're all junks. you only want the ilvl62-63 rares. anything below it is just garbage except for rings and ammys. that's why you want to farm a3 if you can.
mf does work. however, if you're focusing on mf too much while sacrificing survivability and dps, it's just not worth it.
Can you read ghost? CAN YOU?Inferno – Act I
iLvl 61: 23.9%, up from 17.7%
iLvl 62: 12.6%, up from 7.9%
iLvl 63: 4.8%, up from 2.0%
Inferno – Act II
iLvl 61: 23.3%, up from 18.6%
iLvl 62: 18.6%, up from 12.4%
iLvl 63: 9.3%, up from 4.1%
IF you kill mobs at least TWICE as much per hour, you have equal or better drop rates then A2? ? ? Is that so difficult to understand? wtf is wrong with people!
but you don't that's the thing. if you can do that, then you should just do act 3.
kripp can do a full clear a3 run in 40 mins with his ww barb. if you can do three a1 runs in dat time then it's better otherwise it's just shit and you just better off farming a3.
I run 336% MF after Valor in Act 3 and I can clear on average 35 Elite packs, 4 Goblins and two bosses (Cydaea and Azmo) in 45 Minutes, with 7 deaths on average.
but you don't that's the thing. if you can do that, then you should just do act 3.
kripp can do a full clear a3 run in 40 mins with his ww barb. if you can do three a1 runs in dat time then it's better otherwise it's just shit and you just better off farming a3.
I clear what I believe to be the best way for Elite farming in Act 3 in the same time frame as most people who run through all of Act 1. Don't generalize that "Act 1 is better no matter what" cause it isn't.
There's certain areas in each act that aren't worth bothering with which simply are too long and unrewarding. There seems to be a general assumption that having MF on your gear causes your killing speed to be worse which yes if you're wearing "Magic Find Gear of the Whale" Then yes, it will. I upgraded each of my pieces with Magic find in mind never buying one without it but making sure it was an upgrade and something that would improve kill time, not make it worse.
Just cause something has Magic Find on it does not make it automatically "less powerful". In addition, just because you don't know where the elites are in another act also doesn't mean "there's less guaranteed elites", Act 1 isn't the only place with a Festering Woods goodness.
I clear what I believe to be the best way for Elite farming in Act 3 in the same time frame as most people who run through all of Act 1. Don't generalize that "Act 1 is better no matter what" cause it isn't.
I agree with this, although I run act 2, I one-shot everything in both act 1 and act 2, so there is absolutely no reason for me to head back to act 1.
There's certain areas in each act that aren't worth bothering with which simply are too long and unrewarding. There seems to be a general assumption that having MF on your gear causes your killing speed to be worse which yes if you're wearing "Magic Find Gear of the Whale" Then yes, it will. I upgraded each of my pieces with Magic find in mind never buying one without it but making sure it was an upgrade and something that would improve kill time, not make it worse.
Just cause something has Magic Find on it does not make it automatically "less powerful". In addition, just because you don't know where the elites are in another act also doesn't mean "there's less guaranteed elites", Act 1 isn't the only place with a Festering Woods goodness.
I disagree with this. The item with magic find isn't worse perse, but that item could have had another stat instead of magic find, which would've made it a lot more expensive. But instead of having:
-100 strength
-20% magic find
-70 all resistance
-60 vitality
it could've had the following:
-140 strength
-70 all resistance
-60 vitality
I understand your point of view, that you only upgrade if it's a dps increase AND magic find increase. But items without magic find on them certainly can be better dps/tanking wise.
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Background:
I am sort of a below average noob player, so the only comfortable play style for me is to tank all the mobs with my face and only avoiding fires on the ground. Therefore I found ACT III progressing too stressful for my current gear and skill. So the farming option for me is just ACT I or ACT II. I can clear ACT I with my eyes shut and ACT II without dying in my current defensive gear. Thus, I want to try to get some MF gear and see which one is more rewarding: 100MF ACT I or 0MF ACT II.
Assumptions:
First I will show some simple math reasoning, which is based on the following assumptions:
1. Our goal in farming is to get the maximum number of ilvl 62+ RARE+ items while having fun.
2. MF will not increase the number of items nor the ilvl of items, only the likelihood of this item being blue/rare+.
3. The chance of getting a rare increase linearly with MF. For example, if you originally have 10% chance getting a rare item, with 100MF you now have 20% chance.
