*Please note, the purpose of this thread it to better help people understand MF, also to cut down the amount of threads being made pretaining or related to MF in any way. I take this thread as a way of effect, meaning if anyone makes a thread related to MF, it should be a VERY well question(meaning it is not covered here)!!! If any threads are made related to MF, and ARE covered here i will be forced to close them!
Happy Mf'ing
*Taken off diabloii.net
Magic Find |Magical | Rares | Set Items|Uniques *
0%| 0%| 0% |0%| 0%
100%|100% |100% | 100%| 100%
150%|150% | 146%| 145%| 141%
200%| 200%| 185%| 183%| 171%
250%| 250%| 220%| 215%| 193%
300%| 300%| 250%| 242%| 211%
400%| 400%| 300%| 287%| 236%
500%| 500%| 340%| 322%| 253%
750%| 750%| 412%| 382%| 280%
1000%|1000%|460%|421%|295%
1200%|1200%|494%|448%|305%
1500%|1500%|520%|468%|312%
* The actual % that is applied towards finding each type of item. Magical is full, Rare/Set/Uniques are less.
How much you want to wear should be based largely on these percentages. More always helps for magical items, so if you have 1000% MF you'll get incredible amounts of blue items. The weapons might be useful, but the odds aren't good. Charms and Jewels are not boosted by your +MF%, so this doesn't help with those. Best way to find more of those is to kill more things. Rares increase pretty well up to 600% MF or so, but Set items really slow down past 400 or 500%. Uniques are much the same, but even worse in the diminishing returns. Notice that from 300% to 1500% only increases your Uniques MF% by 101%.
If you can get to 250-350% that's really all you need, in terms of finding Sets and Uniques at an increased rate. More after that generally doesn't make enough of a difference to be worth the equipment sacrifices, especially if you are playing Hardcore.
In addition to this, many monsters have unequal odds to drop the various qualities of items.
Highest Possible Magic Find
Mercs MF counts for things they kill, and adds to your own. So if you have 300% and your merc has 200%, for merc kills you'll have 500% effective MF. Your kills will just be your MF though, so there's no point in putting MF on your merc unless you let them kill things.
A Merc's maximum MF is: The Act Three Mercs can have the highest MF. Six socketed sword (180%), shield (75%), helm (80%), and armor (147%) on an Act Three Merc for another 482% at most, and for things the Merc killed that would add to your total. Act Three mercs can't get enough strength to equip 4-socket shields (156 Str Monarch is the lightest) without adding Str from other equipment. So while 100% from 4 Ists in a shield is possible, they can't equip that with the other max MF stuff.
A more realistic and easily-obtained total for a Merc is a168%. This is just a 4topaz armor and 3topaz helm, with their normal weapon.
These items are basically impossible to get a hold of, especially the quantity of Ist Runes (#24) needed, but it's a dream list. Don't even consider putting an Ist into Helm or Armor. Perfect Topazes are far far more common, and only 1% less than an Ist. If you get an Ist, save it for a Shield or weapon, or RuneWords, where there is no other way to add MF other than jewels, which add 15% at most.
Thanks to Blizzard for putting together the initial list that our list here elaborates on. This list is current for v1.09. Many of the maximum figures changed (increased), due to changing Unique stats in that patch.
Helm (80%) - All figures with a socketed item use Ist for 25%. Substitute a perfect topaz at 24% in all cases for actual use, you'll never have so many Ist that you use one for just 1% more MF, when Ist are so valuable to trade and are the only way to add MF to shields or weapons. MF Jewels are much harder to find than perfect topaz, and add less, so they aren't options for headgear.
80%: Griswold's Valor (20-30%) + two sockets. (Item has sockets inherently.)
75%: Harlequin Crest (50%), or Tarnhelm (25-50%), or Stealskull (30-50%) + 1 socket.
75%: Magical Fortuitous Circlet of Luck (50%) + 1 socket.
