1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ^^^ 79 characters, seee! ============================== = Magic Find Mechanics Guide = ============================== = Author: Fenriradramelk = ========================== = ver 0.2 = ====================== Table of Contents: Intro Changelog History Basic Info Item Selection & TC's Number of Players Magic Quality Selection MF Equipment MF Balance MF Targets TC List Outro Special Thanks Legal ============================== = Introduction = ============================== This guide is going to go through the entire mechanics of Magic Finding, and hopefully explain it in a way that will help any intermediate or advanced Diablo 2 players understand the way the game chooses items to drop. You might have heard of "Treasure Classes" and "Area Levels", and these are important terms for this big matter of finding items. Other common debates around the forums are how much MF is a good amount? What about the diminishing returns? Sit and relax, my friend, a lot of this will be spelled out, along with so much more that isn't exactly common knowledge. Before I begin though, a BIG credit goes out to HRUS at the dii.net/diii.net forums, who originally posted this information on their forums. A lot of the information in this guide is founded on his research (and even formatted similarly to his guide). Just a note about this guide; I am presuming you understand basic abbreviations; like aLvl intending to mean Area Level, or MFing for Magic Finding. There are a lot of abbreviations used throughout the guide, as it's annoying to have to type out Treasure Class every few words! Without further ado, here goes. Also please note this guide is not finalized, alot of formatting is needed to be done yet to make it easier to read, and maybe some additional searching tags throughout to make getting at information easier. ============================== = Changelog History = ============================== Version 0.2 - Fixed (some) formatting issues Version 0.1 - Release! ============================== = Basic Info = ============================== What do people do to get wealthy? A lot of people hunt for Key sets, or get extremely lucky and stumble into a high rune. Many people hunt for items by killing bosses. This is known as MFing (duh!), after the item modifier that increases the chance of finding good items (Magic Find). There's some items that are highly valuable that are NOT affected by Magic Find, notably runes and socketed items - those things won't be covered in depth with this guide. Most people also know that MF not only affects the chance to find Magic Items, but also Rare, Set, and Unique Items. Though you are only aware of the one MF% you are wearing, your chance to find Rare, Set, or Unique items is also important even if it is derived from that one item modifier. Your chances of finding a set or unique item depends on a few things... 1) the monster killed and it's level (or the area level if dropped by an object/chest) 2) the MF of the player who killed that monster (+merc's MF if merc killed it) 3) whether or not that Unique Item already dropped in that game. Only 1 unique item of it's kind can drop in a given game. Additionally there's also a bonus toward the chance of an item, any item, dropping in the first place, influenced by the number of players in the game. ============================== = Item Selection & TC's = ============================== In the world of Diablo 2, there are a number of variables, plenty of them are hidden from the player in a normal game. The only way any of this information is found is through manually digging through the MPQ files the game relies on. The most important to understand regarding item drops is the Treasure Class system. Treasure Classes are assigned to each monster type (like skeleton, zombie, devilkin, balrog, duriel, every last one). These treasure classes are assigned in a manner that you find generally better items as you progress through the game. TC's often contain item ID's that the game understands; for example you can easily find the "gld" ID in many TC's, meaning that the treasure class contains gold - when a monster with that TC is killed, it is possible it will drop gold. TC's can also contain OTHER TC's. This is the complex factor in the whole treasure class system. A Monster might have the "Act 1 (H) H2H B" treasure class, but inside that TC could be other TC's, which could contain other TC's, which could contain... you get the idea. Eventually it's going to find an item ID at the end of it all. The system for it is quite complex, so it might be better to show it with the actual numbers and data involved from the MPQ itself. Besides a ton of other data involving the HP, skills, and other things, the TC's assigned to each monster of each difficulty can be found. If you want to access the MPQ Data itself, you'll need an MPQ Editor. Do NOT ask me for such a program, I will NOT provide you with it. Name - TC 1 - TC 2 - TC 3 Skeleton - Act 1 H2H A - Act 1 Champ A - Act 1 Unique A There are MORE TC's for the Skeleton, but GameFaq's doesn't offer enough space (or formatting) to show all the data on one line. The additional TC's the skeleton has define it's TC's for Nightmare and Hell difficulty. Basically, this is saying that a Skeleton slain in normal difficulty is assigned the "Act 1 H2H A" treasure class. The Champion Skeletons you might find will have the "Act 1 Champ A" TC. And any Unique Skeletons you find will have the "Act 1 Unique A" TC. There's also Champion & Unique TC's for Nightmare and Hell as well... Name - TC 1 (H) - TC 2 (H) - TC 3 (H) Skeleton - Act 1 (H) H2H A - Act 1 (H) Champ A - Act 1 (H) Unique A If you're following so far, you can see that each monster has different treasure classes for different difficulties, and different TC's whether or not it's a Champion or Unique monster. Lets dive deeper and assume you killed a Skeleton in Hell. The treasure class to locate then would be the "Act 1 (H) H2H A" treasure class. Which has info like the following (again GameFaqs doesn't offer enough space to show all the data on one line) Name - Picks - No Drop - Item1 - Prob 1 Act 1 (H) H2H A - 1 - 180 - gld - 21 Item2 - Prob2 - Item3 - Prob3 - Item4 - Prob4 (etc. up to Item10 -Prob10) Act1 (H) Equip A - 16 - Act 1 (H) Junk - 21 - Act 1 (H) Good - 2 Ok, I know it's not formatted well like that, so here's a different way to look at it. Treasure Class: Act 1 (H) H2H A Picks: 1 No Drop: 180 Item1: gld Prob1: 21 Item2: Act 1 (H) Equip A Prob2: 16 Item3: Act 1 (H) Junk Prob3: 21 Item4: Act 1 (H) Good Prob4: 2 At first this all looks and sounds like a foreign language, but lets break it down. That skeleton you killed first looks in the "Act 1 (H) H2H A" Treasure Class. Inside, we see it can pick Gold to drop, or a different choice found inside a different treasure class (those being Act 1 (H) Equip