Results:
So now let's assume you have 30% chance of getting a rare off a champion pack. Then after 10 packs, in average you will have 3 rare items. But if you have 100MF, you will get 6 instead of 3. This seems quite an advantage. However, NV buffs come into play. You will get one guaranteed rare for every pack you kill. With 5 NV and 0MF, you will have 10 + 1.75 * 3 = 15.25 rare items. With 5 NV and 100MF, you will have 10 + 2.75 * 3 = 18.25 rare items. With some RNG, this will hardly be that noticeable.
Now considering the fact that ACT II drops twice as many ilvl 63 items and 50% percent more ilvl 62 items than ACT I, you might have a much more satisfying experience in ACT II in our current setting.
Indeed, I use quite a few made up numbers in these equations, but the ideas are the same. (I might be able to build some models using Bernoulli distribution for a likelihood ratio test and confidence intervals in order to obtain the probability of getting more ilvl 62 rare items in ACT I or II, but that will be even more boring to read XD).
Personal Experiences:
For the past week, I have been trying to farm ACT I with 100MF or ACT II with 0MF at the frequency of 2 hours every two days (an extremely small sample). I found 2 upgrades in each ACT, but I have to say I like ACT II a lot better. Personally I feel more satisfying to identify ilvl 62+ items, while in ACT I I sometimes need to identify and vendor several ilvl 55- rares in a row, which is annoying.
Sorry for the long post, and I do not know how to attach a photo of potato :-)
It upsets me when people say this, you truely do not understand/realize how good Magic Find is beyond a 5 stack.
I have zero MF. After 5 stacks I'm seeing 1-3 yellows drop per champ pack. Mostly 2-3 per pack. Rarely only 1.
Sure I could spend 10-20 million on GF gear.. or hurry up and switch out gear before the last of the pack dies.. but that seems like work to me. And I play this game for fun, not work.
I've had 100 base MF before.. and all that netted me was more blues from bosses. Blues don't sell. Everyone wants perfect stat yellows.
Now i'm slowly working on gold find gear. Only catch is it must be an upgrade or I don't get it. So it's going very slowly. But i'm up to 75% base. Love those 2000 gold drops from whites.
You lost my interest when you said "Blue drops don't matter cause people only want yellows" while your statement holds true about Yellows, Blues are salvage amazingness. Due to your lack of gold or lack of wanting to spend gold on crafting you probably don't actually understand how good crafting really is, why do you think people buy your Exquiste essence when you post it.
I run 336% MF after Valor in Act 3 and I can clear on average 35 Elite packs, 4 Goblins and two bosses (Cydaea and Azmo) in 45 Minutes, with 7 deaths on average.
Oh, and by the way i've netted 42 Legendaries, 2 Exalted Grand Sovereign greaves, 1 Exalted Grand Vambraces, Grand Armplates and 2 Grand Chests.
Edit: 450 Hours of play time.
Those statistics say more about the insane gear you already have than about MF. I run without MF gear and get about 70 rares in 1 act 2 run, I kill about 20-30 Elite/Champion packs and the three bosses of course.
I ran about 10 complete act 2 runs, so the sample size isn't too big, 200-300 elites with 2-3 rares on average. So I really don't see the point of stacking MF gear, unless you're incredibly wealthy (gold or real life money), or you're a ranged class.
Magic Finds change in drop is "feelable" if that's even a way to describe it, its difficult to really sit here and tell you how it changes it beyond what you already know about Magic find giving more blues, ect.
There's something about that Archon Crown, Arch Axe or that one Exalted Grand Vambraces that drops off of a white scorpion that makes you really appreciate your Magic Find on your gear.
I simply can't agree because rares/hour is a measurable value.
Does MF give you more rares/hour? The answer shouldn't be a secret, it just takes some testing.
What is your average return per 10 points of magic find? Again, shouldn't take tons of testing to figure out.
Doing things based on "feel" and without testing is silly. These things are measurable and we shouldn't have to rely on what people "feel" works and what they "feel" doesn't work. In fact, there was a front-page post about a guy's MF data collection.
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/57939-ongoing-project-magic-find-and-its-efficiency-a-statistical-insight/
That should give you an idea as to how much MF is going to impact your white/yellow/blue rates. However, it does not show how changes in your gear impacts your killing speed (which is the variable that is independent to each of us and our class, gear, spec).
The clincher is that you can easily stack MF in act 1, while MF will hurt your dps too much for you to effectively do acts 2-4. Gear swapping is temporary, it will be nerfed. Even until then, it takes time, and when we're talking about maxing rares per hour, time is money.
This is poor game design. This is the new Blizzard. Reel in its stench.
getting so many more rares doesn't mean crap when they're all junks. you only want the ilvl62-63 rares. anything below it is just garbage except for rings and ammys. that's why you want to farm a3 if you can.
mf does work. however, if you're focusing on mf too much while sacrificing survivability and dps, it's just not worth it.
