This is a quick guide to magic find, especially designed for newbie magic finders, or single players magic finders, cause I was one of the firsts, and am still one of the seconds.

That's why I won't consider you have an IST rune : even if rune drops have nothing to do with magic find, I consider that a newbie magic finder hasn't got any items to trade for an IST rune. I also do not consider that a newbie magic finder has the courage to do endless Countess runs to find one by his own. Last but not least, I must say that in my thousands bosses runs, I've never found any IST rune, even if I've found two MAL runes. So this guide explains how to do correct magic finds without this rune.

Note : If you do have an IST runes or several, put them in sockets instead of the p-topazes I recommend in this guide, that's obvious (only put IST runes in your top-end gear. 3 IST runes in a Griswold's Heart is a sacrilege : don't put it in another armour than Skullder's Ire). It may also be possible that you are a single player and have found an IST rune : please don't reproach me for being much less lucky than you !

I don't know if such a guide has been made on this forum or elsewhere. I've only tried to gather some information and personal tips about magic find. Some of the information contained may sound obvious to many people here (items providing %MF for example), but I think it's always good to sum up some obvious things before going further.

Why do we do magic find ? Because of all those wonderful items which drive us : Windforce, The Grandfather, The Cranium Basher, Natalya's Set, The Oculus, Jalal's Mane, Trang Oul's Set... and a whole lotta more. Led'z go !

THE MAGIC FINDER GEAR

Note : I will only discuss about 1.09 items. In 1.08 version of the game, other rare-magic items gave other % MF. If you have 1.08 ammys-rings-gloves-boots better than your 1.09 items, use them.

GLOVES

No need to ramble here, THE gloves for magic finders are the Chance Guards (25%-40% MF). No way to get better than this.

You can also use 25% MF rare or magic gloves, but for your own "prestige", try to find perfect or near-perfect Chance Guards.

HELM : three candidates for your headgear...

Harlequin Crest : the Elite Unique Shako has always 50% MF. Its life improvement (which will make the magic finder stay alive longer) and +2 to skills (which will make him or her a bit more powerful) makes it an overall very good helm. The additional mana for the magic find sorceress will be helpful, since she won't wear her complete increasing mana gear as usually.

Stealskull : between 30% and 50% MF. A great helm for his 5% dual leech, interesting for barbarians-assassins-amazons-druids magic finders, because they can leech on the helm, and wear two MF rings. IAS and FHR don't hurt, too. Sorceresses had better use Harlequin Crest, for the mana reason exposed above (I would say that, although Harlequin Crest is an elite unique item, it's not extremely hard to find one on Hell Mephisto).

Tarnhelm : between 25% and 50 % MF. It's not a dishonour to wear that helm for magic find, provided it's perfect :-).

It goes without saying that the magic finder will socket his helm with a perfect topaz, to reach at maximum 74% MF on it.

There is also a fourth helm to do the job : Griswold's Valor (20-30% MF, with two sockets : you can add 48% with two p-topazes). But since this item is very hard to find, I haven't taken it into account, as I haven't taken into account the 3-IST socketed helm solution...

ADDED (after Maticora's reply#6) : The cheap solution, for those who haven't got one of the items aforementionned, is to use a 2 or 3 sockets helm, and put p-topazes in it. 48% or 72%, cheap but efficient.

ARMOUR

As you begin as a magic finder, try to find an armour with 2-3-4 sockets, and put perfect topazes in it. If you have an elite non-magical armour, by socketing it with Larzuk's reward (act 5 1st quest), you will always have the maximum sockets on it, that is to say 4 : 4*24% = 96% MF. Good deal.

Griswold's Heart : if you have this one and don't have a 4-sockets armour or a Wealth, you should use it. 3 sockets on it, which means 72%MF with 3 p-topazes. This armour also provides a good defense, useful if you are a melee character. I began serious magic find runs with that armour, that's why I mention it.

Wealth runeword armour : Lem+Ko+Tir (runes not that hard to find) on a 3-socket armour, and it's 100% MF, no less no more.

