Guild Wars 2

Apologies if this is elsewhere; I tried looking in several likely forums and delving a few pages into each and found nothing. (And was told that search is being uncooperative, too.) If this is answered elsewhere, just link me to it.

Each Essence of Luck will contribute to your Luck Bar and each time the Luck Bar is filled it adds 1% overall magic find on all of your characters permanently, to a maximum of 300%.

Is this a complete and total hard-cap on Account MF? Or is it a cap on “Luck-based MF”?

Meaning, does the Achievement Reward bonus count toward this cap, or is it added? (Same for things like the Infusion or event-based buffs.)

Also, when the article followed that up by saying existing players will get up to 20 MF free – is that “raised to 20” (considering their achievement bonus) or “raised by 20”?

It is raised to +20%. I believe the account-wide cap is +300% (including AP-based percentages), but I believe consumables, and such, can raise it higher.

So someone with 5% from achievements would get a gain of 15%, and someone who had, Idunno, 2%, would get a gain of 18%…. and by the time they reached the AP score I presently have, would gain 3% that I already gained (and therefore cannot gain again), giving them 23%?

From: http://dulfy.net/2013/08/30/gw2-account-magic-find-ascended-crafting-and-legendary-weapons-revamp-preview/

All existing players, to make up for the removal of magic find gear, will be rewarded with purple Essence of Luck that will give you 20% Magic Find by default.
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So it looks like all players will be mailed a consumable which will add 20% mf without considering AP rewards.

The real question will be is the AP mf reward and the EoL consumable separate or mixed? So once someone hits 300 will the AP mf rewards be useless?

The Achievement magic find is separate from the account based luck bar magic find.

Player can get say 305% magic find just from luck and achievement.

And 20% infusion + 10% guild buff + 15% banner + 50% magic find booster + 30% food too! That’s more than 400%

And none of it interferes with their gear.

Also, 5% is just what I have from achievements. I can see two more in my “next five chests” preview (10k and 10.5), meaning eventually 7%. Eventually.

I can see how this is going to nerf all loot in a devastating way for new players, unless they get a potion of luck as well – in which case I see no reason to why any of us is getting a potion in the first place.

MF boost to all accounts means that better loot is gonna drop more often, this, should put the game off balance which will lead to a drop nerf. Right?

It IS an interesting disparity. I mean, I can see WHY they’re giving these Essences out – some of us have been playing the game a solid year, and this is their way of compensating for presumed losses of MF. However, someone who made their account yesterday will receive this full benefit of 5 Essences of Luck… while someone who makes theirs tomorrow gets nothing. A stark disparity, indeed.

However, I don’t think the imbalance will be as strong as you imply. We got 21% MF out of this. People kitted out with full, complete MF sets had, what? At least 100 from Gear alone? I don’t know; while I’ve had the game that whole year, my only “MF gear” were the karka shell I got from Lost Shores, and my recently-Forged pendant, both of which use Celestial stats. So for me, that’s 7% lost and 21% gained. I come out ahead, but it’s in a small way.

Or, let’s put this in another context: We got 5 Essences of Luck. That’s 2500 luck, or 250 uses of the item we get from salvaging blues. In the overall long run, that’s NOT going to be hard to get – new players might have to wait until they get into their second or third zones, since starter zones overwhelm you with Common stuff, but they’ll catch up. Sure, we’ll stay “ahead” – until we start hitting the cap. The “hardcore farmers” will get there first, of course, but even new players eventually will.

And that Luck cap will be why this won’t become truly imbalancing. Maybe just slightly, early on when the disparity is most stark, but it will lessen in a couple weeks, tops.

here is my problem with changing mf, i had a full set of noble and ascended gear with mf…. not only do you mkae my armor into someothing else i dont get to choose you just rip my ascended gear of its mf and said “and i didnt even have to buy you dinner!!”….. nice one anet