Guild Wars 2

How effective is MF gear actually in the game and is it really worth investing in using ?

Depends.

For the last week or so it has felt that MF gear has been reducing my actual MF. I heard that there was a bug about this a few days ago, not sure if it was fixed, but right now I seem to find more with 0 MF

My warrior has been stuck in magic find gear, thanks to a guide I followed on how to create a 100% MF set (Rare with Pirate runes). Then the trading post prices for everything grew like Cartman in a Twinkie factory. However, my other characters are in regular gear. Sadly, I see no difference between my warrior’s drops, and theirs. I get a lot of white trash drops, the occasional blue or green, and a yellow when a sociopath somewhere in the world feels an emotion (not very often).

Before I start, I want to point out that MF does NOT increase your chance at getting drops, it increases your chance at getting RARER drops from monsters(source:GW2 wiki). MF does not effect chests, bag contents, or quest rewards, only drops.

I’ve played with this myself while farming in Orr. With no MF buffs or gear, I find that things that drop are more commonly blue and greens, with an occasional yellow.

When I use MF gear and buffs, I usually get a better shot at getting greens(worth more than blues obviously) and yellows. I even have gotten 2 exotics doing this. If you don’t want to use MF gear, you can use a guild MF guild banner+Omnomnom Bar which will give you 40% MF in total(and a nice 40% gold +from drops as the second effect from the Omnomnom Bar). Doing this in Orr has helped me be able to earn AT LEAST 1 gold a day from a little over an hour of play from just NPC-ing whites, blues, and greens and salvaging yellows(gotta get those Ectos!).
If your farming, remember to change to a different map every 1 1/2-2 hours because after a while of farming the same spots and events on one map, the drop rate seems to go down. After about an hour break, it seems to go back to normal though :P

I run a full rare set with 5/6 superior pirate runes and 1/6 of another MF rune. Never get the exotic MF set, it is a waste in my opinion at least. I notice I get more rare drops while using it. I put on my main stat set when doing dungeons of any kind though.

I seem to make more money while using it.

Condas.7056:

I run a full rare set with 5/6 superior pirate runes and 1/6 of another MF rune. Never get the exotic MF set, it is a waste in my opinion at least. I notice I get more rare drops while using it. I put on my main stat set when doing dungeons of any kind though.

I seem to make more money while using it.

Well considering your squishy as hell in MF gear, and hardly do a fraction of the damage you once did………i think the small but improved defense in exotic version is more then welcomed.

I found 6 rare during jormag event with 167% mf XD.
I think putting mf gear on a guardian with greatsword is the most effective way to mf.

My experience with it:

I tried it for a while with a full set of rare: weapons, armor, trinkets, food, banner

When there was the Grenth Orr event bug and there were constant waves of mobs for a few weeks non-stop

Tested it for several hours over several sessions

I saw no appreciable difference in the value of the dropped items at all. In fact both me and a friend who I had also crafted a rig for felt we were getting less magic gear.

I had a full set of Valkyrie exotic with Superior Pirate runes on all of it.
I used it while gathering and killing whatever popped up.
I saw little gains from it over my karma set with the Superior runes of Infiltration so I salvaged the Valkyrie, sold the loot and made most of my money back. I got that set in a box early in the game so the cost was nearly half what it is today.

I get way more green and yellow loot with just a banner now so as far as I can tell, full MF gear seems to actually nerf the rare loot. I can’t prove that but I firmly believe it.

Being squishy in MF gear is subjective. The only thing use lose out on are the stats from runes which is very minimal. Yes, there’s the armor with MF built in in place of one of the stats. Unless your build would’ve used that third stat for VIT or Toughness then the argument is irrelevant

I have yet to see any well done, quantifiable tests to substantiate that you’re significantly worse off with MF gear.

I get more yellows on my Guardian with just MF food than I do on my Warrior who has a full MF set. I’ve said it before and I stick to it. MF is garbage and should just be removed from the game. Increase overall drop % and chance % by 2 or 3% and call it a day.