Tal Rasha's Guardianship : OK, 88% MF on it, and you can reach 112% MF with the classic p-topaz socketing. But you will admit it's not the easiest armour to find in the game, thus it won't suit the magic find newbie as a choice, unless he had an insane luck, or he received it as a gift.

Skullder's Ire : armour designed for high level magic finders. The + to %MF depends on character level (1.25 per clvl). And so it begins... to be better than Tal Rasha's Guardianship at level 90 and better than a Wealth armour at level 80. With a topaz in it, the cut-offs are level 71 to beat Tal Rasha's Armour, and 61 to beat a wealth armour. In my opinion, it's the top end magic find armour of all classes magic finders (except maybe the sorceress).

BELT

She is blue, she is beautiful, she is useful, "blutiseful" as I say. She is Goldwrap. 30% MF, and - we often forget that - 10% increased attack speed. The only drawback of this belt is that it has only 12 slots. But if you die with 12 rejuvenation potions, you won't probably stay alive with 4 more potions : your problem may be elsewhere. Notice that only the elite unique belt Nosferatu's Coil can provide 10% IAS too. Speedazons, here are your two targets as a belt.

Tal Rasha's Belt provides between 10-15% MF. Sorceresses, more than other classes, would benefit from the partial set bonus by using Tal Rasha's Armour (88% MF) + Tal Rasha's Belt (10-15% MF) + Tal Rasha's Ammy (no MF but +2 to sorceress skill levels and +to life and mana) hence an additional 65% MF = about 170-180 % MF in three items. BUT you have to put a hand on Tal Rasha's Armour, one of these Elite Set Armour so hard to find...

SHIELD

There is no impressive magic find shield, except if you have 4 or 3 IST runes...

Rhyme runeword provides 25% MF, and "cannot be frozen", very useful to other characters than the sorceress or necromancer (?) : the sorceress' and the necromancer's (?) casting speed won't be affect while she or he (?) is frozen, whereas other classes weapon's attacks will be dramatically slow down. If you are a melee character using a shield and want to do magic find, rhyme shield is the best choice, unless additional 25% MF isn't worth regarding to your % MF. Obviously, try to do a rhyme runeword on a shield with the most % blocking possible, that won't hurt.

Milabrega's Orb provides 20% MF. Quite easy to find.

WEAPON

Weapons and tips for magic find Barbarians

If you play a barbarian, the most you can get on your weapons (except an almost impossible 2*6 IST sword - I said in introduction I won't take IST into account) is two Gull daggers (100% MF on each). But to be honest, with such weapons, you will face difficulties even to finish a monster in hell mode.

More reasonable would be to wear two Blades of Ali Baba : the magic find on each will be the same as your character level. What you could do to handle bosses (such as Mephisto, Baal,...) more easily is to begin killing them with your powerful weapons, as usually, then switch to dual Ali Baba's some hits before they die. If you are very powerful and not very aware, sometimes, you'll kill the boss with your powerful setup, not your magic find one. Never mind ! You should know that trying to kill a 100% healthy boss with your two Ali Baba's will be long, and you may encounter some problems of mana leech while doing your whirlwinds. Even with sword mastery maxed (I don't talk about barbarians not specialized in swords...), you won't make huge damage. Try it, and see by yourself if you can cope with it.

Another thing you can do, if you don't want to be worried about switching weapons at the proper time, and if you want to go faster in your runs, is wearing your most powerful weapon in your right hand (on the left of your character's screen), and the Gull or Ali Baba's on the other hand. You will kill bosses quite fast (and "fast runs" means "more runs in a day"), you'll have an average magic find on your weapons but won't face leeching issues due to low damage. Also, if you decide to use berserk sometimes, you will do it with your right hand (automatically), that is to say with your most powerful weapon, so that you won't be exposed (0 defense) too long. I saw this technique on my neighbour's barbarian (SoBerserk, on this forum) : he tried all these techniques (2 Ali Baba's, switching, and powerful sword&Gull), and the last one seems to be the less annoying, without being inefficient in terms of magic finds. This technique has the advantage to work on any barbarian except polearms or spears barbarians, since most of the damage comes from your usual weapon (2-handed maces barbarians may either use a 1-hand mace and Gull, or use the switching method). Therefore, barbarians who have not developed sword mastery won't suffer from low damage by using this technique.