A, Act 1 (H) Junk, and Act 1 (H) Good). The probability to pick any of these is based on the sum of the No Drop, and all the Prob numbers added together. Now since No Drop is 180, Prob1 is 21, Prob2 is 16, Prob3 is 21, and Prob4 is 2, we get a grand total of 240. For the No Drop, there is a 180 in 240 base chance that the skeleton will drop absolutely nothing at all. For gold, there is a 21 in 240 chance that the skeleton will drop gold. For Act 1 (H) Equip A, there's a 16 in 240 chance that you'll get an item/TC from the "Act 1 (H) Equip A" TC. You get the idea, I hope. Continuing this example, lets say the game chose for you Act 1 (H) Good for this Skeleton. This contains more definitions for things, but at least we're narrowing it down. Act 1 (H) Good - Jewelry C - 60 - Chipped Gem - 4 Flawed Gem - 10... Normal Gem - 14 - Flawless Gem - 28 - Runes 12 - 14 Or in an easier to read way... Treasure Class: Act 1 (H) Good Item1: Jewelry C Prob1: 60 Item2: Chipped Gem Prob2: 4 Item3: Flawed Gem Prob3: 10 Item4: Normal Gem Prob4: 14 Item5: Flawless Gem Prob5: 28 Item6: Runes 13 Prob6: 14 The sum of probabilities here lacks a No Drop value, if this treasure class is chosen, you will ALWAYS get one of these items. This is verified because in the last TC which DID have a No Drop, there was a high chance (180 in 240) that you wouldn't get anything at all. It would be kind of bad design if you landed that lucky 2 in 240 getting this TC and landing on another No Drop! Anyway, so the sum is 60+4+10+14+28+14, or 130. Which means theres a 60 in 130 chance it will pick the Jewelry C TC. A 4 in 130 chance it will pick Chipped Gem TC 10 in 130 chance it will pick Flawed Gem TC... you get the picture. Lets say from here it chose Runes 13 from the skeleton, again further narrowing it. Inside Runes 13, we finally get to actual item definitions - and as the name implies, it contains runes (I know they aren't altered by MF, just go with it). Runes 13 - r25 - 3 - r26 - 2 - Runes 12 - 10250 In easier to read format... Treasure Class: Runes 13 Item1: r25 Prob1: 3 Item2: r26 Prob2: 2 Item3: Runes 12 Prob3: 10250 So we can see it will choose the "r25" item with a 3 in 10255 chance. Or the "r26" item with a 2 in 10255 chance. Or the TC "Runes 12" with a 10250 in 10255 chance. To finish off, lets say it finally settles on "r25". Congratulations, the Skeleton just dropped a Gul Rune! If it had instead chosen "r26", you would have gotten an Ist Rune. If it had instead chosen "Runes 12", it would have dropped one of any of the lower runes (I'm not going to illustrate that it could have chosen treasure classes all the way down from Runes 13 down to an Runes 1 and chosen an El Rune, but that definitely is how it would go in that situation). There is additional things to note about how items are chosen, especially with class specific items. Generally speaking, if the treasure classes chosen fall down to picking equipment, the chances it will pick one or the other will tend to be equal. EXCEPT for class specific items (and other items intended for use by a certain class). Staves, Amazon Javelins and Bows, Assassin Claws, Paladin Shields, Wands, Sorceress Orbs, the entire lot of them have roughly 1/3 the chance to drop compared to other equipment. In addition to all this, there is the whole deal with how Area Levels (ALVL) affects Treasure Classes. I'm sure you've heard about going to The Pit in the Tamoe Highlands in Act 1 Hell, the reason being is Area Level 85 and can thus drop anything. Monsters in such areas, where normally they'd drop what their original Treasure Class is, get a superficial "upgrade" to their Treasure Class. Without getting too wordy, our example of the Skeleton having the "Act 1 (H) H2H A" Treasure Class, if you found him in an ALVL 85 area, would get upgraded to about the "Act 5 (H) H2H C" treasure class, thus enabling the skeleton a chance to drop considerably better gear. Digging around in the MPQ some more, we find that there is more than simply the "H2H" group of treasure classes. Non-coincidentally, the "H2H" group of TC's typically belongs to melee monsters. More groups of TC's can be found - Wraith - Ghosts, Storm Casters, etc., these TC's can only drop from "Good" and "Magic" treasure classes. The "Good" TC contains the Rune drops, and is thus why for finding runes, killing these monsters is your best bet. Miss - Missile monsters tend to have this one, like archers. These TC's tend to drop from special Bow TC's only containing (guess what) Bows, and also a ton of arrows/bolts. Cast - Casters, like the various bone mages. This group of TC's has the best chance to find mana potions and other "Magic" noted TC's, usually containing things like mana potions or scrolls. Cow - Cows are the only ones to have this, on the secret cow level. This group drops slightly more frequently from "Good" TC's. Champ - ALL Champion types, regardless of what base type of enemy, drop from Champion type TC's. Meaning that the Storm Caster Champions have similar drops to a Balrog Champion, even though the base types of these monsters belong to different TC Groups. Unique - ALL Unique types, just like the Champ group noted just above. Super Uniques will tend to drop items similarly to any other random Unique boss, with the exception that they drop 2 items instead of the usual 1. Objects & Chests... is where we get to being exceptions rather than the rule. First off, Chests have their own group of TC's. Generally the Chest group of TC's drops more from "Junk" and "Good" TC's. Also, your MF applies to most chests, EXCEPT for Super Chests (like the famed 3 chests you find in Lower Kurast). Super Chests have fixed magic qualities - 95% of the time, any items dropped will be Magic. 5% of the time, any items dropped will be rare. Your MF is NOT a factor in opening Super Chests. Sparkly chests, found in a number of areas, have slightly better magic qualities than non-sparkly chests. You can even get Unique Items from Sparkly Chests. The last thing about chests & TC's, is the most important regarding chests. In ALVL 85 places, any chests will NOT have their TC's upgraded at all, unlike monsters which get upgraded. For this reason, chests in The Pit and other areas are NOT using an upgraded Chest TC, and will drop normally from their default TC. Phew, this section was huge, so lets recap. Treasure Classes are the basis for any item dropping, from the chance an item will drop in the first place, to sorting through which item to pick. There are different kinds of TC's, with trends among them, making some monsters better at dropping different items even if they are found in the same area. Chests are held in a different regard to how TC's operate, with their own kind of TC group; Super Chests do not factor in your MF, and chests found in ALvl 85 places won't have their TC upgraded. ============================== = Number of Players = ============================== Simply put, the more players in a game, the more items drop. In addition enemies also have more HP and are worth more EXP. The purpose of this guide is to fully work out the mechanics of Magic Find, so all we are concerned with here is the amount of items dropped. The truth of the matter is, as was briefly touched on in the TC section, many Treasure Classes have a "No Drop" factor, which is essentially the chance that absolutely nothing will drop, not even gold or a scroll. Increasing the amount of players has a relative effect on the No Drop factor in TC's. Specifically, more players lowers the No Drop, which in turn makes more items drop. This can be expressed mathematically. Lets get some details pointed out before any formulas. First and foremost, it isn't just the plain number of players that effects No Drop. It's also the amount of players who are PARTIED with you, and CLOSE to you (within 2 screens, approx.). If either they aren't partied with you, or they are partied but not close to you, they only count as 0.5 players concerning the drop rate. You yourself count as 1, for obvious reasons. If you use /players 4, that means that the game figures there's you, and 4 other players. It adjusts the drop bonus by a factor of 1 (you) + 2 (the /players 4 multiplied by 0.5). This is coined as the "No Drop Exponent" as it fits into the following formula. That "No Drop Exponent" is rounded down if it isn't an integer; that is, if it is 3.5, it gets rounded down to 3. It could arrive at 3.5, through a number of combinations. You count as 1 no matter what. If you use the /players 5 command, the factor goes from 1 to 1+2.5 = 3.5. Hopefully you're still following here, cuz here comes the formula. ND = the base No Drop found in the TC. NDE = the bonus applied factoring you and other players in the game. New ND = the new No Drop applied to the TC's being dropped from. SumProb = the sum of all "Prob#" values found in the TC's being dropped from; SumProb does NOT add NoDrop, it is only the Prob# values added together. The formula, as found by HRUS, is thus: New ND = (ND/(ND+SumProb))^NDE/(1-(ND/(ND+SumProb))^NDE) * SumProb In the previous section, I used a Skeleton as the example, having the "Act 1 (H) H2H A" Treasure Class. That treasure class has a No Drop of 180. That treasure class also has it's SumProb at 60. Lets also just figure it out for if you're alone in a game; NDE is equal to 1. New ND = (180/(180+60))^1/(1-(180/(180+60))^1) * 60 New ND = (180/240)^1/(1-(180/240)) * 60 New ND = (180/240)/(1-(180/240)) * 60 New ND = 0.75 / (1-0.75) * 60 New ND = 0.75 / 0.25 * 60 New ND = 3 * 60 New ND = 180 So with you alone, the New ND becomes 180, which is exactly equal to the original base No Drop of 180. What did you expect, more drops? (LuLz!) Now lets figure it out for having an NDE of 4; you and 3 other players are running around. New ND = (180/(180+60)^4/(1-(180/(180+60)^4) * 60 New ND = (180/240)^4 / (1- (180/240)^4) * 60 New ND = 0.75^4 / (1 - 0.75^4) * 60 New ND = 0.31640625 / (1 - 0.31640625) * 60 New ND = 0.31640625 / 0.68359375 * 60 New ND = 27.77142857... Round it out: New ND = 28. How this applies to the TC is then as follows. It's not using 180 as it's ND value, it's going to use 28 instead. If you remember back to the TC Section of the guide, in deciding the chances for items to drop, it took the No Drop value, and added it to the sum of each of the Prob#'s. This old value WAS 240, but now since the ND is 28, it will instead use 60+28; 88. How this relates to the Skeleton TC specifically, is instead of a 180 in 240 chance of no item dropping, you've got a 28 in 88 chance of nothing dropping; which is considerably better odds. You can even use that formula to figure how the game would treat a full game with all players partied and close to each other; the NDE would be 8 (You, plus 7 others, is 8). --shortening a bit with the known values-- New ND = 0.75^8 / (1-.75^8) * 60 New ND = 0.1001129150390625 / (1-0.1001129150390625) * 60 New ND = 0.1001129150390625 / 0.8998870849609375 * 60 New ND = 6.6750317931... Round it out: New ND = 7. This makes the skeletons TC that much better even; the sum of the New ND plus all the Prob#'s is 67. Instead of the original 180 in 240 chance for nothing to drop, you've got a miniscule 7 in 67. Regular monsters follow the No Drop rule fairly exclusively, however. Champions and Unique monsters are all guaranteed certain things to drop. Champions will ALWAYS drop a pile of gold or an item, and 2 potions each. Uniques will ALWAYS drop an item and up to 4 potions. Super Uniques without their own special TC will always drop 2 items and 4 potions. Act bosses and Super Uniques with their own special TC are effected by the player bonus differently. Andariel's TC for example, is capable of reaching a No Drop = 0 when the NDE factor is at or greater than 5. Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal all reach a No Drop = 0 when the NDE factor is at or greater than 3. In other words, when you're running Mephisto, it's a GOOD thing to find more players to run with, HOWEVER, having more than 3 players close to you, or more than 5 other players in the same game, won't have any effect on the amount of drops. This section wasn't too long, but a brief summary is in order here. Long story short, the more players in the game, the more items get dropped as a function of the No Drop value getting lowered. The No Drop value drops lower as long as the other players in the game, though to make the most out of it, they must be partied and close to you. Some Act Bosses are capable of reaching a 0 No Drop value with enough players in the game. ============================== = Magic Quality Selection = ============================== So far the guide has outlined how the game chooses the base item type to drop via the Treasure Classes. It's also gone to the depth of how the amount of players in the game effects the drop rates. Neither of those cases actually dealt with how your Magic Find comes into play, but rather just cleared up how the game actually picks which items to drop. So, first you should know that Magic Find is a modifier on lots of equipment. It does more than it says, in being that it also increases the chance to find Rare, Set, and Unique items. Obviously, items that CANNOT be any of these don't qualify for the bonuses provided by MF, such as Runes. Also items that cannot be Rare, Set, or Unique, aren't affected either, being mostly small and large charms (the only Unique LC's and SC's are fixed drops from certain events). The only MF that matters is the person making the killing blow; if you have 100%, and some other guy has 500%, but you get the killing blow, your 100% is the only amount factored in. If a Mercenary makes the killing blow, then the MF of the owner PLUS the MF worn by the merc is used. Say you've got 400%, and