I personally find MF gear very beneficial. On my lvl 80 Eng, I run 134% MF from my armor, trinkets and duel pistols with an additional %30 from those yummy omnom bars.

I’ve recently(past 2 weeks) just been farming corrupted and onyx lodestones from Frost Gorge and Cursed Shore and to be honest, my worst runs (30 minute runs before I switch maps) I always get 1 lodestone and 1 to 2 yellows.

I feel that I easily make 1 to 2 gold an hour, which is way more than I get just running around with any of my alts that don’t sport MF.

Maybe i’m just lucky, but I def believe MF is worth the investment.

I have used MF gear before and it works fine as long as you have the toughness and vit to do it, since most tend to go for cheapy MF gear. I honestly just prefer using the MF guild banner and any MF food because I don’t like to be squishy with the gear. Only thing I’d consider putting MF on that I equip is a weapon(but even then, I tend to not use any MF gear).

Again though, since Xaaz does not seem to know how MF works and did not read my post, it does not increase drop rate, it increases the chance that you’ll get rarer items. If you guys want to see a difference, do this:

Farm The Cursed Shore with the events at Penitent Waypoint, Shelter’s Gate, and Jofast’s Waypoint(since these are connected events) without any MF what-so-ever for an hour. After an hour take an hour break(the drops reduce after running so many events on a map for an hour or so). After that hour break, run those events again for an hour, then sell all your whites, blues, greens to get a base line of what you make running those events. After this, again take an hour break and repeat the steps again but this time with just a MF food item(omnomnom bars are good for that) and a MF guild banner buff.

This is how I tested it (I did this over a course of 3-4 days) and found I made more with the MF banner and MF food on(about 50s-75s more than without MF food/banner).

MF set dun make u squishy if ur a guardian. I can still run into a group of mobs, pull and aoe them down.
I equip my guardian with 6x superior traveler rune on explorer exotic set, exotic opal amulet, ring and accessory, and a pearl greatsword with luck sigil.

hahawinner.5273:

Again though, since Xaaz does not seem to know how MF works and did not read my post, it does not increase drop rate, it increases the chance that you’ll get rarer items. If you guys want to see a difference, do this:

I know exactly how MF works so take your smug comments and place them where ever you like. Read my post .. I get far more YELLOWS with no MF than I get with a full MF set. Of course it doesn’t add to your total drops, it adds to the rarity.

But hey, it’s nice to live in your world of assumption and ignorance.

I farm CS every single day on MULTIPLE characters. I also switch areas quite often. I can tell you for a fact from my experience, my green and yellow drops are far higher without any MF other than food than they are with a full 175%+ MF set. Oh, and all 4 of my exotics from CS came on my non MF set Guardian.

The stat does nothing.

All I was getting at was that MF does effect things and that it is not garbage and it does do something. If you read the rest of my post, it said:
“I honestly just prefer using the MF guild banner and any MF food because I don’t like to be squishy with the gear. "
The gear does work fine, it just seems like MF only goes up to a certain threshold of MF percentage. If there is a threshold, like I think there might be, then that would explain everything and frankly, it would make sense since being able to have a “capless MF” would make gold worth less.
And I apologize if my post seemed to be offensive to you Xaaz, I did not mean to offend.

hahawinner.5273:

Before I start, I want to point out that MF does NOT increase your chance at getting drops, it increases your chance at getting RARER drops from monsters(source:GW2 wiki). MF does not effect chests, bag contents, or quest rewards, only drops.

What about salvaging ectos?

morrolan.9608:

hahawinner.5273:

Before I start, I want to point out that MF does NOT increase your chance at getting drops, it increases your chance at getting RARER drops from monsters(source:GW2 wiki). MF does not effect chests, bag contents, or quest rewards, only drops.

What about salvaging ectos?