Other classes weapons

Sorceresses will try to get an Oculus (50% MF) : but as I said before for other items, the Oculus is one of the goal of magic finders. You are not supposed to have it as a newbie. Sure if you have it by any way, use it ! Another item to do the job is Skull collector : the % MF on it is equal to your character level ; this staff provides +2 to all skill levels, increases mana and gives +20 to mana after each kill. No problem of mana for a sorceress wearing this staff. Sorceresses can also do fine with the combination rhyme shield (or Milabrega's Orb) + unique dagger Gull. Weapon switching can also be an option for sorceresses.

There is no magic find items especially designed for necromancers, assassins or druids, IIRC. These classes may use the switching weapon technique just before to kill the boss, with the same old weapons (Gull, Ali Baba's...) and shields quoted above.

Amazons (especially bowazons) may use Langer Briser : this unique arbalest provides 30-60% MF, and knockback, which is useful to keep the monsters at a safe distance. But this weapon doesn't have a good damage, even with guided arrow : switching weapons may be unavoidable if you really want to benefit from its % MF improvement (begin with your best bow or crossbow, and finish the boss with Langer Briser).

Of course, you can use Langer Briser with a druid or an assassin (why not a sorceress or a necromancer if she can wear it), but that may look strange... However, feeling a bit ridiculous may not stop you as a magic finder :-).

RINGS

You may want to use a good %MF Nagelring : 15-30% MF.

You could also find or gamble a magic fortuitous ring of fortune, up to 40% MF. But the combination of these two affixes may be hard to get. Simple rings of fortune can reach 25% MF, that may be a good choice too.

If your class can leech and more than that, must leech, you will maybe use only one MF ring, to have leech on the other one. Unless you find a rare ammy with mana leech and % MF, or wear a dual leech helm (Stealskull for example, as quoted above, which provides % MF too).

AMMY

No unique or set ammy* to improve magic find... You'll search or gamble for Magic Fortuitous amulets of Luck (up to 50% MF, but the prefix-suffix combination is hard to get), or more simply up to 35% MF magic-rare amulet ("of luck" suffix).

BOOTS

War Travelers : 30%-50% MF. Prestige boots for the magic finder.

Cow King's boots : 25% MF, good boots too.

If you don't have those, gamble or search for Magic Boots of Luck (up to 35% MF).

* There is a way to do better than the combination of War Traveler + Amulet of luck, if both of them are far to be perfect (50% + 50% = 100% MF). I realized it while I was new on this forum, in a discussion between Jiroster (who had just found his perfect 50% War Traveler - and was doing his "short but significant dance to celebrate it") and Magnus, congratulating him about that drop. The topic was named "Chance Guards", IIRC. Magnus said Tancred Ammy + another item of Tancred's set would give 78% MF. A good combination is Tancred's Ammy + Tancred's Boot, you gain 30% faster run walk on the boots and 78% MF.

There are other combinations of 2 or 3 set items that improve % MF, but Tancred's is the best one. We could quote :

Vidala's Ammy : 50% MF with another item of the set.
Arcanna's Ammy : 50% MF with another item of the set.
Sigon's Boots : 50% MF with 2 other items of the set.
Angelic Ammy : 50% with the ring Angelic Halo and 2 other items of the set.
Arctic's Belt : 40% MF with another item of the set.
Cathan's Ammy : 25% MF with 2 other items of the set (not worth, IMO).
You could even combine the benefits of these partial set bonuses. That would be useless to high level magic find characters, but very useful to low-level magic find characters.

