Am I wasting my time raising magic find?

[Gladeye.3789]

My son makes fun of me, because he says magic find doesn't affect much. I've got mine to 96% and it's easy enough to boost with foods, but what does magic find affect, and how much does it affect it, anyway? Do I have any advantages for my efforts?

[Randulf.7614]

It's a very difficult to measure statistic because at 100-200 it's mostly anecdotal. I'd say my drops did improve approaching 150+, but again I have no data to back it up beyond "feels".

Where it becomes a bit more noticeable is stacked with buffs, especially during Lunar New Year and you go into the high hundreds of MF.

To be honest, I wouldn't worry about it too much - just let it accumulate naturally. The average player will unlikely ever notice any difference as they raise and the advantages are pretty minimal nowadays

[Black Frog.9274]

its not a waste and its easy to do permanently. salvage everything and consume all that luck. i hover around 398. i don't get much in the way of trash. like all RNG it's an average over time thing.

[Trise.2865]

Drop Rate odds are tricky things to really notice, but Magic Find very much does affect the type and quality of drops, as well as type and quality of certain clearly-marked bundle pulls, such as the Unidentified Gear, and most notably the Red Envelope packages (during Lunar New Year).

Does Magic Find do anything? Yes. There is a definitive mathematical advantage gained by having higher Magic Find.

Am I wasting my time raising it? Kind-of? The amount of time "saved" by obtaining rarer drops will be barely noticeable. But, given the nature of randomized drops, it is very unlikely anyone would have noticed it either way, because the focus will always be on the drop itself and not the time or resources spent. Conversely, Luck boosts are so ridiculously easy to obtain that there is little point NOT using them. (Although they can be combined using the Artificer discipline for a nice, early boost to crafting levels and XP, with no loss in total Luck gained.)

[Blocki.4931]

It's a waste to spend tons of gold on it imo. It's more of a natural process. Currently I'm at 250% baseline, just from the normal salvaging gear and sometimes excess ecto when it was at the lowest price.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

tl;dr yes, it's worth boosting MF. However, I don't recommend spending a lot of extra time or coin on it. Your MF will increase over time regardless, simply by playing the game. There are things you can do that will boost your base MF and are worth doing in their own right.

The two main things to know are:

• You won't ever be able to see the effect on your own loot, because we get so little loot on a daily basis. It takes 1000-2000 pieces of data to really notice.
• The effect is substantial in the long run. Someone running at base MF of 300% for three years will end up with substantial more value than someone running with base 0% for the same period.

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@"Randulf.7614" said:It's a very difficult to measure statistic because at 100-200 it's mostly anecdotal. I'd say my drops did improve approaching 150+, but again I have no data to back it up beyond "feels".Actually, it's been measured. When MF still affected unID gear, someone went and collected data on 1000s of pieces and it's very clear that +100% MF makes a substantial difference. In particular, for blue/fine unID gear with around 850% Magic Find, blue/fine gear no longer drops; it's all masterwork or better.

The change in drop rate was measured to be linear, so would be half as good as 850%, by comparison to 0%.

In addition, people ran controlled studies when the game was relatively new and people had 0% base MF, with all additional MF coming from gear or food (not much in the way of other boosts). The results of those studies were similar, although (a) there was a lot less data, (b) it was based solely on loot from kills (which comes with its own set of measurement issues), and © they were only able to run with up to ~300% MF.

what does magic find affect, and how much does it affect it, anyway?If affects what drops you get from killing foes and for a fraction of other drops, that isn't worth getting into (for the purposes of this thread).

In brief, when the game decides that you are getting a drop, it (figuratively) rolls the dice for you and chooses from a list, based on what number you get. Lower numbers: you draw from the junk drawer. Higher number: you draw from the rare bin. Astronomically high number: you get a drop to write home about. In effect, MF increases that number, meaning that your chances of getting junk go down.

Do I have any advantages for my efforts?Yes.However, I don't recommend going out of your way to boost it. If you describe what things you are doing, I can offer advice on whether that's a good use of your time.In general, I think most players are better off doing things that are fun, and spending less time distracted by min-maxing salvage or inventory maintenance etc.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Further Reading

Testifye's research into the impact of MF on unID gear (to save time, you can look at just the charts)