No. Your best option is to use the BL kits.

morrolan.9608:

hahawinner.5273:

Before I start, I want to point out that MF does NOT increase your chance at getting drops, it increases your chance at getting RARER drops from monsters(source:GW2 wiki). MF does not effect chests, bag contents, or quest rewards, only drops.

What about salvaging ectos?

As the post said, only drops. I use Masters, Mystic, or BL salvage kits for getting Ectos.

While slightly off-topic, I’d like to say that I think MF is a brilliant mechanic. Why?

It’s basically hard-mode armor. Things get more difficult vs using typical optimized gear and you are rewarded with greater drops

This is why I get somewhat mad when people ask for magic find to be removed from the game. It’s clearly meant to be the great risk for greater reward armor, and the fact that Anet made it an option is pretty excellent.

I honestly don’t know, when i run around without magic find drops are drastically reduced. Not just the rarity of the items, the actual drop percentage of the mobs dropping items seems to drastically backfire its way to 1 each 4-5 mobs.

I personally can’t get mf to do anything until i reach at least 250% i get the t5 materials to drop but nothing else occurs until it’s really really high. I never get rares with this armor on at all! I never get exotics with this armor on at all especially when fighting vets and champs including the most recent patch series.

Then DR sets in.

I actually ran the numbers on this last night: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Magic-Find-Gold-Find-and-the-Casual-Farmer/first#post945945

Can a moderator please start merging these threads?

I swear there was a thread last week along the same lines, and it will save a lot of people from repeating themselves, and others from reading the same arguments / points again.

EDIT: Also, we may see progression in the discussion as opposed to starting from scratch every time…

Nhalx.9735:

I honestly don’t know, when i run around without magic find drops are drastically reduced. Not just the rarity of the items, the actual drop percentage of the mobs dropping items seems to drastically backfire its way to 1 each 4-5 mobs.

That’s a great idea. I just tested your hypothesis, and here are some sample values for the chance to drop any kind of item at various levels of magic find.
+0 MF: 34.9% drop chance
+10 MF: 37.2% drop chance
+20 MF: 39.6% drop chance
+30 MF: 42% drop chance
+40 MF: 44.5% drop chance
+50 MF: 47% drop chance
+60 MF: 49.5% drop chance

doomcrier.5830:

I actually ran the numbers on this last night: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Magic-Find-Gold-Find-and-the-Casual-Farmer/first#post945945

That’s an interesting approach to looking at the value of MF gear (or lack of).

I think the problem with MF is that you need an incredibly high MF for it make a real difference (i.e. convert green → yellow, yellow → orange) and the only way you can get high enough is to use the boosters. Even then I find the results lackluster compared to when an average MF would result in 3-5 rares an hour…

morphemass.2850:

doomcrier.5830:

I actually ran the numbers on this last night: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Magic-Find-Gold-Find-and-the-Casual-Farmer/first#post945945

That’s an interesting approach to looking at the value of MF gear (or lack of).

I think the problem with MF is that you need an incredibly high MF for it make a real difference (i.e. convert green -> yellow, yellow -> orange) and the only way you can get high enough is to use the boosters. Even then I find the results lackluster compared to when an average MF would result in 3-5 rares an hour…

Apart from crafting rares and if the item was a magic one, I did not collect data on the quality of the items dropped, although my sample capped out at green. I do have the individual item names in my set, I can go back and cross reference them with the trading co to get color data, but it will take time. My hunch is that the number of magic item drops in my sample may be a bit on the small size to figure out if it actually changes the quality of the drop. I might be able to observe a difference between greys and whites, though.

I have 174% MF. In Fractal Dungeons – Level 1 (three parts), with guild members today. One person had no magic find at all. The two of us compared loot.

I only had 1 more rare than he did (I had 3 rares, he had 2). As for green armor drops, I had 18 green armor drops while he had 9.