Note about low level magic find runs

What is the point of doing low-level magic find runs ? Simple : find low level set or unique items in normal mode that will be hard to find on Nightmare or Hell. For example, with 0% MF, the unique Cap Biggin's Bonnet can be dropped in Normal mode by the Cow King (about 0.41% chance), Coldcrow or Bishibosh (0.12% chance) or the Countess (0.07% chance). In Nightmare mode, the best chance to have it is on Mephisto, and the chance is about 0.007%, and almost the same in Hell mode. To give you an idea, the chance to drop Arkaine's Valor on Mephisto Hell is 0.001%. The difference is that you won't make as many efforts to find Biggin's Bonnet as you will make to find Arkaine's Valor. However, Biggin's Bonnet can be useful to a low level character, or for those who (like me) want to make a collection of unique and set items. So think about it : if you are also searching for low level set-unique items, do it in normal mode as often as you can. With all your new builds, kill the quest bosses with magic find gear, who knows... If you are addicted to magic find, you can even try to do Normal Coldcrow runs with 500% MF with your level 90 character : try to beat Coldcrow bare-fisted, that would be more fair for her :-).

MAGIC FIND FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q : I find more items with my 0% MF character than with my magic find character : I wonder what the point of magic find is ??????

A : The more magic find, the better. Always. If you do find more magic-rare-set-unique items on your non magic-find-oriented characters, it's pure luck. As you play with your "normal" characters, you don't expect wonderful drops : that's why you will easily remember when you find a good item with those characters. Whereas with your magic find character, you do endless runs, each time expecting an item you don't have to drop, and you will more easily remember your worst drops, or your 100 consecutive runs without a single unique on Mephisto. What I try to explain is that drops depend on your % magic find, but also - not say mainly - on PURE LUCK. To force luck, you may do a lot of runs, and trying to have the most magic find possible while doing these numerous runs is never a bad idea.

Q : I've made hundreds of runs on Mephisto, I haven't found any unique item. Am I damned ?

A : No you are not. First, check your % MF and try to have a minimum of 300% MF. I feel good with 450-500% MF, and the drops are rarely disappointing with such a % MF. If you do have such a % MF and still can't find anything, don't give up : sometimes, even Mephisto himself drop nothing. My worst drop on him was made of a chipped diamond and a magic ring, nothing more, even if I had 500 %MF. I had other similar crappy drops. Had I give up ? No. Have I found Arkaine's Valor ? Yes. Don't give up, NEVER. I'm not sure you'll find Arkaine's Valor too, but I'm sure that you will find at least the wonderful item that will make you go on and find more and more. And that drop, you won't forget it.

Q : I've checked that Nightmare Mephisto dropped me good stuff, whereas Hell Mephisto was very greedy with me. May I do endless Nightmare Mephisto runs from now on ?

A : For the reason why you didn't find good items on hell Mephiso, see the previous answer. The reason why you found good stuff on Nightmare Mephisto is that Nightmare Mephisto have also good chance to drop good stuff. Nightmare Mephisto can even have a better chance to drop some exceptional unique item than Hell Mephisto : for example, Buriza-do Kyanon has 0.0407% chance to drop on Hell Mephisto with 0%MF. The chance is 0.0418% on Nightmare Mephisto. The difference is slim, but it's here. Also consider that the more magic find you have, the more that difference will grow (by the same factor).
BUT keep in mind that Hell Mephisto can drop elite unique items that Nightmare Mephisto can't drop. If you are searching for these top-end items as well as other exceptional items, I'll suggest to do your runs on Hell Mephisto. If your character hasn't reach hell yet, or isn't enough powerful for magic find runs on Hell Mephisto, you can do Nightmare Mephisto until you find the items that will make you be more powerful (Buriza, the Oculus...). Then, I advise you to do Hell runs, unless you only want to find exceptional items and want to do your runs quicker. But during the time it will take to find the exceptional item your are searching for, you could find an elite unique/set on Hell Mephisto that you won't be able to have in Nightmare. Think about it.