your merc has 150%, if you let the Merc get the killing blow, 550% is the amount used in factoring. Now then, when the game finishes it's TC checking and all that, and decides to drop an item, it makes a series of checks to see what quality it will be in this order. First - Check if item is Unique. Successful check means the item is Unique. Failed check, moves on to next check. Second - Check if item is Set. Successful, the item is Set. Failed, move on to next. Third - Rare Fourth - Magic Fifth - High Quality (if the item cannot be white, such as a ring or charm, generate a Magic item) Sixth - Normal quality (plain item) Seventh - Low Quality (cracked, etc). In this manner, we see that with more MF%, since it checks for the item being Unique first, you should also get more Unique items. You can NEVER get into a situation where having too much MF makes Unique Items **less** frequent. Next up is the diminishing returns formula. You've probably heard it all over the place, and wondered just what it is and how it applies. The formula is pretty simple: Effective MF = MF*Factor/(MF+Factor) Where MF is your total worn MF. Factor varies depending on the goal item you're looking for.. Factor for Unique Items = 250 Factor for Set Items = 500 Factor for Rare Items = 600 This Diminishing Returns formula is ONLY used for Unique, Set, and Rare Finding, when it's checking for Magic quality, there is NO diminishing returns. Here's how we apply it; to make it a bit easier to understand I'll use a system of multipliers, as it illustrates the idea well. Be aware that every character has a baseline multiplier of 1. This is evidenced by how you can find Magic, Rare, Set, and Unique items while not wearing any MF on your gear. It's like saying each character innately has 100% MF. Obviously if this innate were 0%, you'd have a multiplier of 0, and you'd never find any magic, set, or rare items. It might sound theoretical, but it is easily shown in practice. Lets say you're wearing 250% total MF. We can use the diminishing returns formula, inside a system of multipliers, to arrive at your chance to find each quality of item. Uniques -- Effective MF% = 250*250/(250+250) Effective MF% = 62500/500 Effective MF% = 125 Transformed into multiplier 1.25 Sets -- Eff. MF% = 250*500/(250+500) Eff. MF% = 125000/750 Eff. MF% = 166.667 Transformed into multiplier 1.67 Rares -- Eff. MF% = 250*600/(250+600) Eff. MF% = 150000/ 850 Eff. MF% = 176.47058... Transformed into multiplier 1.76 From here we see that, once we add in the baseline multiplier of 1, that your chance to find the various types of items is multiplied by these values... Uniques - 1+1.25; 2.25 total multiplier Sets - 1+1.67; 2.67 total multiplier Rares - 1+1.76; 2.76 total multiplier. So, if your base chance to find a unique from a certain enemy is 1 in 500 (1/500 = 0.002% chance), and you wear 250% MF, multiply that by the multiplier of 2.25 we just found. You should arrive at 0.0045% chance. Certainly better odds, but still astronomically low. That whole explanation was the basic idea of it all, it merely expressed what was known as common knowledge but didn't have anything directly from the MPQ's as solid data we can see and analyze. In future versions of this FAQ I will be analyzing how the TC's come into play, but for now this much about unique items is enough. One important thing to note is that in any single game, only one Unique Item of any type can drop. Meaning if you see a Nagelring drop, you won't see another Nagelring drop in that same game. However that doesn't stop the game from PICKING Nagelring more than once, merely from Nagelring dropping more than once. If Nagelring were chosen a second time, it would catch that it's the 2nd one, and change it's quality from Unique to Rare. That's all fine and dandy, but lets say you found Skins of the Vipermagi once, and the game picked it to drop a 2nd time in the same game. What would happen is the game would notice it already dropped it. What happens next is cool, the 2nd "failed" Vipermagi becomes a Rare item with 3x the Durability of a normal Serpentskin Armor. Sadly, for items without Durabilities, such as Rings or Amulets, you can never know if you were meant to get a 2nd SoJ or BK ring, since those items have no durability to check. Another important thing is with Rarity values. Base item types (like Phase Blade, Ring, Amulet, etc) that have more than 1 Unique Item or Set Item associated with them have rarity values attached to those Unique or Set Items. This is important. The prime example is with NM Andariel. She's perfect for explaining Rarities. Using Rings as an example, because there's tons of unique rings. NM Andariel is limited to dropping Nagelring, Manald Heal, and Stone of Jordan, she is limited because her Monster Level isn't high enough to drop other unique rings, like Dwarf Star or Ravenfrost. The Rarity value of Nagelring & Manald Heal is 15 on each. SoJ has a Rarity of 1. When NM Andariel is chosen to drop a Ring, which happens frequently because she has exceptionally good rates on dropping Jewelry TC's, the game does it's normal check on Unique->Set->Rare->(etc) described above. The example here involves unique rings, so lets say it rolled out Unique as the winner. It has a crossroads here; there's 3 Unique Rings NM Andy can drop. It picks these by adding each of their Rarity values, using each ring's base Rarity as it's chance to drop. Therefore, if NM Andy drops a Unique Ring, there's a 15 in 31 chance it will be a Nagelring, a 15 in 31 chance it will be Manald Heal, and a 1 in 31 chance it will be Stone of Jordan. That about covers it; I'll be updating this section regarding the Unique Item generation (which also pertains in ways to generating other kinds of items as well) in future versions. To summarize... Theres a diminishing returns on MF, but only for Unique, Set, and Rare items - using different factors for each of those. Magic Find has NO diminishing returns on finding Magic items. The game runs through checking if the item will be Unique first, then Set, then Rare, then Magic, then High Quality, then Normal, then Low Quality. Rarities are only involved with Unique & Set items where there is more than 1 Unique or Set item belonging to a certain Base Item Type. Rarities are NOT affected by MF%. ============================== = MF Equipment = ============================== This list has the various MF gear you can find or make. Only more common stuff will be listed; I won't bother listing Artificers gear, because that usually requires a sickening amount of gambling or shop-farming. At the end of each "slot" I'll weigh the options provided and give a couple of recommendations. Head Slot 3-OS Headgear w/3 PTopaz - 72% MF. Tarnhelm - 25-50% MF, 49-74% w/PTopaz. Harlequin Crest - 50% MF, 74% w/PTopaz. Stealskull - 30-50% MF, 54-74% w/PTopaz Tal-Rasha's Horadric Crest - 0% MF, 