I have no idea what's the sweetspot for my farming.
I've tried the game with most of my characters (to see where they were at MP-wise) and on lower MP (1-2) I haven't seen a single legendary, while at MP 4 I've found 3
I know it might be psychological and it's probably better to stick to lower MPs, but I can't help to feel that the little MF I gain has a considerable impact on my chances of finding legendaries/sets.
To ease your mind, I'm at 2 legendaries with approx 2 hours played in the new patch. I've only run 0-2 MP levels so far and my kill speed is very slow (0 run speed, 20-30k dps).
//edit: I do have 300 MF before stacks and MP rewards though
Well, you mean most people (like 80+ %) now are trying hard to beat Inferno?
I've spent like 10 mil at max on my Barb (WW) and i can handle all of the content. Even the hardest packs (though i die sometimes). And Blizz said that current difficulty is equal to MP 2-3. What on the Earth are you talking about then?
You completely missed the point. Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's effective to do it. You might be able to do MP2-3 but you'll most likely be much more effective at MP0-1. People can do MP10 quite easily nowadays, but I doubt even the #1 DPS on diabloprogress.com will farm MP10 efficiently. The rewards simply aren't enough for the added time required to clear it.
I wish they did make monster power a "if you can deal with the challenge of clearing it, then you should" (and of course make higher MP actually challenging and not the joke of waste-of-time mostly-HP-scaling it currently is). Then it would be all cool. Problem is the current scaling is not even close to being that way, which is what I really dislike about the MP system. Most people don't seem to realize that, or at least not yet. You are still going to be most effective farming monsters that are of absolutely 0 threat to you.
of course farming at really high mp difficulties isnt going to be more efficient. unless ur farming for hellfire rings. if they made the risk vs reward to good in favor of playing really high MP then the casual players would be in the same spot they were before the patch. i can farm MP10 for fun.. or i can farm MP4 at light speed only picking up legendary items, or spending all day identifying items, which isnt fun.
the whole goal of the MP was to make the gap between the elitest and the casual a lot more transparent. if putting it on MP10 gave u legendary items10 times more often then the elitist players would be way too far ahead of the curve to casual players. another thing about the patch is it also addressed elitists in that they can still find something to do and find a challenge.
i just dont understand the sentiment behind thinking rewarding casual players is a bad thing. without players the game dies. without players who are u going to group with? i feel like im reiterating this over and over but im gunna say it again anyways... there comes a time when u have pretty close to best in slot... what are u gunna do then? sometimes the need to have fun outweighs efficiency, and im at that point. with this new system i can also easily start gearing out my other 60's. I'm hoping my friends will come back because they all quit. that last point pisses me off more then anything else. the game was just so horrible when it was released most of my friends quit around when 1.04 started because they got fed up. anything to get them to come back sounds good to me.
ALSO: the fact u can quickly look up what ur items values are on the Auction house by using "find similar" was by far the best addition to the game.. because its ten times easy'r going through all the rares u have and finding out what they are worth. i despised 1.04 in that it was annoying selling shit and my bank tabs were always full because i was to lazy to sell shit. now its SOO MUCH BETTER
There is a difference between narrowing the gap a bit and narrowing it so it's almost non-existent. Some gap needs to exist. Currently, there's hardly any. If you can 1-shot monsters in MP0 (which can be done with very cheap gear), then you are getting loot at more than 1/2 the rate as someone who 1-shots every monster at MP10 (which is impossible even with perfect gear that doesn't even exist). Basically once you have the gear to 1-shot monsters in MP0, there is very little room for improvement and you might as well quit the game or go into "sell everything I find on RMAH because upgrades are a waste" mode.
They need to find a good balance between giving you a reason to become stronger to allowing noobs to find loot. Right now that balance simply isn't there. You can have the best gear in the game and the benefit over having very cheap gear is so minimal that it makes you think why you ever bothered with that gear rather than sell it on the RMAH.
I farmed MP 6 and MP 7 yerterday for about 8 hours straight.
Made 9 Infernal Machines.
Got 8 legendaries, including two set items - Chantodo Wand and IK weapon (and for a change not one Gladiators Gauntlets).