Q : I've checked that, when I don't find anything in my magic find runs and regenerate maps, I begin finding more items. Is it normal ?

A : Sincerely, I don't know. In my opinion, it's a magic finder trick, such as rabbit legs or horseshoes. Magic finders have their tricks, you could have yours. When you find nothing at all and begin to worry about it, you could regenerate the maps, reinstall the game, take off your Chance Guards and put them again, or whatever. If you feel better doing it, do it. But I really don't think it changes the way items are dropped by the game.

Q : Is it worth doing magic find runs on bosses in players 8 ?

A : Since players 8 only decreases the chance of no drop, and since a boss rarely drops nothing, you can kill bosses in 1x, it will be fine. I've made about a thousand of runs on Hell Mephisto players 8. I found good items, true. When I learned it wouldn't have made a huge difference doing this in players 1, I tried it in 1x, found similar items, and even better ones. Why ? Because the most important thing for magic find boss runs is the number of runs you do. More runs, more items. A run in players 8 with a magic find character could also be long, and dangerous. It is to notice that you will find more magic-rare-set-unique items in players 8 on normal monsters, since they will have a less chance to drop nothing. This difference is almost invisible on bosses. If you do magic find runs in the Cow level, do it in players 8 mode, you will surely find more items (drop improvements on Cows will be visible). During my runs, I've also checked that the Council (act 3) drops more coloured items in players 8 than in players 1.
To sum up, for big act bosses (Mephisto, Baal, Diablo), players 1 will be enough. For all other monsters, players 8 will be more profitable.

Q : I play a barbarian with 2 weapons : one without magic find, the other with magic find (Gull, Ali Baba's). Is my MF on my Gull taken into account when I make the killing blow with my other weapon ?

A : A ll the magic find your have on all the items you wear stacks, and is taken into account when you kill a monster, even if not with your weapon MF weapon. For example, if you wear Gull dagger and a colossus sword in the other hand, and finish Baal with your fool's colossus blade (using berserk for example, with that hand), the magic find on Gull will be counted. Although attack rating will be different from your two weapons (between your fool's colossus sword and gull, no match, you can check it on your character screen), I think magic find of the two weapons will stack to give your overall % MF.
Obviously, the magic find improvement on your secondary weapons' set will not stack : if you wear two Ali Baba's as a secondary set and kill the boss with your primary weapons' set, the magic find on Ali Baba's won't stack.

Q : In a multiplayer game, do all % MF of all characters add ? What about mercenaries ?

A : The %MF applied to the drop is the one of the player who makes the killing blow. That's why you may let the player with the most %MF kill bosses if you do multiplayer runs.
As for mercenaries, their %MF is not added to yours if you make a kill. However, if your mercenary makes the killing blow, his %MF is added to yours to determine what will drop. Therefore you could equip a mercenary with a Shako, a Wealth Armour and let him kill the bosses to improve your overall %MF. But this may be horribly long if your mercenary is not very high level, and doesn't wear a powerful weapon. It will make you lose time in your runs, too. If you decide to do this, I suggest you use Act 1 Rogue mercenary, and equip her with a good bow (Godstrike Arch, Cruel bow...- she can't wear a crossbow so neither Buriza, nor Langer Briser), a Wealth Armour and a Shako (for example). Try not to kill the boss before her, and try to keep her alive : make the boss focus on you rather than on your mercenary. This additional magic find from your merc will be useless if you ever have a good % Mf (400% or more), IMO. If your runs are much slower with your merc, you'd better do them alone : more magic find yes, but not at the price of such an additional time to do your runs.

Q : Is there a delay for the magic find to be count when I switch from my powerful weapons' set to my magic find weapons' set ?

A : No. Do you wonder if there is a delay for your attack rating when you switch from a cruel colossus sword (with no attack rating bonus) to a rare colossus sword with fool's ? When you look at your character screen, your stats, damage, attack rating, resistances...etc... change immediately when you switch your weapons. Why would it be different for your %MF, because it's not displayed ?
I guess you asked this because you worry about your recently bad drops... Am I right ? If such is the case, see the answer to the question above : "I've made hundreds of runs on Mephisto, I haven't found any unique item. Am I damned ?".