It's not that simple. First off, act 2 is slow to farm because there are very few elites that you can count on being in specific locations like you can in act 1. It's a lot more running around. If you have the gear to completely mindlessly crush act 2 I still recommend doing act 1. You're just going to get so many more items per hour that the higher chance of getting ilvl62-63 in a slow act 2 isn't worth it. Also, I can do act 1 in a very high amount of MF gear and still pretty much plow through it. You just have to get good MF gear with stats on it and make good choices on what gear you swap out for MF gear. Doing this will net you a ton of extra rares and will get you some legendaries as well. Note, I don't swap MF gear, I wear it. Doing so gets me a TON of rares off normal mobs.
I farm act 1 a lot. There are certain points in my routine where I used to portal back to ID and sell. I can say that since I changed to MF gear I've had to modify when I go back. It's a lot earlier now. The million dollar question is time. I have never timed my routine. I think it's about 40 minutes. If running with MF gear adds 10 minutes then I'm not so sure MF is a giant payoff in my specific situation.
Swapping MF gear is a slowdown too. You're using up bag real estate to carry it which means a lot more trips back. Also, let's be honest, you can call yourself super gamer all you want but opening your bag and swapping everything over and closing is gonna get you killed sometimes. You have to do it early too otherwise you risk killing them too fast. Swap too early and it becomes a slow kill or you get 2 hit and die. Don't get me wrong, swapping MF is efficient if you do it right and quickly but there's nothing wrong with relying on 5 stacks on NV getting you that guaranteed rare on every elite kill and 2 on every boss.
Act 2 has a lot of elites that you can count on being there. I'm not sure if it's currently bugged or not, but the Forgotten Ruins (where you get 1 out of 2 blood for Zoltun Kulle) has 8-15 Champion/Elite packs in it. Always. I'm farming this dungeon 'till it's completely empty and then head off to Zoltun Kulle and Belial. I do these runs in about 20 minutes, where I on average kill about 10 Champion/Elite packs. I have a full bag with rares in the end, which is about 20-25 rares. This is completely without MF gear.
So yes, I agree with you. I had a full set (335% MF with 5 stacks), but I found it only worthwhile when farming Goblins. It doesn't work on bosses at all in my experience. To clarify this last statement: I have killed the Assault Siegebreaker with the Barbarian Weapon Throw build with 200% MF (before I entered the room and never took it off!), it only dropped 2 blues, all 5 runs that I tested this. Now the 5 runs isn't that much, but with 200% MF, the loot should've been substantially better than 5 stacks of NV, but by far it wasn't. It was horrible.
So to all the people who say "I have a feeling that with MF gear I get a lot more rares." or something like that, I wouldn't be so sure until you publish hard numbers. Goblins are the exception, of course.
Also: gear swapping is (except for Act 1) 99% of the time not an option as melee.
Look for 1mio and 200k gold challenges in these forums I am farming A3 no problem with like 5mio worth of gear (WD).
but you don't that's the thing. if you can do that, then you should just do act 3.
kripp can do a full clear a3 run in 40 mins with his ww barb. if you can do three a1 runs in dat time then it's better otherwise it's just shit and you just better off farming a3.
http://www.diablofan...al-farming-run/
I clear what I believe to be the best way for Elite farming in Act 3 in the same time frame as most people who run through all of Act 1. Don't generalize that "Act 1 is better no matter what" cause it isn't.
There's certain areas in each act that aren't worth bothering with which simply are too long and unrewarding. There seems to be a general assumption that having MF on your gear causes your killing speed to be worse which yes if you're wearing "Magic Find Gear of the Whale" Then yes, it will. I upgraded each of my pieces with Magic find in mind never buying one without it but making sure it was an upgrade and something that would improve kill time, not make it worse.
Just cause something has Magic Find on it does not make it automatically "less powerful". In addition, just because you don't know where the elites are in another act also doesn't mean "there's less guaranteed elites", Act 1 isn't the only place with a Festering Woods goodness.
I agree with this, although I run act 2, I one-shot everything in both act 1 and act 2, so there is absolutely no reason for me to head back to act 1.
I disagree with this. The item with magic find isn't worse perse, but that item could have had another stat instead of magic find, which would've made it a lot more expensive. But instead of having:
-100 strength
-20% magic find
-70 all resistance
-60 vitality
it could've had the following:
-140 strength
-70 all resistance
-60 vitality
I understand your point of view, that you only upgrade if it's a dps increase AND magic find increase. But items without magic find on them certainly can be better dps/tanking wise.