…I still don’t know if it works or not though… I rarely get any stupid exotics or other really good loot. There are people in my guild who get good stuff all the time while I’m sitting here with tons of MF and not getting anything of great value…

As far as I’m concerned, MF doesn’t work, but just incase it does, I’ll continue to wear it a bit longer.

doomcrier.5830:

Nhalx.9735:

I honestly don’t know, when i run around without magic find drops are drastically reduced. Not just the rarity of the items, the actual drop percentage of the mobs dropping items seems to drastically backfire its way to 1 each 4-5 mobs.

That’s a great idea. I just tested your hypothesis, and here are some sample values for the chance to drop any kind of item at various levels of magic find.
+0 MF: 34.9% drop chance
+10 MF: 37.2% drop chance
+20 MF: 39.6% drop chance
+30 MF: 42% drop chance
+40 MF: 44.5% drop chance
+50 MF: 47% drop chance
+60 MF: 49.5% drop chance

Ok, so not drastically but does seem a bit higher. But it might be a fluke aswell. Just thought it felt a bit like that. cheers for the research. =D

Another sidenote. When i attained 200%+ which seems only attainable for me right now with a Magic find booster, i start receiving a ridiculous amount of greens instead of blues and whites.

We have this guy in our Guild, a Guardian and Veteran GW1 player who has never touched Magic Find gear in his life.

He has the most insane drop-luck you can imagine. He seems to get a random exotic every 2nd FotM run and at least 2-3 rares on top of that.

Meanwhile I’m averaging about 1.5 rares per FotM run.

As for the actual Magic Find debate.

Until the Nov. 15th patch I was convinced Magic Find worked well. I had direct comparisons between prior to getting my MF set (160%) and after. The difference on drops was huge, averaging about one rare every 20 minutes or so of farming in Orr.

But since that patch, drops have been crap. So bad in fact that I salvaged my entire MF set as it seemed pointless to keep it. I was getting only about 1 rare drop per hour. That simply wasn’t worth it. I still get roughly the same running around with 40% MF (Omnombar + miscellaneous items).

I can’t really say if it works or not or if it has any real value. The fact that you have one person here to counter every supporter just proves that something isn’t right about the stat.

The thing is, I have absolutely no faith in ANet when it comes to having reliable mechanics. This entire game is festered with bugs and in-transparent mechanisms. Hell, even if a developers comes out and specifically states “this is how xyz works” I won’t believe it until it is confirmed by a third party.

Dee Jay.2460:

We have this guy in our Guild, a Guardian and Veteran GW1 player who has never touched Magic Find gear in his life.

He has the most insane drop-luck you can imagine. He seems to get a random exotic every 2nd FotM run and at least 2-3 rares on top of that.

Meanwhile I’m averaging about 1.5 rares per FotM run.

As for the actual Magic Find debate.

Until the Nov. 15th patch I was convinced Magic Find worked well. I had direct comparisons between prior to getting my MF set (160%) and after. The difference on drops was huge, averaging about one rare every 20 minutes or so of farming in Orr.

But since that patch, drops have been crap. So bad in fact that I salvaged my entire MF set as it seemed pointless to keep it. I was getting only about 1 rare drop per hour. That simply wasn’t worth it. I still get roughly the same running around with 40% MF (Omnombar + miscellaneous items).

I can’t really say if it works or not or if it has any real value. The fact that you have one person here to counter every supporter just proves that something isn’t right about the stat.

The thing is, I have absolutely no faith in ANet when it comes to having reliable mechanics. This entire game is festered with bugs and in-transparent mechanisms. Hell, even if a developers comes out and specifically states “this is how xyz works” I won’t believe it until it is confirmed by a third party.

Wait, is that on 10+ FOTM? Because that’s where it starts to do that from what i heard from guildies.

I’ve grinded through close to 150 Fractals, up to level 25. Aside from the random Ascended crafting materials and the Daily reward chest I haven’t noticed a significant difference in loot between the different levels.

I.e. I average my 1.5 rares in any FotM run, regardless of level.