24% w/PTopaz, +65% set bonus w/3 pieces Immortal King's Will - 25-40% MF, 73-88% with PTopazes On a Sorc, my personal favorite MFing character, Tal Rasha's Set is good enough, and when you've got 3 pieces of the set you get a nice bonus of 65% MF. If you want to maximize your MF%, without sacrificing too much power, Harlequin Crest is the way to go. Physical characters might want to stick to Stealskull or more survival-related gear for the head slot. Body Armor 4-OS armor - 96% MF w/4 PTopaz Wealth Runeword Armor - 100% (LEM KO TIR runeword) Skullders Ire - (1.25% MF per CLVL; 1.25-123.75%; +24 for PTopaz) Tal Rasha's Guardianship - 88% MF, 112% w/PTopaz Enigma - 1% MF per CLVL; 1-99%. Early on, you won't have any of the other stuff available, so a 4OS Armor with PTopazes will be your only really decent option. Sorc's should go for Tal Rasha's Armor, because of the 65% MF bonus with 3 pieces, on top of a partial set bonus with 10% FCR, the resists on the armor are always good too. Non-sorcs should go for Skullders Ire, it's got the most MF out of these options, and isn't too shabby with it's other stats. And obviously, non-sorc casters like Hammerdins or Windruids, will pick up Enigma anyway for Teleport, the additional STR per CLVL is always nice too. Good luck trying to get a legit Jah and Ber runes for those single player people. Weapons 6-OS weapon with 6xIST - 180% MF Gull - 100% MF Blade of Ali-baba - 1% MF per CLVL + 2x IST runes; 61-159% MF The Occulus - 50% MF, 80% with IST For very rich people, 6xIst Crystal swords (or phase blades, or whatever weapon of their choice) are the way to go, 180% MF can't be beaten. The Occulus is the choice for Sorc's, since they get FCR, Resists, +3 Skills all along with the MF. Other characters should stick with Ali-Baba, it's not hard to find and grows in MF with you as you level up. Gull is a worthy consideration for a weapon-switch weapon for when you go for the last hit, but ultimately has nothing other than the 100% MF that makes it worthwhile. Shields 4-OS shield w/4 IST - 100% MF Rhyme Runeword Shield - 25% MF Milabrega's Orb - 20% MF, 45% w/IST I'll be frank here, and not suggest any of these. Shields are great defensive tools for blocking and/or resists. Giving up a good Spirit Monarch hurts a lot more than it gives you, especially if you've already got enough MF% to make diminishing returns an issue. IF you must though, the 4xIST shield is nice, and Rhyme is next up being good with it's other bonuses. Milabrega's Orb is a crappy low level shield with virtually no other use than it's MF. Gloves Chance Guards - 25-40% MF That's it, really. There are magic gloves that can come with MF%, but Chance Guards have more. Of course you could always get a good pair of Rare gloves with decent MF and +Ama/Asn skills if you play either of those classes too. Boots Wartravelers - 30-50% MF Again, that's really about it. There are other magical & rare boot possibilities that can provide FRW, Resists, MF, and other stuff, but Wartravelers are the most possible MF on a boot slot. Also some set boots provide some MF% with a partial set bonus, but those are hardly worth looking into. Belts Goldwrap - 30% MF Tal Rasha's Fine Spun Cloth - 10-15% MF Goldwrap is a good choice here, but Tal Rasha's has overall better mods on it. Personally I suggest Tal Rasha's, because I like building up some block rate, and Tal's Belt has +20 Dex. Also, Tal's Belt is a great "3rd Piece" to get the 65% partial set bonus from Tal's Set. Amulets Fortuitious Amulet of Luck - 37-50% MF rare/crafted Amulet of Fortune - 16-35% MF Honestly there's no real good choices for amulets with MF; you could do a better build using Mara's Kaleidoscope (or for sorcs, Tal Rasha's Adjutication) Still there's something to be said for having a magic amulet with 50% MF on it, as that's the most to be found of any amulet in the game. Rings Fortuitous Ring of Fortune - 27-40% MF Nagelring - 15-30% MF Again, you can find better rings for your build, like SoJ's or BK rings, Nature's Peace or Ravenfrost, or even a decent rare or crafted ring with good mods. Nagelring is easier to find, the magic Fortuitous Ring of Fortune will set you gambling for ages until you get one, but has the highest MF potential of any ring. Charms Gheeds Charm - 25-40% MF Small Charm of Luck - 6-7% MF Gheeds is a great charm, it adds MF, Gold Find, and even has the extremely rare Reduces Vendor Prices mod, only found on a couple other items in the game. And of course filling as much of your inventory as possible with 7MFSC's is good too, it adds up nicely, even if it is 7% at a time. The ultimate technical max of MF a single character can have is found with Barbarians, because they can dual wield 6-socket Swords loaded with Ists; the equipment would be as follows... Head-Artificer's Tiara of Luck 3xIST (110) Body - Skullder's Ire with IST (148) Weapons 6xIST (2x180) Gloves - Chance Guards (40) Boots - War Traveler (50) Belt - Goldwrap (30) Amulet - Fortuitous Amulet of Luck (50) Rings - Fortuitous Ring of Fortune (2x40) Gheed's Fortune (40) Small charms of luck (37*7) For a grand total of... 1167 MF! Although since you're inventory is loaded up with charms, you couldn't pick anything up =( AND for those curious, that factors out to a Unique Find of... 1167*250 / (1167+250) 291750 / 1417 205.89% chance to find Unique Items. ****cough**** way to waste it when you can get away with 300% MF****cough**** There's a general strategy to getting the MF'ing ball rolling. First, don't concern yourself at all in Normal difficulty, just build your level, wear whatever you find, and grind until you can take on Nightmare. In Nightmare, find any 3-OS Helms and 4-OS Armors you can, fill them up with PTopazes. If you want to make it easier, do some NM Baal Runs until you're around your mid-60's or early-70's. When you're ready, start farming up NM Mephisto. He can drop some gear that will make life easier in hell, his TC's allow him to drop most unique & set exceptional items. He's also the best chance to find War Travelers & Skullders Ire in his level range, paired with out mundanely simple he is to kill. From here you can take it into hell whenever you're comfortable. Just remember it's more important to survive (especially in hardcore!) than it is to stack on another 200% MF. You can't pick up any items if you're dead, and it's truly a pain in the butt to naked-run through hell with -70 resists. ============================== = MF Balance = ============================== This is one topic of debate, it's really a matter of preference how much MF% you wish to get up to, or another way of looking at it, how much killing speed you give up to get more MF. It's quite obvious that a character with 1000% MF will invariably kill slower than someone without any MF, instead wearing gear specialised toward killing/surviving. The character with 1000% MF will kill