Tips for farming / Magic Finding

I see so many threads with people saying they aren't finding anything, so I figured we can give a few tips. Feel free to add to any of the ones I'm listing:


1) You have to farm the highest content area's. I see so many people saying they farm Dominus or Peity and don't find anything. Well ya, no #%$&. If you made a game, would you make the good drops come from mediocre level monsters? I have no stats to back it up, but it would make sense that the higher game content you do the higher your odds of finding the good items. Farm at least lvl 73 and above maps, and preferably 75+ or Atziri runs.


2) More magic find is not always better. 400% IIR does nothing for you if you can't kill fast. There is always a trade off between more IIR / IIQ, and killing speed. Sometimes it's best to go with 100% and be able to farm 76 and above maps, rather than have 400% and just be able to do Dominus runs. I have found my ideal level is 60% IIQ / 130% IIR. This lets me do all the high content areas quickly, and I still get tonnes of drops.


3) Item Quantity is better than Item Rarity. Sometimes it's best to give up those items that have 40 or 50% item rarity, and put on some that have 10 or 15% item quantity.


4) Use a character that can use 1 gem slot for an Item Quantity gem. If this is the only expensive item you buy, it's worth it. It's the single best item at a reasonable price. (you don't need the 20%, that's just gravy) Don't pick a farming character that needs all gem slots for boosting damage. There's plenty of good farming characters that can kill fast enough and still have room for


5) Use your chance orbs. Over the course of your time playing the game, you'll likely chance one, maybe two items. So always use them as you find them, on things like occulist vestiment, gavels, agate amulets, prophecy wands, etc. Anything that sells for more than 20 EX, chance those mofo's. Eventually you'll get lucky.


6) Don't waste too much time trading low value crap. Sell your items you don't need as you find them. Don't try to milk every last f'ing chaos out of them. Move them out, get the currency, so you can convert that currency into a better character that can farm more efficiently. In the long run giving up a bit of value in your sell prices


7) It's all random man ! There are some people who farm for a year and find almost nothing. Others will get a shavs in their first month. There's no conspiracy against you personally if you aren't finding any items. Random is random. If you're doing everything right, time and patience is all you need.



Feel free to add more

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VixTrader wrote:

1) You have to farm the highest content area's. I see so many people saying they farm Dominus or Peity and don't find anything. Well ya, no #%$&. If you made a game, would you make the good drops come from mediocre level monsters? I have no stats to back it up, but it would make sense that the higher game content you do the higher your odds of finding the good items. Farm at least lvl 73 and above maps, and preferably 75+ or Atziri runs.

I agree with most everything you posted except this. The fastest way to build wealth is to farm Dominus. It's so much better than MF farming maps that it's silly. You can kill dominus once every ~3-4 minutes if you know what you're doing and if you do the un-ID'd chaos recipe, you'll gain wealth faster than any other method.

Farming maps is better for your sanity, though, since you're actually playing the game.

A couple other tips:
** Use the Chaos/Regal recipe all the time. You should devote a stash tab or two to it.

** Be careful about spending a lot of currency on your MF gear, especially when purchasing legacy IIQ gear. If you have the option of picking up an amulet with 35% IIR for 10 chaos or a 50% IIR 20% IIQ amulet for 40 exalts, the latter option IS NOT WORTH IT. You always have to ask "how long will it take for this item to pay for itself?" Most MF gear that is more expensive than ~5 exalts or so is not worth it.

** Consider picking this up and slotting it as shown in order to cull bosses:

"

The fastest way to build wealth is to farm Dominus. It's so much better than MF farming maps that it's silly.

If you're doing higher level maps, every blue pack, every rare monster, every rogue exile, every map boss is going to have the chance to drop the good stuff. With Dom runs most of the run is wasted on monsters with lower odds of good drops.

In the long run, MF'ing higher content always wins. Dom occasionally drops something decent, but for the most part it's crappy mid and low level uniques. You'll get a crap tonne of those. But if you want stuff that actually sells, 75+ maps !

"

VixTrader wrote:

"

The fastest way to build wealth is to farm Dominus. It's so much better than MF farming maps that it's silly.

If you're doing higher level maps, every blue pack, every rare monster, every rogue exile, every map boss is going to have the chance to drop the good stuff. With Dom runs most of the run is wasted on monsters with lower odds of good drops.

In the long run, MF'ing higher content always wins. Dom occasionally drops something decent, but for the most part it's crappy mid and low level uniques. You'll get a crap tonne of those. But if you want stuff that actually sells, 75+ maps !

Who of you is right?

Early on in temp leagues, there may be significant wealth to be found by mapping at a high level and trying to sell rares, just because everyone's gear is awful. However, in Standard, this is foolish and untrue, and anyone is free to test it for themselves. It's extremely uncommon to find a rare that will sell for more than an exalt or two, and even moreso that the rare is valuable because it has an affix that is ilvl 71+.