Seriously if you can deal with the increased difficulty, MP6 is where the scales really start to tip in your favor. On MP 6 i had 505% MF and on MP7 530%... that is just pure fun to KNOW that pretty soon you will be seeing the light beacon again.
And a piece of advice, if you want to craft Hellfire rings dont waste your machines on any MP lower than 6. It is very frustrating to go through all the trouble and killing the bosses (that are not really so simple to kill even in lower MP) and not getting the materials for the ring.
I burned 7 machines and got nearly two rings done, but in order to do that i had to kill all three sets of bosses probably 10 times on MP5 and MP6.
Actually, if you play in a 4-man group you save a lot of machines, to the point where, in the long run, the time it takes to do all the ubers runs (using machines divided equally among the 4 players) is almost the same as the time it takes you to farm the machines for them.
If you do it solo, then yes, you will spend a lot more time farming keys that you will spend on doing ubers if you use the same MP level.
Like I said, though, if you skip all normal monsters you should just use as high monster power as you can survive (assuming your gear is reasonably balanced - If it's heavily defensive you might still be better off at the lower MP levels even though you can survive higher ones).
As for MF, again if you kill normal monsters the extra time it takes you to clear makes the extra MF look like a complete joke and is completely worthless (and same for the extra XP, as the only way to really get XP is to kill all normal monsters).
I played some more over the weekend and I´m getting to a conclusion regarding the various MP lvls.
To sum it up:
If you dont have the gear required to kill at a fast rate and be reasonably sure you wont die in any giveng monstr power you have to turn down 1 level.
So for those who still havent found the tier they can achieve the most just pick MP5 wich is the medium. Run the hardest place you can think off (probably Azmodan chain of levels). If you feel like it takes too long to kill something or you die more than once to finish the run. Lower it down to MP4 and repeat.
In this case you will find out were you can farm with all the bonuses the system can give you.
I havent really crunched any umbers but from what I've experienced this way you will be getting roughly the same EXP/time but with the added MF your loot will be more forthcoming.
This method will ensure you are getting the most rewards off the system while retaining the most of your efficiency.
On a side note, monster power 9 and especially 10 are really just to show off your gear and build.
I can't see anyone really farming anything with any kind of acceptable efficiency at those levels regardless of gear set. Adequate gear for that might not even exist yet.
(With 120k dps WW barb with 505% crit dmg took me 12 minutes to kill siegebreaker, i was amased i was able to considering the damn thing even enraged on me).
And a fun fact about Key farming. I ran act3 4 times on MP6, and 2 times on MP7 to get one key. Here i was thinking this just isnt my day.
Then i went to teach a guy how to do it on MP2 and got 2 keys in a row. After that i needed only one more key to complete 4 infernal machines so i decided to run it once again but with the highest possible change. On MP9 i ocassionally die, so i just went for MP8...and guess... had to run it 3 times to get the darn thing.
Running on MP8 probably takes twice the time it takes to do it on MP5. So i could have done 6 runs of MP5 at 50% chance of they key (so 3 keys would have been normal).
Thinking of that i decided that from now on ill run key farming at MP5 where it is faceroll and try multiple times for more EXP and Loot while im farming keys.
I hope this info i layed on this post might be of some use to anyone still uncertin about the Mosnter Power system.
I think the simplest way to approach this is to determine a target time for clearing enemy packs that is the most efficient - say, it should take you X seconds to kill the average champ/elite pack in order to get the best ratio of killing time versus travel time. If you're going faster than that then you should increase monster power, and if it's taking longer you should decrease monster power. And to simplify the issue I would ignore the MF and extra items and use the Exp rate instead, since that's really the only easily quantifiable measurement.
Guys, if you aren't figuring out a way to get the most loot/hour (or xp/hour, or rings/hour) and explain how your idea of finding the right monster power actually helps achieve that goal, you're not really helping anyone. Sorry...
Under these conditions 1% movement speed = 4% dps increase. 30% elite damage = 15% dps increase (and movement sped augment for some classes). Leorics near max is a relative 20% xp increase, 4% on follower (170 or 144 (follower) / 140 base xp) equal to a 80 / 16% dps increase or 20 / 4% movement speed increase.