slower, thus meaning less items are dropping, the trade off being that more of those items will be unique/set/rare. The character without any MF will kill faster, meaning more items are dropping, the trade off is that very few of those will be unique/set/rare. So where is the golden balance? I'll only really factor Uniques for the following, since those tend to be more predictably valuable than other types (seriously, how often do you find a godly rare amulet, compared to the amount of totally crappy ones you find?). The following table is HRUS's work, full credit goes to him. In the table, the "MF" Column is the amount of MF you are wearing. The "UEffMF" is the effective MF after being run through the Diminishing Returns formula using the Unique Factor of 250. The "Real" column is what matters, it's the coefficient used to multiply your base chance to find a unique item (remember the baseline described in a different section; that's why it's 1.00+UEffMF) The "%gained" column reflects the differences between each Real row. --TABLE-- MF UEffMF Real %gained 0 0 1 50 41 1.41 41.00 100 ___ 71 ____ 1.71 __ 21.28 150 93 1.93 12.87 200 ___ 111 ___ 2.11 __ 9.33 250 125 2.25 6.64 300 ___ 136 ___ 2.36 __ 4.89 350 145 2.45 3.81 400 ___ 153 ___ 2.53 __ 3.27 450 160 2.6 2.77 500 ___ 166 ___ 2.66 __ 2.31 550 171 2.71 1.88 600 ___ 176 ___ 2.76 __ 1.85 650 180 2.8 1.45 700 ___ 184 ___ 2.84 __ 1.43 750 187 2.87 1.06 800 ___ 190 ___ 2.9 ___ 1.05 850 193 2.93 1.03 900 ___ 195 ___ 2.95 __ 0.68 950 197 2.97 0.68 1000 __ 200 ___ 3 _____ 1.01 --END TABLE-- What this all means, is that as you stack more MF%, your Unique-Effective-MF does increase, but following the diminishing returns formula, only 1/5 of it is effective at 1000% MF, meanwhile a little over 1/2 of it is effective at 200% MF. It also means that the gains between each benchmark decrease at you gain more; if you go from 50% MF to 100% MF, you gained 21% effective MF. If you go from 100% to 150%, you gained only 12.8% If you go from 150% to 200%, you gained only 9.3% and so on. Now ask yourself, is it worth stacking an additional 50% MF for a total gain of 1.88% (going from 500 to 550% MF). Personally, I'd say no, because that 50% MF might mean I have to give up +2 skills and some resists, or give up a bunch of inventory space for all the SC's. All things being equal, we can also make an association between the %gained and your killing speed. At 0% MF, if you would get 100 unique items within a period of time, then with 50% MF on the same character, you would get 141 unique items. Take it a step further; a character with 300% MF will find 4.89% more Unique Items than a character with 250%. It also means a reversed situation; the character with 250% MF can find more unique items if able to kill enemies about 5% faster than the character with 300% MF. A simple idea here; if the character with 300% MF takes 120 seconds to do a Mephisto run, then for the 250% MF character to be better, you've got to do the runs in 112 seconds or less. My personal preference is to reach 300% MF, and stop stacking it. If I get more through charms or higher% items (like upgrading from a 32% Wartravs to 42%), all is well as long as it doesn't mess up my speed. You can do some things to make your runs faster - 1) Kill stuff faster - for casters, get +skills and FCR. Physical damage dealers want +damage, attack rating, IAS. 2) Faster Movement speed - Teleport, teleport, teleport. With FCR, or even without, Teleport is the fastest movement ability in the game. Without Teleport (or Enigma), seek out FRW items, or find a way to get the Vigor aura on you. 3) Survival - Naturally, you can't pick up items if you're dead, you want to survive. This is paramount in Hardcore, of course, but even in Softcore, dying slows you down and often forces you to create a new game. +Life/Vit, Resists, Block rate if you like, LifeSteal if you are a physical build. The last bit for this section is the very old myth of MF Breakpoints; where certain amounts of MF would provide significant bonuses to finding unique/set/rare items. This was true in past versions of the game (1.09 and prior), but as of 1.10 and on, the mechanics changed, and tossed out the MF Breakpoints with them. Don't believe what someone tells you that "200% MF is better than 250% because of _____", because it's not true in the current version of the game. ============================== = MF Targets = ============================== This section will break down numerous potential targets to do your MF Runs on. Note: "TC##" refers to associated "armor##" or "weap##" TC's. Example: "Drops up to TC81" would mean that target can drop armo81 and weap81. 1 - Mephisto MLVL: 87 (Hell) Location: Durance of Hate lvl 3, Act 3 ________ General TC Info: good for TC75 and lower, infrequently TC78, cannot drop higher than TC78. He can drop all jewelry. ________ TC info: Picks: 7 No Drop: 15 Item1: Gold, prob: 5 Item2: "Act 4 (H) Equip A", prob: 52 Item3: "Act 4 (H) Junk", prob: 5 Item4: "Act 4 (H) Good", 3 ________ armoTC chances per: armo78: 1 in 1957 armo3 : 1 in 883 armo75: 1 in 245 armo72: 1 in 159 armo51: 1 in 151 armo69: 1 in 150 ________ weapTC chances are roughly equal to armoTC's of the same level halved ie: weap78: 1 in ~1000 weap75: 1 in ~122 weap69: 1 in ~75 ** this is NOT the quest kill info, which is different!** Mephisto is a good target, his "picks" are bugged, as no monster can drop more than 6 items in a single drop, even though Meph's list 7 as the picks. On average, you can expect to find 5-6 items dropping per Mephisto kill, but that's at the mercy of the RNG gods. Mephisto is also about the best target to farm for items under the TC78 sets (basically including every armo & weap TC from armo77 and weap77 down). NM Mephisto is decent, though he's only going to drop TC57 at best (armo57/weap57) - though that does include dropping things like Occulus, HoZ, and other class-specific things. The downfall is that even Hell Mephisto can't drop the higher TC's, which include Tal Rasha's Armor (lacquered plate is in Armo83, hell Meph goes up to Armo78), or Crown of Ages (also in a higher TC than Armo78). That doesn't mean you can't find good stuff, it just means you won't find the rarest stuff from meph EVER. 2) Andariel MLVL: 75 (Hell) Location: Catacombs Lvl4, Act 1 ________ General TC Info: Drops TC66 and lower, rarely from TC69, none higher than that. ________ TC Info: picks: 7 No Drop: 19 Item1: gold, prob: 11 Item2: "Act 2 (H) Equip A", prob: 19 Item3: "Act 2 (H) Junk", prob: 15 Item4: "Act 2 (H) Good", prob: 3 ________ armoTC chances per: armo69: 1 in 3956 armo3 : 1 in 1627 armo66: 1 in 495 armo63: 1 in 299 armo51: 1 in 278 armo42: 1 in 252 ________ *no weapTC info, but assumed to be about the same across the board as with meph. What makes Andy good is that she doesn't drop a whole lot from equipment, compared to Mephisto. Despite her "Act 2 (H) Equip A" having a probability of 19, she will on average drop more jewelry than most other bosses. More in fact that all of the bosses, for that matter (the only other boss to rival Andy is Duriel, but Duriel sucks). This is mostly due to how she doesn't have a lot of entries in the Equip. Wouldn't you rather see her drop nothing rather than yet another Breast Plate? She cannot drop the highest jewelry though, her MLVL isn't high enough to drop Rainbow Facets, Metalgrid, Nature's Peace, or Wisp Projector. You can still find all the other jewelry off her though, like Mara's Kaleidoscope. NM Andy is (arguably) the best source for SoJ's, with a unique ring being a 1 in 31 chance to be an SoJ. In Hell that drops to 1 in 55 (because Ravenfrost & Dwarfstar add in more rarities to factor in). 