You don't make money in this game primarily by selling rares. In order, this is how you build wealth while MF-ing
1a) un-ID Chaos Recipe (Regal if 75+)
1b) Sell rares for Alts; sell Alts/Jew/Fuse for Exalts
2) Selling inexpensive/common uniques and rares (everything worth 1 ex or less).
3) Selling expensive/uncommon uniques and rares (everything worth 2+ exalts)

Yes, the best rare drops are possible in the highest level maps. However, this is not an appreciable or reliable source of your income. So in the long run, you wind up being better off killing Dominus.

You've got just as much chance of Dominus dropping a Shavs as you do a 78 map dropping something with 4+ high value T1/map-only affixes.

I agree with people saying high level maps are not the way to go. In bloodlines I eventually accumulated over 200 level 66 maps. I then decided to make a character that can fastly and safely clear them while wearing all 4 of the available IIQ items. I then proceeded to run them all white (with 7% IIQ from zana).

I was able to clear them extremely quick, tropical island in just like 3-4 min for example. Also, don't forget that level 66 is the first zone you can farm without a quantity penalty when over leveled. Dominus farming may be slightly better, but I found this method way more enjoyable, and still very good. In addition to the ton of rares I found, my high IIQ gave me so many extra orb drops. That was my real goal, since there's no hassle involved like when selling items, it's direct currency.

"

You don't make money in this game primarily by selling rares. In order, this is how you build wealth while MF-ing
1a) un-ID Chaos Recipe (Regal if 75+)
1b) Sell rares for Alts; sell Alts/Jew/Fuse for Exalts
2) Selling inexpensive/common uniques and rares (everything worth 1 ex or less).
3) Selling expensive/uncommon uniques and rares (everything worth 2+ exalts)

- Higher level maps drop better uniques, due to more high level monsters being killed per run (boss, high level rares / blues, and rogue exiles / monsters from beyond)

- Higher level maps drop more rares to be used in chaos recipe simply due to sheer number of monsters killed in a very short period of time, and more of them being level 75 or higher to get Regals instead of Chaos.

- Higher level maps drop more orbs and currencies, again, simply due to far more monsters being killed in a much shorter period of time, with item quantity mods being implicit on the map.



So yeah, maybe YOU are a Dominus runner. And maybe you've even had success doing it, that's great. But see my last point, random is random. Just because it's worked for you, doesn't mean that's true.


Map running kills far more monsters, higher level monsters, faster, quicker, and more efficiently than Dominus runs. You'd have to have a serious aversion to basic math not to see that maps are simply better from a probability perspective.

No offense :)

"

VixTrader wrote:

5) Use your chance orbs. Over the course of your time playing the game, you'll likely chance one, maybe two items. So always use them as you find them, on things like occulist vestiment, gavels, agate amulets, prophecy wands, etc. Anything that sells for more than 20 EX, chance those mofo's. Eventually you'll get lucky.

just to highlight that chancing agate amulets should only be done while running a map with onslaught through zana otherwise you are wasting your chance orbs :)

otherwise great post, thanks!
I definitely prefer running maps to endless dominus runs, not done dominus runs long enough to comment on which is more efficient, but doing maps allows me to keep a small degree of sanity... maybe


still undecided though whether I am better off running lower level maps that I can kill everything quickly with difficult mods and a high %IIQ or harder maps with lower IIQ ...
currently preferring lower level maps as I am not too bothered about the handful of uniques I cannot get that way.

Randomness is the only real point in my opinion.
Been playing the game for a bit more than 2 years now.farming for months with MF toon with 400iir/150iiq...tried map 75-78..nothing..dominus..nothing.

My best best drop ever is a drillneck...It popped while I was levelling a toon without any IIQ/IIR in cruel end of act 2 If I remember well.

On another side I am in a small guild and there s been at least 5 shav dropped. All of them dropped on map 66-69.

I am not complaining it s the game. When I say nothing dropped I was talking about GG items.
Best way to farm for me is 80iiq/140iir whit my TS toon , good clear speed and do Chaos/regal/6s recipes and sell all the yellow to vendor for small currencies.

Cheers

"

Kenshiro069 wrote:

Randomness is the only real point in my opinion.
Been playing the game for a bit more than 2 years now.farming for months with MF toon with 400iir/150iiq...tried map 75-78..nothing..dominus..nothing.

My best best drop ever is a drillneck...It popped while I was levelling a toon without any IIQ/IIR in cruel end of act 2 If I remember well.

On another side I am in a small guild and there s been at least 5 shav dropped. All of them dropped on map 66-69.

I am not complaining it s the game. When I say nothing dropped I was talking about GG items.
Best way to farm for me is 80iiq/140iir whit my TS toon , good clear speed and do Chaos/regal/6s recipes and sell all the yellow to vendor for small currencies that will be traded for bigger one.

Cheers