Q : I'm searching for a Buriza for months, doing endless magic find runs. I've found a lot of valuable items, but I still haven't found what I'm looking for. Could someone explain me that ?

A : If I had to give you an advice, that would be not to expect finding a precise item when you do your runs. The game will drop what "he" wants, no matter what YOU want : be philosophical about it. Try to do your runs without thinking about what you expect from them, although it's hard to forget why you do your runs... There is no reason why the game hasn't dropped your Buriza : the game doesn't know your bowazon would die for this item. Do more runs, never lose hope, don't think about it. If it still doesn't drop, you'll probably have enough items to trade for one.

Q : I want to have more magic find on my character, but I can't change any items on my gear, and I don't want to sacrifice my charms. What should I do ? A : You have no choice, if you really want to improve your magic find again, you have to make sacrifices. If your class allows it (especially bowazons), you don't have to have your resistances maxed, just avoid bosses missiles and keep a good leech/damage to stay alive. Put as many %MF charms in your inventory as you have. Fill all remaining room with +to life charms and useful resists charms (lightning), and keep the Horadric cube on you (you would put the valuable items in it and identify them after). I suggest you also put your scroll of town portal in your belt (keep a row for them, the other slots for healing/rejuvenation potions). Keep some keys on you if you can't help opening chests (and you'll see by doing it regularly that you'll find good items on chests too, although not many...).
Last but not least, don't try to reach 1,000% MF at any price, the diminishing return formula on %MF makes it isn't that worth to do so many sacrifices. You could easily check your effective % chance to drop a magic-rare-set-unique item with Hammerman's D2drop calculator (see the link at the bottom of that post).

BIBLIOGRAPHY and ACKNOLEDGEMENTS

The items part of this guide is widely inspired from the Arreat Summit Site, magic find section. I tried to adapt it a little bit, to make the items' choice easier for newbies, and hope it helped.

http: //www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/magic/magicfind.shtml

All % chances in this guide were calculated with Hammerman's D2drop calculator version 1.03d. It's a must-have for every magic finder, download it at :

http://www.oocities.org/hamm ermand2

To know what to expect from Mephisto runs, see Hammerman's answer (the 3rd) and Pyroman's one (the 4th) to the topic "What can't Meph drop ?". You will also learn what Baal himself cannot drop from Pyroman's answer. Look a bit further for what can Cows drop :

http://www.forumplanet.com/planetdiablo/topic.asp?fid=2130&tid=60599 5

I wanted to thank Hammerman for having brought me to this forum. As he said to me, there are nice people here.

This guide reaches its end... Feel free to complete it and to correct its mistakes, that's the principia of a forum.

ALnitak67, 28/04/2002

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My single player characters :

ALnitak : level 91 bowazon (strafe, freezing arrow, Walkyrie) ; 500% magic find.
Buriza, p-topaz Steelskull, Wealth Kraken Shell, Rare Chance guards 39%, Goldwrap, Nagelring 28%, Nagelring 29%, 35% MF ammy, 44% War Traveler, a lot of %MF charms :-)

Celeste : level 93 javazon (jab, fend, lightning fury) Titan's Revenge, p-diamond Stormshield, Thundergod's Vigor, Guillaume's Face (15% IAS jewel) and Magnus Skin (Orphan's Call), Gorerider, Highlord's Wrath, Raven Frost.

Emera : level 78 hybridexa-zon (lightning fury, strafe, no Walkyrie)
Buriza and Titan's. My PvP char :-)

Projects :

Mavina (multishoot, freezing arrow, full Mavina's Set - thanks again Scipio for the Kraken Shell)
A windexazon (wearing windforce within 8 frames and more than 500 dex).

e-mail me at : matthieu.molinier@wanadoo.fr