Each MP level increases health 50% for 10% bonus xp if I read it right. That's a 7% relative xp increase from 140 base XP for 50% increased fighting time. 5 minutes of fighting turns into 7.5 minutes, 20 minute run turns into 22.5 minutes, a 12.5% time increase.
Another scenario at lower dps is 50% fighting, 50% running. 1% movement = 1% dps. 15 minutes fighting, 15 minutes running. 50% health increase is 22.5 minutes fighting, 15 minutes running. A 25% run time increase for 7% relative xp increase.
I can keep going but it's getting complex.
Bonus xp > movement speed > bonus elite > dps. Under these conditions you can never die unless you're sacrificing for bonus XP. An increase in MP can only warrant a 7% increased run time.
At 120k (spirit/ms gear) + 24% aura trash, + 48 x 25 x 30% aura/soj/flash elites, 159% MS (tailwind) MP1 is barely doable for XP efficiency. With less spirit gear I can't sustain my movement speed, I would run MP2.
Your calculations are off. If you have +140% exp, another 10% would put you at 150%, so 2.5/2.4=1.0417 or 4.17% more exp/hour, of course then reduced by the increased clear time due to higher monster HP. Check my excel files, it does exactly what you're trying to do, except with (hopefully) no errors.
To ease your mind, I'm at 2 legendaries with approx 2 hours played in the new patch. I've only run 0-2 MP levels so far and my kill speed is very slow (0 run speed, 20-30k dps).
//edit: I do have 300 MF before stacks and MP rewards though
of course farming at really high mp difficulties isnt going to be more efficient. unless ur farming for hellfire rings. if they made the risk vs reward to good in favor of playing really high MP then the casual players would be in the same spot they were before the patch. i can farm MP10 for fun.. or i can farm MP4 at light speed only picking up legendary items, or spending all day identifying items, which isnt fun.
the whole goal of the MP was to make the gap between the elitest and the casual a lot more transparent. if putting it on MP10 gave u legendary items10 times more often then the elitist players would be way too far ahead of the curve to casual players. another thing about the patch is it also addressed elitists in that they can still find something to do and find a challenge.
i just dont understand the sentiment behind thinking rewarding casual players is a bad thing. without players the game dies. without players who are u going to group with? i feel like im reiterating this over and over but im gunna say it again anyways... there comes a time when u have pretty close to best in slot... what are u gunna do then? sometimes the need to have fun outweighs efficiency, and im at that point. with this new system i can also easily start gearing out my other 60's. I'm hoping my friends will come back because they all quit. that last point pisses me off more then anything else. the game was just so horrible when it was released most of my friends quit around when 1.04 started because they got fed up. anything to get them to come back sounds good to me.
ALSO: the fact u can quickly look up what ur items values are on the Auction house by using "find similar" was by far the best addition to the game.. because its ten times easy'r going through all the rares u have and finding out what they are worth. i despised 1.04 in that it was annoying selling shit and my bank tabs were always full because i was to lazy to sell shit. now its SOO MUCH BETTER
They need to find a good balance between giving you a reason to become stronger to allowing noobs to find loot. Right now that balance simply isn't there. You can have the best gear in the game and the benefit over having very cheap gear is so minimal that it makes you think why you ever bothered with that gear rather than sell it on the RMAH.
Made 9 Infernal Machines.
Got 8 legendaries, including two set items - Chantodo Wand and IK weapon (and for a change not one Gladiators Gauntlets).
Seriously if you can deal with the increased difficulty, MP6 is where the scales really start to tip in your favor. On MP 6 i had 505% MF and on MP7 530%... that is just pure fun to KNOW that pretty soon you will be seeing the light beacon again.
And a piece of advice, if you want to craft Hellfire rings dont waste your machines on any MP lower than 6. It is very frustrating to go through all the trouble and killing the bosses (that are not really so simple to kill even in lower MP) and not getting the materials for the ring.
I burned 7 machines and got nearly two rings done, but in order to do that i had to kill all three sets of bosses probably 10 times on MP5 and MP6.
If you do it solo, then yes, you will spend a lot more time farming keys that you will spend on doing ubers if you use the same MP level.