Hyptesis: if you would get a white item and you have say 30% magic find then you have 30% chance that that item is blue, if you had 130%mf then you would have 30% chance of that being a green

Rodaquiste.7631:

Hyptesis: if you would get a white item and you have say 30% magic find then you have 30% chance that that item is blue, if you had 130%mf then you would have 30% chance of that being a green

Nah, I’m pretty sure it works as follows:

Whenever you kill a mob, the game rolls a number (say from 1 to 10000 for example).

1-5000: Nothing
5001-8000: White item (generates an item from the common drop list)
8001-9500: Blue item (generates an item from the fine drop list)
9501-9900: Green item (generates an item from the mastercraft drop list)
9901-9999: Yellow item (generates an item from the rare drop list)
10000: Exotic item (generates an items from the exotic drop list)

Now what Magic Find does is bump those chances up accordingly.

So with 100% Magic Find, you’re loot table might look something like:

1-5000: Nothing
5001-6000: Common item
6001-9000: Fine item
9001-9800: Mastercraft item
9801-9998: Rare item
9999-10000: Exotic item

So while you’re not really getting more loot per say, the quality of the loot is being bumped up a notch at the expense of poorer qualities.

Dee Jay.2460:

Rodaquiste.7631:

Hyptesis: if you would get a white item and you have say 30% magic find then you have 30% chance that that item is blue, if you had 130%mf then you would have 30% chance of that being a green

Nah, I’m pretty sure it works as follows:

Whenever you kill a mob, the game rolls a number (say from 1 to 10000 for example).

1-5000: Nothing
5001-8000: White item (generates an item from the common drop list)
8001-9500: Blue item (generates an item from the fine drop list)
9501-9900: Green item (generates an item from the mastercraft drop list)
9901-9999: Yellow item (generates an item from the rare drop list)
10000: Exotic item (generates an items from the exotic drop list)

Now what Magic Find does is bump those chances up accordingly.

So with 100% Magic Find, you’re loot table might look something like:

1-5000: Nothing
5001-8000: Common item
8001-9000: Fine item
9001-9800: Mastercraft item
9801-9998: Rare item
9999-10000: Exotic item

So while you’re not really getting more loot per say, the quality of the loot is being bumped up a notch at the expense of poorer qualities.

Something like that i geuss, pretty sure that the 1-5000 gets reducted pretty hard aswell.
(doomcrier tried the hypothesis of it actually dropping more loot regardless of rarity)

I tried to use a Magic Find booster to hit 200%+
It dropped pretty much greens all over the map.

I bumped my Magic Find stat as high as it would go, something like +169% (with booster and food), and as nhalx stated, I had greens for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Also higher quality whites like valuable metal scraps, but not a single rare or exotic would drop in the hour I had the MF as high as I could get it.

Regardless of hard facts and game mechanics, I personally think it’s a wasted stat. I’d rather have something stronger and more viable in a high level boss fight for instance, than being someone relegated to the outer and just ranging stuff. I think most people here would actually like to believe that MF does work, but I think the results speak for themselves.

It depends are you gonna spend 2 hours a day farming say the skelks or trolls? if not then don’t get any if you are you kit yourself up with around 130% MF in just under 3g i find it helps me make alot more i can normally pull 7g per hour without it i was hitting around 4-5g.

doomcrier.5830:

I did not collect data on the quality of the items dropped.

But… The quality of the drops is the point of MF, not the rate of drops in general.

MF used to be effective in garnishing better quality loot. But since the last few updates it doesn’t seem to make any discernable differnce anymore.

Some may say RNG is RNG but I really feel that MF is no-where near as effective anymore (as compared to how it was back then) so I did away with it entirely. Now I use 0 MF and still get decent results loot wise.

Cross.6437:

doomcrier.5830:

Apart from crafting rares and if the item was a magic one, I did not collect data on the quality of the items dropped…

But… The quality of the drops is the point of MF, not the rate of drops in general.

(Let me just edit your quote there to put my context back in.)

Is it?
If it doesn’t increase the drop chance of magic items (blue equipment or better), which I did measure, then it doesn’t increase the drop rate of blues and greens over whites and grays.