3) Diablo MLVL: 94 (Hell) Location: Chaos Sanctuary, Act 4. ________ General TC Info: Drops up to TC84 and lower. ________ TC Info: picks: 7 No Drop: 15 Item1: gold, prob: 5 Item2: "Act 5 (H) Equip A", prob: 52 Item3: "Act 5 (H) Junk", prob: 5 Item4: "Act 5 (H) Good", prob: 3 ________ armoTC chances per: armo84: 1 in 1957 armo3 : 1 in 925 armo78: 1 in 302 armo81: 1 in 279 armo6 : 1 in 220 ________ weapTC is roughly around armoTC halved. Diablo is a strange one, he's nearly identical to Meph as far as drops go, just a little higher up on potential runes and armor. The pain of going through Chaos Sanc isn't exactly fun, hurray for dead mercs. On the flip side, Chaos Sanc is ALVL 85, so it can be worthwhile, along with the 3 Super Uniques you've got to kill. Although the way Super Uniques respond to the ALVL 85 thing isn't that good (the random uniques can drop some things the super uniques can't because of the way their TC's get upgraded, while the Super Uniques don't). Overall Diablo is a good one to run, just a bit annoying if you can't solo it without risk or trouble with immunes. Mostly for having to deal with Chaos Sanc and all it's ALVL 85 goodness, but also because Diablo is capable of dropping all but the rarest of the rare TC's (TC85+), 4) Baal MLVL: 99 (Hell) Location: Worldstone Chamber, Act 5. ________ General TC Info: Drops from TC87 and lower; TC87 is the highest TC there is. ________ TC Info: picks: 7 No Drop: 15 Item1: gold, prob: 5 Item2: "Act 5 (H) Equip B", prob: 52 Item3: "Act 5 (H) Junk", prob: 5 Item4: "Act 5 (H) Good", prob: 3 ________ armoTC chances per: armo87: 1 in 1957 armo3 : 1 in 947 armo78: 1 in 267 armo84: 1 in 245 armo6 : 1 in 225 armo81: 1 in 198 ________ weapTC is roughly around armoTC halved. Again, Baal is a lot like Mephisto as far as drops go, just able to drop the highest TC items (which is about the only reason to run him, other than experience). While he CAN drop things from TC87, the highest/best TC in the game, he only does so with a great amount of rarity; you're pretty well better off running the ALVL 85 places for such items, since there are more uniques to kill who can also drop from TC87, and more kills = more drops = more chances to get that set sacred armor and unique corona. Baal is the ONLY "common" level 99 monster, which means if you're into rerolling things or crafting things, Baal-dropped items are the best to use. Worldstone Keep and Throne of Destruction are both ALVL 85 as well, so you should try to clear as much of those areas as possible. Baal's minion waves truly suck, however, even though they are technically super uniques, their TC's look (and drop) similarly to champion packs. Sigh. Baal is not easy for most characters to solo. I'm not saying it's not possible, but you'll probably have to focus a lot of good gear and/or different builds to do it. Hammerdins, obviously, with godly gear can solo it no problem. Some dual-element sorc builds, or extremely rich Lightning Sorcs can do well to. Summonecro's go through very slowly, but they can do it. Pretty much every other character gets screwed in some way without very careful preparation to solo it. 5) Pindleskin MLVL: 86 Location: Nihlathak's Temple, Exterior, Act 5. ________ General TC Info: Drops from TC87 and lower ________ TC Info: picks: -4** Item1: "Act 5 (H)Uitem C", prob: 2 Item2: "Act 5 (H) Cpot C", prob: 2 ** the negative picks means he will always pick 2 items to drop from Item1, and 2 from Item2; meaning 2 item drops and 4 potions. ________ armoTC chances per: armo3 : 1 in 828 armo78: 1 in 233 armo87: 1 in 186 armo81: 1 in 157 armo84: 1 in 154 armo51: 1 in 142 armo69: 1 in 132 ________ weapTC are roughly around armoTC halved Players in the game have no effect on his drops; he'll always drop 2 items and 4 potions, so don't bother with /players X or finding him in a high-players game. Pindle can NOT drop Arachnid Mesh, Azurewrath, or Tyrael's Might, due to his MLVL being 86, and those items having a QLVL of 87 - in other words, he can't drop them because he's not high enough. Pindle is the best source for uniques & sets from TC87, even better than baal. Especially as Pindle can be killed within 30 seconds of getting in the game, his level isn't random, and as long as the portal to him is up all you've gotta to is take a few steps and spam a few skills. Pindle's Minions drop similarly to Pindle, however they *are* affected by normal things like players in the game; also the minions won't drop unique/set items as often. On average, pindle will drop 1 unique TC87 item per 1000 kills (good luck). 6) Other Super Uniques And here's a condensed list of other Super Uniques found in Act 5 who can drop at least TC84. name mlvl TC Frozenstein 86 TC87 high Snapchip Shatter 86 TC87 high Thresh Socket 84 TC87 high Sharptooth Slayer 84 TC87 low Dac Farren 83 TC87 low Bonesaw Breaker 86 TC84 Eldritch the Rectifier 84 TC84 Eyeback the Unleashed 84 TC84 Schenk the Overseer 83 TC84 TC87 High refers to having a roughly 1 in 186 chance to drop from armo87. TC87 Low means just that; roughly a 1 in 1674 chance to drop from armo87. ============================== = TC List = ============================== This section will cover almost all of the TC's. Remember, when I say "TC87" or something, it's referring to "armo87" and "weap87". There are LOT of TC's, so this is quite a list. I only list most of the Uniques I tend to find useful in building characters. If you see an item in a list (like Stormshield, Unique Monarch), you can safely assume that Monarchs of all kinds, socketed, magic, etc. are in the same TC as that one. And Yes, I know I'm missing quite a bunch of useful set & unique items, sorry if you don't see every single last set & unique on here, but no one cares where Isenharts Case is; it drops frequently enough as it is. Another reminder that the TC Number isn't the only thing that allows it to drop, a monster must be high enough level to drop a unique/set item - just
because a monster can DROP from TC87, doesn't mean he can drop Tyrael's Might
unless the monster is also a REALLY high Level.