75%: 3 Socketed Helm with 3 Perfect Topaz or Ist Runes. You can use a plain helm with 3 sockets and possibly bonus skills for a Druid or Barbarian. Another option is to find a magical one, "Artisan's" is a prefix that gives 3 sockets, but it can't occur on Circlets, and no +MF suffixes are found on normal helms, or this would be the highest possible. However if you can find an Artisan's with a nice suffix (of the whale?) it would be 3 sockets with a big suffix bonus.
Armor (149%) - All figures with socketed armor use an Ist Rune for 25% for the maximum possible value. Substitute a perfect topaz at 24% in all cases for actual use, you'll never have so many Ist that you use one for just 1% more MF, when Ist are so valuable to trade and are the only way to add MF to shields or weapons. MF Jewels are much harder to find than perfect topaz, and add less, so they aren't options for armor.
149%: Skullder's Ire (52.5-124%, 1.25% per Clvl, 42 minimum) +1 socket, at Clvl 99. 147% for Mercs, since they max at lvl 98.
113%: Tal Rasha's Guardianship (88%) +1 socket. The best bonuses of any MF armor, but extremely hard to find.
100%: Wealth Rune Word Armor (Beats 4[s] armor due to other bonuses, mainly 300% gold.)
100%-96%: Four-socketed Armor with 4 Ist Runes or perfect Topazes. The best possible would be a Jeweler's Armor of the ________. Four sockets, and pick a suffix, such as whale.
Weapon (180% x 2) - Barbarians can dual wield, so count this twice in that case. Ist and jewels are the only ways to add MF to a weapon with sockets.
Ist is 30% in weapons, the best possible jewel is 17%, both are very hard to find. In most cases you'll be able to find 10% or so MF jewels, and it's generally better to just use one of these rather than wait forever hoping to find an Ist, unless you are going to trade for it, or play a lot in hell.
The Blade of Ali Baba and the Gull aren't useful to kill with, unless you are using skills (like a Sorceress or Necromancer) since they don't do enough damage, other than saving them for just the last hit or two. A Barbarian can dual wield with a big damage sword or blunt, using just their normal weapon until the boss is almost dead, then running away to quickly switch to dual wield. Big MF weapons are nice to have for a Barb on the weapon switch also, for better luck when using Find Item.
180%: Six-Socketed Weapon with 6 Ist Runes. Crystal swords can have 6 sockets, and low reqs to equip.
159%: Blade of Ali Baba (99%, 1% MF per Clvl) item comes with two sockets.
130%: Gull (100%) + 1 Socket.
102%: Six-Socketed Weapon with 6 Emerald of Prosperity Jewels (17%) is the best possible without any Ist Runes.
90%: Langer Briser (30-60%) + 1 socket. The best MF with a bow/xbow that doesn't require 6 Ist or MF jewels. (Best used as a weapon switch, to get the killing shot after doing most of the damage with your main bow.)
80%: The Oculus (50%) + 1 socket. This is probably the best Sorceress Orb in the game, so kill the fastest and MF as well.
Shield (100%) - As with other items, Ist Runes are the best, and give 25% MF in shields, but you'll have better luck finding MF jewels. Rhyme is the easiest way to add MF on a shield, and the runes in it are much easier to find than an Ist. The socketed shields are reasonable mix and match, you could put 2 perfect diamonds and 2 Ist into a 4 socket shield, for example, and get good resistance (especially with a Paladin shield that had resistance inherently), while still having 50% MF.
100%: Four-Socket Shield with 4 Ist Runes. (Paladin shields all have up to four sockets, other characters will need a lot of Strength to use the Elite Kite, Tower, or Gothic shields, which can have four sockets also.)
75%: 3 Socket Shield with 3 Ist Runes.
45%: Milabrega's Orb (20%) + 1 socket.
25%: Rhyme Rune Word Shield.
Belts (30%)
30%: Goldwrap, Unique Heavy Belt.
