Maybe I'm just new to this whole experience, but I'm having some issues with bonuses that help finding magical items. I have three characters, one set for just story purposes, one set to farm gold, and another strictly made to farm magical loot. My problem is, even with over 100% better chance of finding magical items bonuses linked to my character, I'm still finding more white loot than anything...actually it's more like I don't even have a bonus connected to my character. Is there something I'm missing? Don't bonuses stack?

I'd assume if there is a 1 in a million chance of finding an item it basically means you now have a 2 in a million chance of finding an item with a 100% magic find boost.

That's pretty much it right?

Also, why not do all that on one character? what use is farming shit on other characters when you can have one high difficulty character that's doing everything?

@Benny: Items that have both gold and magic find attached them are usually low compared to other items with just one bonus attached. And to answer your question, I like playing with alternative characters, doesn't matter what game it is, so I might as well have them set up to help my other characters in some way.

I'm still not getting it. If there's a one in a million chance of finding magically loot, and my character has 100% better chance at finding magical loot, I should see a difference, even if it is a small difference. Right now, it feels like I'm playing without any bonuses at all. Basically for every 15 loot drops I find, 1 has magical properties.

You're finding more white loot because most loot is white. The chance to find magical loot is small and will always be smaller than your chance of finding plain loot, more or less.

I'm sorry, but it still doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe I'm staring at the percentage symbol like it's supposed to mean something. Maybe there's something I'm just not understanding. I just assumed that the greater the percentage of magic find, the more magical loot I'm supposed to find, yet I see absolutely no difference.

The best loot comes from rares, elites and treasure goblins.

Kill those if you want to see your magic find being used.

Let's put it this way: say your base chance to find a magical item is 5%. 100%of 5% is... 5%. So if you have a 100% increase to your chance to find magical items, that chance is still only 10%.

That's why you still find lots of white loot.

Probability is a frustrating thing. The idea is that you can improve your chances but it is still unlikely. Even if you were 99% likely to get magic loot on an enemy there is always a 1% chance that you wont.

What's not to get? You have a better chance to find magical loot it doesn't mean you only find magical loot.

I'm so bad at math. :(

@Brewmaster_Andy said:

Let's put it this way: say your base chance to find a magical item is 5%. 100%of 5% is... 5%. So if you have a 100% increase to your chance to find magical items, that chance is still only 10%.

That's why you still find lots of white loot.

That makes more sense. I still argue that I'm not seeing a difference, which I believe I should. Thanks for all the replies everyone. I'll keep bumping that percentage as high as I can in hopes that one day, when I'm high enough level, that the magically loot will come raining down.

I'm an art major with no math skills but my understanding is: 100% chance stacked on top of your normal chance only doubles your chances. So yes, you will still get hella white items.

@Spiritgod: well assuming your initial chance is super low, doubling that will not make a noticeable difference.

@Hunkulese said:

What's not to get? You have a better chance to find magical loot it doesn't mean you only find magical loot.

I understand I won't always find magical loot, that's not what was puzzling me. I'm just not seeing a difference, like the bonuses weren't stacking. It just felt pointless that I was equipping items for a specific purpose over better items to protect my character if in the long run it wouldn't make a difference. Now I know that I'm upping my chances but on a smaller scale, which means I just need to keep at it.

Last question everyone. Do your chances raise with each level?

Are you actually running statistics on loot from rare, elite, and treasure pigmies? Or are you just playing normally and expecting more colored text than you're getting?

@Spiritgod said:

when I'm high enough level, that the magically loot will come raining down.

If you're not already level 60 and farming Inferno then +magic find is essentially useless. You're better off stacking gold find until then and playing the auction house.

@Ravenlight said:

@Spiritgod said:

when I'm high enough level, that the magically loot will come raining down.

If you're not already level 60 and farming Inferno then +magic find is essentially useless. You're better off stacking gold find until then and playing the auction house.

That's a bit depressing. I kind of wonder why its even useable on the normal difficulty if that's the case.

