Guild Wars 2

As mentioned before, not everyone with magic find is carried or hindered in any way. If a person is carried with magic find then it is much more likely than not because the player is insufficiently skilled. Likewise, A piece of armor that gives 3% magic find instead of another 150 of another stat would not be all that noticeable on a high leveled, skillful character. If anything, it presents a new challenge for those who can afford it and still manage to carry their party; and you can bet that a person who has the completion of a particular dungeon down to a science will hardly be hindered by a barely noticeable stat decrease.

Ayrilana.1396:

Signet of Forums.4397:

See, this is the funny thing: Even some of the arguments for magic find are basically saying that it is pointless. I mean, if lowering another stat doesn’t make a practical difference, then why not just increase the base drop rates and not have magic find at all? If you have to sacrifice another stat to have it, but no other stat would make a difference, what is the point of having to give up another stat for it?

There is a difference between 0% MF and 200% MF to a lot of people. I argue that it doesn’t matter because stats only do so much and the majority of how well you perform is based on your skill with your class.

Signet of Forums.4397:

This is the fundamental question I don’t get: What is particularly appealing about magic find over just having a higher base drop rate? So you can farm better than other people without magic find? If it is so useful for farming, won’t all of the farmers be using it anyway? I really don’t understand the love of this stat from any angle.

From a technical standpoint, there isn’t a difference. It’s people’s perception that matters. By equipping MF gear they feel like they’re improving their odds. Think of it like what superstitious people do with good luck charms. It’s probably not the best explanation but I can’t really think of a good way to explain it.

If I may add, not all loot is based off a drop rate of 1% or 0.5%. The majority of the posts on this forum seem to have to do with these numbers. Agreed, this is probably because these numbers are attributed to things that (most) players would like to see when they are looting, but people are forgetting (or not mentioning) that 100% magic find for example will increase the chances of seeing other not-quite-as-valuable, but still choice items. Also if MF was removed, and the drop rates for certain rare items was increased, there would still be a problem with people grinding out events and dungeons. I personally dont see the “grinding” part as an issue. People still grind dungeons in a more traditional fashion, by just plowing though it as fast as possible. As sad as it is, the game revolves around LOOT and the gold that is obtained from it. MF makes up a large portion of the GW2 economy (at least for the moment) because it enhances one’s ability to find better loot. Basically, Magic find is important for more than just “the best” items, removing it and balancing drop rates would do nothing to lower the incentive to stop grinding parts of events, and as much as people disagree it IS an important part of the economy.