MF builds in 2.6

I am fairly new to POE, but I played a bit during Breach. Most of the time I spent experimenting with MFing and it was good enough up to T11. But then survavibility and dps became and issue. So my questions are:

1. Is it even viable to try and make MF build to run Shaper/Ubers/T13-T15.
2. Are there any starter builds and how far it's possible to run with it in new league, is there potential to upgrade later on when market allows it.
3. In Legacy League would it be profitable to run MF for lower maps(1-11)? In Breach towards the end it was almost pointless except for currency drops and chaos recipe. I am not very familiar with previous leagues, so I can't tell if there is profit to find.

I don't mind building several characters to run different content, if it means I can run MF efficiently in end game.

MF itself is not really a viable strategy, if by MF you mean stacking IIQ/IIR. In PoE the real IIQ/IIR stats are... anything that ups your clear speed. IIR and IIQ are pretty weak next to the loot multiplier than is CLEAR SPEED. The droprates of t1 uniques, exalts, etc. are so low that MF stats are basically negligible, regardless of how much you get.

I see, thank you for clarification. My train of thought was that with MF it would be possible to sustain endgame maps and drop more uniques from fewer runs - thus saving on maps/fragments/currency in the long run.

In my experience there are only two useful ways to use MF in current meta.

1. Have a switchweapon setup with MF on it, Culling Strike and Item Rarity Support. If you then have some MF here and there on gear (for example Eye of Chayula) you can stack a bit of MF but it is only for the bosskills of course.

2. You can make a char stacking alot of MF and then either keep the char lowlevel (~68) and run Dried Lake or get some more levels and run low to mid tier maps. This makes sense if you want to go chaos recipes and have a lot of stash tabs.

Besides of that I had the feeling that you get more unique drops with a good MF setup but as it was already said here clearspeed/higher map tiers are way more efficient

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kamisama07 wrote:

I see, thank you for clarification. My train of thought was that with MF it would be possible to sustain endgame maps and drop more uniques from fewer runs - thus saving on maps/fragments/currency in the long run.

Map drops actually ignore your MF stats. Only %IIQ on the map itself (not your personal MF from gear etc.) affects it. (So the quant bonus that maps roll inherently, but not any quant on your gear).

If you don't care about xp, you can lower the map tier you run and put mf on basically any build. Currency and most uniques don't care much about map tiers, and very few rare items get picked up nowadays. With the leaguestones, this can be very profitable. You run the leagues with good drops on your mf characer (Nemesis mainly).

MFing Shaper/Uber doesn't make much sense, you run those bosses for their unique drops which are unaffected. MFing Uber trash might be a thing though, density is very high and there are some good card drops iirc.

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Vinc_EU wrote:

In my experience there are only two useful ways to use MF in current meta.

1. Have a switchweapon setup with MF on it, Culling Strike and Item Rarity Support. If you then have some MF here and there on gear (for example Eye of Chayula) you can stack a bit of MF but it is only for the bosskills of course.

2. You can make a char stacking alot of MF and then either keep the char lowlevel (~68) and run Dried Lake or get some more levels and run low to mid tier maps. This makes sense if you want to go chaos recipes and have a lot of stash tabs.

Besides of that I had the feeling that you get more unique drops with a good MF setup but as it was already said here clearspeed/higher map tiers are way more efficient

I agree with what you say here except for keeping your MF Dried Lake Farmer below lvl 68. Not necessary. All instances above 68 treat your char as though it is lvl 68 for drops. So no loot penalty for farming lvl 68 area at lvl 90. There is an xp penalty but seeing it is a MF for drops then who cares.