10-15%: Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth. Other items from the set are useful here, since when wearing any three items from the set you get a 65% MF bonus. That on top of the 88% on the armor with one other item can beat out some other item combos, with nice bonuses too. Since only the belt and armor have MF on them, you are wasting either helm, orb, or amulet with 0% MF to do this (though you can socket the helm).
Boots (50%)
50%: War Traveler (30-50%) Unique Battle Boots.
35%: Magic Boots of Luck
34%: Magic Find Rare Boots (No longer possible, only on boots created pre v1.08.)
Gloves (40%)
40%: Chance Guards, Unique Chain Gloves. These are very nice for getting rich, with the MF and also 200% more gold.
34%: Rare Magic Find Gloves (No longer possible, only from pre-v1.08 gloves.)
25%: Magic/Rare Gloves
Amulets (50%)
50%: Magic Fortuitous Amulet of Luck
48%: Rare Amulet (No longer possible, only from pre v1.08.)
40%: Rare Amulet, with good other bonuses this would be the best all around.
78%: Tancred's Weird, with any other 1 item from the set (weapon, armor, helm, boots) the amulet gets a 78% MF bonus. This isn't better than the best possible amulet with the best possible other item of those types, but two items from Tancred's Set is an option. Consider your other equipment options carefully, but keep an eye out for this item and set. The Amulet and boots would give 78%, compared to 75% maximum possible with a v1.09 Rare amulet and Rare boots. You can beat that with older items or unique boots, but those are hard to come by.
Ring (40%) - Feel free to wear two of these.
100%: Constricting Ring (Still not enabled in v1.09.)
40%: Fortuitous Ring of Luck.
32%: Rare Rings (No longer possible, only from v1.08 rings.)
30%: Naglering (15-30%).
25%: Rare Rings.
Charms (280%)
7%: Small Charms. Equip up to 40 of them, but you'd be unable to pick anything up. 36 (252%) you would have room for a Cube to put things into. 35 (245%) for a cube and keys for locked chests. 30 (210%) for a Cube and space for one 3x2 item. If you are going this into +MF, probably easier to have a friend play and pick stuff up for both of you while you kill. It's better to have a 5% mf charm with hps or resistance, etc than a 7% with no other bonus, in most cases.
Maximum possible Magic Find as of v1.09.
180% Weapon
+ 180% Weapon
+ 149% Armor
+ 80% Helm
+ 30% Belt
+ 50% Boots
+ 40% Gloves
+ 40% Ring
+ 40% Ring
+ 50% Amulet
+ 280% Charms = 1124%.
This is Barbarian only, due to the dual wielding weapons. The best for any other character must substitute a 100% shield for the 180% weapon, so 80% less and a total of 1044%. When/if Constricting Rings are ever enabled by Blizzard, you could add 60% per ring for 120% more possible MF or 1244% at most.
Realistic Magic Find Gear
A realistic set up. This doesn't assume any maximum possible values, these are amounts on Rares you can expect to gamble with other good mods, and doesn't require any Ist Runes, and no very hard to find Uniques or Set Items.
100% Armor (Wealth) or 96% 4T Armor
+ 72% Helm (3T or good Tarnhelm + Topaz)
+ 30% Belt (Goldwrap)
+ 15% Ring (Rare with good mods, just one ring counted)
+ 15% Amulet (Rare)
+ 20% Boots (Rare)
+ 30% Gloves (Chance Guards)
+ 19% Charms = 300%
This can be done with just 3 or 4 small Charms, or a couple and 10% Grand, etc. Note that nothing is counted from weapon or shield, since most characters have those all for damage and resistance. Rhyme (25% MF) is a nice shield if you are using a one-handed weapon, and with this set up you can be still nearly full killing power, with good resistances and hit points, etc. You can easily add 10% or more per item with slightly better Rares, so do your own math. Around 300% is a nice number, due to the steep diminishing returns you get as you move up past 200%, though the increase is still good up to 500% or so.