Like I said, though, if you skip all normal monsters you should just use as high monster power as you can survive (assuming your gear is reasonably balanced - If it's heavily defensive you might still be better off at the lower MP levels even though you can survive higher ones).
As for MF, again if you kill normal monsters the extra time it takes you to clear makes the extra MF look like a complete joke and is completely worthless (and same for the extra XP, as the only way to really get XP is to kill all normal monsters).
To sum it up:
If you dont have the gear required to kill at a fast rate and be reasonably sure you wont die in any giveng monstr power you have to turn down 1 level.
So for those who still havent found the tier they can achieve the most just pick MP5 wich is the medium. Run the hardest place you can think off (probably Azmodan chain of levels). If you feel like it takes too long to kill something or you die more than once to finish the run. Lower it down to MP4 and repeat.
In this case you will find out were you can farm with all the bonuses the system can give you.
I havent really crunched any umbers but from what I've experienced this way you will be getting roughly the same EXP/time but with the added MF your loot will be more forthcoming.
This method will ensure you are getting the most rewards off the system while retaining the most of your efficiency.
On a side note, monster power 9 and especially 10 are really just to show off your gear and build.
I can't see anyone really farming anything with any kind of acceptable efficiency at those levels regardless of gear set. Adequate gear for that might not even exist yet.
(With 120k dps WW barb with 505% crit dmg took me 12 minutes to kill siegebreaker, i was amased i was able to considering the damn thing even enraged on me).
And a fun fact about Key farming. I ran act3 4 times on MP6, and 2 times on MP7 to get one key. Here i was thinking this just isnt my day.
Then i went to teach a guy how to do it on MP2 and got 2 keys in a row. After that i needed only one more key to complete 4 infernal machines so i decided to run it once again but with the highest possible change. On MP9 i ocassionally die, so i just went for MP8...and guess... had to run it 3 times to get the darn thing.
Running on MP8 probably takes twice the time it takes to do it on MP5. So i could have done 6 runs of MP5 at 50% chance of they key (so 3 keys would have been normal).
Thinking of that i decided that from now on ill run key farming at MP5 where it is faceroll and try multiple times for more EXP and Loot while im farming keys.
I hope this info i layed on this post might be of some use to anyone still uncertin about the Mosnter Power system.
That would be vault DH, WW barb, Archon wiz, Tempest rush monk, spirit walk WD. Gear/spec should augment these abilities farming.
Take into account a 31% xp helm, 35% xp ring, 7% xp follower, 90% of the run with 75% xp valor (lets value at 67% average.) = 140% base xp.
Scenario: 75% running/looting, 25% fightning, 50% trash 50% elites. 20 minute speed run 5 minutes fighting, 15 minutes running.
Under these conditions 1% movement speed = 4% dps increase. 30% elite damage = 15% dps increase (and movement sped augment for some classes). Leorics near max is a relative 20% xp increase, 4% on follower (170 or 144 (follower) / 140 base xp) equal to a 80 / 16% dps increase or 20 / 4% movement speed increase.
Each MP level increases health 50% for 10% bonus xp if I read it right. That's a 7% relative xp increase from 140 base XP for 50% increased fighting time. 5 minutes of fighting turns into 7.5 minutes, 20 minute run turns into 22.5 minutes, a 12.5% time increase.
Another scenario at lower dps is 50% fighting, 50% running. 1% movement = 1% dps. 15 minutes fighting, 15 minutes running. 50% health increase is 22.5 minutes fighting, 15 minutes running. A 25% run time increase for 7% relative xp increase.
I can keep going but it's getting complex.
Bonus xp > movement speed > bonus elite > dps. Under these conditions you can never die unless you're sacrificing for bonus XP. An increase in MP can only warrant a 7% increased run time.
At 120k (spirit/ms gear) + 24% aura trash, + 48 x 25 x 30% aura/soj/flash elites, 159% MS (tailwind) MP1 is barely doable for XP efficiency. With less spirit gear I can't sustain my movement speed, I would run MP2.
Due to mediafire giving !@#!, I uploaded it to our Arma 2 Israeli community website's storage:
http://agamer.netai.net/mp_level.xls