@Spiritgod said:

@Benny: Items that have both gold and magic find attached them are usually low compared to other items with just one bonus attached. And to answer your question, I like playing with alternative characters, doesn't matter what game it is, so I might as well have them set up to help my other characters in some way.

I'm still not getting it. If there's a one in a million chance of finding magically loot, and my character has 100% better chance at finding magical loot, I should see a difference, even if it is a small difference. Right now, it feels like I'm playing without any bonuses at all. Basically for every 15 loot drops I find, 1 has magical properties.

That's odd because I have like 13% or something and I get a blue for every 6 or 7 whites and a yellow quite often as well.

@laserbolts: That's why I was having such a hard time understanding, cause I was getting around the same loot consistency with another character with far less magic find bonuses. I get it now, I'll continue with this road, since I've invested a lot time so far. Hopefully gaining levels plays a role as well.

Just from what I've noticed (without trying to hard) you get more magic drops at higher levels and later into the game ACT 2+

This may have an impact on your findings as well. Even in Nightmare Act 1 (where I am at) I get more whites then anything but on ACT 4 on normal I was getting massive amounts of blues and golds. This may have to do with how the loot tables are on the different Acts, I don't know exactly.

@CornBREDX: Thanks, that raises my hopes since I'm only on Act 2 with this character.

I can tell you that whenever I kill bosses in Hell with only 75% MF I'm consistently having 6 blues and 2 yellows drop. Champions and Rares are also dropping yellows about 50% of the time.

@Spiritgod said:

I'm sorry, but it still doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe I'm staring at the percentage symbol like it's supposed to mean something. Maybe there's something I'm just not understanding. I just assumed that the greater the percentage of magic find, the more magical loot I'm supposed to find, yet I see absolutely no difference.

What difficulty are you on? You get very little magical items on normal difficulty compared to Nightmare +, where nearly every enemy drops at least 1 blue. Also Elites and Champions (Blue names and Gold Names) are where you should farm in addition to chests with your magic find. Also on any difficulty try to get to Act II and beyond. Act 1 has low magic drop values.

@MasturbatingestBear said:

@Spiritgod said:

I'm sorry, but it still doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe I'm staring at the percentage symbol like it's supposed to mean something. Maybe there's something I'm just not understanding. I just assumed that the greater the percentage of magic find, the more magical loot I'm supposed to find, yet I see absolutely no difference.

What difficulty are you on? You get very little magical items on normal difficulty compared to Nightmare +, where nearly every enemy drops at least 1 blue. Also Elites and Champions (Blue names and Gold Names) are where you should farm in addition to chests with your magic find. Also on any difficulty try to get to Act II and beyond. Act 1 has low magic drop values.

I'm still on normal. I just wanted to get some crafting supplies together before I ramped up the difficulty, that way I'm not farming as much when I have to later on. I have noticed a slight increase in magic items after Act II so all the bonuses must be doing something.

@Spiritgod said:

I'm sorry, but it still doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe I'm staring at the percentage symbol like it's supposed to mean something. Maybe there's something I'm just not understanding. I just assumed that the greater the percentage of magic find, the more magical loot I'm supposed to find, yet I see absolutely no difference.

1. It is not necessarily always about finding any magical loot AT ALL, but sometimes it will be that you'll find MORE magical loot on something that DOES drop it. That's actually my most common scenario.

2. If you are playing on normal or nightmare, those two modes have a relatively lenient magical loot drop chance. Essentially, each difficulty has a % range that they work with. For instance, in Act 1, the chances of a rare off Skeleton King may be, like, 10%...meaning there's a 10% on killing him that he'll drop a rare or better. Therefore, having 100% magic find just means you are boosting it up to 20%. Meanwhile, in Nightmare, that chance may not be as good.

Just be patient with it. You'll start seeing the benefits more and more as you continue playing.

Then again, once you hit 60, you can get the buff that gives you up to 100% magic find anyways....so I've been relying on that plus a topaz in my helm.