_______________
TC3

Armors
Death's Hand, Set Leather Gloves
Arctic Furs, Set Quilted Armor

Weapons
Gull, Unique Dagger (100% MF!)
_______________

TC9

Armors
Cow King's Hooves, Set Heavy Boots (only on Cow Level)
Cow King's Hide, Set Studded Leather

Weapons
Crushflange, Unique Mace
_______________

TC12

Armors
Chance Guards, Unique Chain Gloves

Weapons
(none worth mention)
_______________

TC21

Armors
Wall of the Eyeless, Unique Bone Shield
Goldwrap, Unique Heavy Belt
Magefist, Unique Light Gauntlets

Weapons
(none worth mention)
_______________


TC27

Armors
Frostburn, Unique Gauntlets

Weapons
(none worth mention)
_______________

TC36

Armors
String of Ears, Unique Demonhide Sash
Skin of the Vipermagi, Serpentskin Armor

Weapons
Titans Revenge, Unique Ceremonial Javelin
_______________

TC39
Armors
Mosers Blessed Circle, Unique Round Shield
Whitstans Guard, Set Round Shield

Weapons
(none worth mention)
_______________

TC45
Armors
Shaftstop, Unique Mesh Armor
Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth, Set Mesh Belt

Weapons
(none worth mention)
_______________

TC48
Armors
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest, Set Death Mask
Lidless Wall, Unique Grim Shield

Weapons
(none worth mention)
_______________

TC51
Armors
Snowclash, Unique Battle Belt
War Traveler, Unique Battle Boots
Vampire Gaze, Unique Grim Helm
Herald of Zakarum, Unique Gilded Shield
Skullders Ire, Unique Russet Armor
Guillaume's Face, Set Winged Helm

Weapons
The Occulus, Unique Swirling Crystal
Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye, Set Swirling Crystal
_______________

TC54
Armors
Arreat's Face, Unique Slayer Guard
Thundergod's Vigor, Unique War Belt
Immortal King's Detail, Set War Belt
Gorerider, Unique War Boots
Immortal King's Pillar, Set War Boots
Immortal King's Forge, Set War Gauntlets

Weapons
(none worth mention)
_______________

TC60
Armors
Harlequin Crest, Unique Shako

Weapons
Wizardspike, Unique Bone Knife
_______________

TC63
Armors
Arachnid Mesh, Unique Spiderweb Sash
Dracul's Grasp, Unique Vampirebone Gloves

Weapons
(none worth mention)
_______________

TC66
Armors
Ormus' Robes, Unique Dusk Shroud
Sandstorm Trek, Unique Scarabshell Boots

Weapons
Colossus Voulge (not unique, but good for runeword polearms)
_______________

TC69
Armors
(none worth mention)

Weapons
Eschuta's Temper, Unique Eldritch Orb
_______________

TC72
Armors
Stormshield, Unique Monarch
Marrowwalk, Unique Boneweave Boots
Kira's Guardian, Unique Tiara

Weapons
(none worth mention)
_______________

TC75
Armors
Andariel's Visage, Unique Demonhead

Weapons
Ondal's Wisdom, Unique Elder Staff
Boneshade, Unique Lich Wand
Lightsabre, Unique Phase Blade
Azurewrath, Unique Phase Blade
_______________

TC78
Armors
Arkaine's Valor, Unique Balrog Skin

Weapons
Eaglehorn, Unique Crusader Bow
_______________

TC81
Armors
Nightwing's Veil, Unique Spired Helm
Boneflame, Unique Succubus Skull

Weapons
Tomb Reaver, Unique Cryptic Axe
Cryptic Axe, (base item, good for socketing/runewording)
_______________

TC84
Armors
Archon Plate (base item, good for socketing)
Tal Rasha's Guardianship, Unique Lacquered Plate
Aldur's Deception, Set Shadow Plate

Weapons
blech, it has some uniques, but none I'd recommend for end-game really.
_______________

TC87
Armors
Darkforge Spawn, Unique Bloodlord Skull
Crown of Ages, Unique Corona
Griswold's Valor, Set Corona
Griffon's Eye, Unique Diadem
M'avina's True Sight, Set Diadem
Shadowdancer, Unique Myrmidon Greaves
Steelrend, Unique Ogre Gauntlets
Griswold's Honor, Set Vortex Shield
Tyrael's Might, Unique Sacred Armor
Templar's Might, Unique Sacred Armor
Immortal King's Soul Cage, Set Sacred Armor

Weapons
Death Cleaver, Unique Berzerker Axe
Griswold's Redemption, Caduceus
Death's Fathom, Unique Dimensional Shard
Windforce, Unique Hydra Bow
Death's Web, Unique Unearthed Wand
_______________

That about covers all the TC's with equipment.  There are more TC's that
contain stuff like runes, potions, scrolls, gems, jewelry, rings, amulets,
charms, and even unique TC's that contain those event-based things like Keys of
Terror/Hate/Destruction, Annihilus, and Hellfire Torch.


==============================
=           Outro            =
==============================

Well it's been one long guide all to unearth the finer points of the magic
finding, treasure classes, and other formulas and systems in Diablo 2.  I hope
you learned a lot, and found it to be informative (and if not you can just
keep on farming bosses in mediocrity, bwahahahaha).

Just remember, that behind all these numbers and systems and crap going on,
it's a game.  Have fun with it, and don't get too frustrated that Pindleskin
or Baal doesn't always give you unique Sacred Armors and whatnot.

I'm not giving out my email in this guide, because I really don't want to get
swamped by all kinds of people pointing stuff out, or trying to argue over the
intarwebs.

==============================
=      Special Thanks        =
==============================

A very big THANK FUCKING YOU goes out to HRUS at the diii.net forums, he was
   the source of a lot of information presented in this guide.

Thanks to blizzard, for making a game that has stood the test of time.

Fuck you Warden, for banning half of my accounts in Jan. 09 for doing nothing
   wrong.

Thanks to God or whatever deity you believe in, for the usual "without
   him/her/it there would be naught" stuff.

Thanks to myself, for getting the motivation to write up the guide.

Thanks to the guys who made MPQ Editors available, without them most of the
   information in the MPQ's wouldn't be accessible.


==============================
=           Legal            =
==============================

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