7 replies to this topic

[Hydra2945]

Hydra#2945 is my battletag, check my gear.

I have been farming in MP0 Alkaizer route. I usually get 0 legendaries in 5-10 runs.

But when I do Mp3+ I get like 1 legendaries per 2 runs.

I farm for Legendaries not xp so is low or high mp good? also i have low mf....

I hear ppl say low mp is better because u can do faster runs and get more legendaries in the long run, but it doesnt work for me.. maybe because i got 130mf with 5NV...

Just want your opinions on this...

[Jaetch]

5-10 runs is nothing...

On an average weekend I do about 40-50 runs at least. If I feel up to it, I can do over 100 runs on a Saturday. You can't actively seek out unique items. Farm more, crank up your paragon for the MF boosts, and the uniques will drop on their own.

FYI unique items haven't truly rained on me until after I hit paragon 60 or so. After they upped the drop rates, now the drops are getting ridiculous. I'm farming MP3 or 4 with 425%+ MF with nothing but 86 levels of paragon MF, follower MF, NV and MP. There's nothing to be done other than farm more, kill more, kill faster, loot more, loot faster. In order to farm more and farm faster... Guess what?

You have to farm more. I cannot emphasize that enough. You cannot actively seek out legendary items. Invest in your farming speed, pick up paragon levels, and grind away.

Edited by Jaetch, 07 November 2012 - 08:19 PM.

[unReality]

The difference between MP0 and MP3 (Act 3), from purely numbers:

+75% Magic Find & Gold Find
+30% Bonus Exp
17% Chance of Bonus Item
Monsters have over 3x HP (326%)
Monsters do almost 1.5x Damage (148%)

As mentioned, 5-10 runs is nothing. Over the course of many runs, my personal thought is that one would get the most amount of Legendary drops running MP0 and stacking MF, while maintaining the ability to 1-2 shot mobs with AOE skills.

If you can maintain the same killing speed on higher MP-levels while maintaining similar MF/Exp Bonus (which I can't), then by all means go for it.

Edited by unReality, 07 November 2012 - 08:32 PM.

[thundersteele]

You know you picked a good MP for farming when:

- you never die
- trash packs die in 1-5 seconds
- elite packs die in 10-30 seconds

apart from that, it's like Jaetch says... more farming time will give you more drops and more exp, more exp increases your MF which gives you even more drops which help you get better gear which increases your farming speed which gives you more exp and more drops...

One more pro tip: When you finish a run, leave the game and hit resume game right away. Don't check the AH, don't browse the forums, etc. Makes such a big difference

[Loroese]

Since your MF seems very low (assuming 130 MF on MP0), increasing from MP0 to MP1 should increase your legendary drop rate by about 10% (255/230 = 1.1). Similarly, increasing it from MP0 to MP3 increases the rate by about 30%.

If farming MP3 takes more than 30% longer than MP0, you shouldn't be farming MP3, since lower mp levels will be more efficient in the long run.

Edited by Loroese, 07 November 2012 - 08:30 PM.

[Lunarsteel]

Hydra2945, on 07 November 2012 - 07:59 PM, said:

I hear ppl say low mp is better because u can do faster runs and get more legendaries in the long run,

They do. MP3 is considered low MP. I can farm MP6 but it takes way too long to get experience points and drops that it is not time efficient. I do MP 3 to blow up trash mobs in 1-2 hits and elites in 10-15 seconds rather than spend 1-2 minutes on an elite at MP5-6.

[Bagstone]

Hydra2945, on 07 November 2012 - 07:59 PM, said:

also i have low mf....

Something I'd like to stress one more time here: many people don't get that no stat comes for free. If you have magic find on an item, you paid for this stat and gave up on another affix instead. When you multiply this, for example to 100 MF on your gear, you probably sacrificed a whole lot of DPS to get there. It gives you a very little (and almost unnoticeable) increase in item drops, but it slows down your leveling process significantly.

If you instead completely forget about MF and never take it (unless it comes for free on a self-found upgrade or you get lucky on an extremely good AH deal), and focus on getting on a higher paragon level, your drop rate will increase much more in the long run (as Jaetch already pointed out). In addition, MF gear can be switched and then the MF is gone; paragon levels never decrease. Just focus on leveling up, and soon you'll find much more legendaries.

Edit: Maybe it's just because I'm tired, but I can't find your profile. Which realm are you on?

Edited by Bagstone, 07 November 2012 - 11:14 PM.

[GalZohar]

If you are farming for exp and trash dies in more than 1 hit (or without doing anything other than running through them once as a sprint barb), you are farming an MP level too high for you. I find that due to random higher-HP monsters such as termors, even though I kill most monsters in 1 run-by even at MP3-4, I still get more exp/hour at MP0 due to the extra time those high-hp monsters take to kill at MP3-4 and of course the extra time elites take to kill.

If you are farming for loot but aren't skipping normal monsters, it's basically the same rules as exp farming.

If you farm for loot and skip normal monsters only stopping on elites, then high enough DPS might slightly favor slightly higher MP level (for example, I calculated I get 6% more loot/hour at MP4 if I skip normal monsters doing VoA+canoyon+arcarnus runs).

If you farm keys (skipping normal monsters, though it is still true to a lesser degree even if you don't skip them), you should basically farm the highest MP level you can survive in most cases. This isn't a perfect rule, though, but for most the optimal MP level in terms of keys/hour will be higher than the one they can survive. If your gear is skewed towards defense, though, don't jump up and raise all the way to MP10 because this "rule" doesn't apply to you.


Of course, you can do the math and see exactly what should work for you. That's exactly what I did (with varying numbers as input) to get these general guidelines, but if you want to know exactly what MP level is optimal for you you will have to do the math yourself for your own data. These aren't really "rules", as they only really apply to what I would consider a reasonably/averagely geared player (not average/reasonable in terms of budget, but rather in terms of how you use your budget), which you may or may not be.

Edited by GalZohar, 07 November 2012 - 11:36 PM.