Magic find

Magic Find is the common term for items that possess the "% Better Chance Of Getting Magic Items" (Diablo II) or "% Better Chance of Finding Magical Items" (Diablo III). It is a magical effect that increases the likelihood that a Magic, Rare, Set, Unique, or Legendary Items will drop. Before high magic find penalties, it will scale up the chance for an enemy to drop a magical item linearly based on their drop rate. Magic Find is added across all items for your character.

Diablo II

Note that this is based upon the monsters' chance to drop an item. If you find an item that gives 20% Better Chance of Getting a Magic Item, and a Monster has a 2% chance to drop a Magic Item, you will now have 2.4% chance of getting that Magic Item. So having 100% Magic Find does not guarantee a Unique/Rare/Set drops.

Magic Find can provide a significant increase in the number of Unique, Rare, and Set Items you find. Players that wish to find "good" Rare Items, and more Set and Unique Items will want to invest heavy in this magical bonus. Just remember, you can never have enough % Magic Find. Increasing your Magic Find Percentage will always help you.

Additional Information

• "% Better Chance of Getting Magic Item" does not increase the Chances of getting an Exceptional or Elite Item, but if you do get an Exceptional/Elite, the chance of that being Magical/Rare will increase.
• There is no cap on Magic Find. This means that the more you can get, the better is gets. As listed below, the maximum amount a character can obtain is around 1167%.
• Magic Find works on Barrels, Chests, or other Containers that drop items.
• Magic Find works on Act Bosses.
• Magic Find also increases the chance of finding Magic Items with the Barbarian's Find Item Skill.
• Magic Find also works in conjunction with Hirelings. When you make a kill, you get the Magic Find % of yourself only. When a Hireling gets a kill, it uses the combined Magic Find of the Hireling and you.
• When in a party, the chance to get a Magic Item will be determined on the player who makes the killing blow. For the best results, have the player in the party with the best Chance of Getting a Magic Item finish off all the monsters.
• Magic Find does not influence the drop rate or item level of Runes you come across.
• Magic Find does not increase the chance of obtaining better magic items through Gambling.
• While there is no cap on Magic Find, there is a diminishing return formula (that is not available) which becomes active over 10% Magic Find for Rare, Set, and Unique Items (but not regular Magic Items). This does not mean that it's useless to get over 10%, but it does mean that the benefits drop off as you get higher Magic Find. The most Magic Find is still better than less Magic Find.

Maximizing Magic Find

A common comment is that with a lot of Magic Find, you won't be able to kill anything. Some classes such as spell casters (Sorceress, Necromancer, Elemental Druid) are more capable of sacrificing all equipment for Magic Find. You may wish to create "Magic Find Characters" to "farm" or find items then use those items on other characters. Still, melee classes (the Barbarian in particular due to the Find Item skill) can be very successful at treasure hunting.

Here's how to get the most (1167%) out of Magic Find for yourself. This does not count the maximum possible with Hirelings, but you only receive that bonus when Hirelings make a kill. Add Magic Find to Hirelings to increase Magic Find even more. Some items are pretty rare making it difficult, but not impossible (especially with time and trading), to obtain the most Magic Find. Alternative "poor man" items are suggested.

Ist Runes are generally socketed for maximum potential with +25% each, or +30% in weapons. Since acquiring many Ist Runes can be very difficult, perfect Topaz gems can be substituted in helms or body armor with a minor loss at +24% each. Although much more rare than topazes and not as powerful, Jewels with the prefix Emerald (+3-7%) and suffix Prosperity (+5-10%) may also be used; with both affixes, an Emerald Jewel of Prosperity could be worth a maximum of +17%. You can add sockets via a quest or Horadric Cube recipe.

Item shopping list for maximizing Magic Find
Helms
110%: Jeweler's Tiara/Diadem of Luck (26-35% + three Ist Runes) 90%: Immortal King's Will (Barbarian Only) (25-40% + two Ist Runes) 85%: Mechanic's Tiara/Diadem of Luck (26-35% + two Ist Runes) 80%: Griswold's Valor (20-30% + two Ist Runes) 75%: Harlequin Crest (50% + one Ist Rune) 75%: Stealskull (30-50% + one Ist Rune) 75%: Tarnhelm (25-50% + one Ist Rune) 75%: 3-Socket Helm with three Ist Runes
Armor
148%: Skullder's Ire (based on character level) (1.25-123% + one Ist Rune) 113%: Tal Rasha's Guardianship (88% + one Ist Rune) 100%: Wealth Rune Word 100%: 4-Socket Armor with four Ist Runes 99%: Enigma Rune Word (based on character level) (1-99%)
Weapon
180%: 6-Socket Weapon with six Ist Runes 159%: Blade of Ali Baba (based on character level) (1-99% + two Ist Runes) 130%: Gull (100% + one Ist Rune) Barbarians and Assassins can hold an additional weapon instead of a shield. Only Barbarians can hold a weapon big enough to have a higher potential magic find than a shield however, but a 3-socket off-hand claw filled with Ist Runes (90%) would be stronger than a 3-socket shield filled with Ist Runes (75%).
Shield
100%: 4-Socket Shield with four Ist Runes 75%: 3-Socket Shield with three Ist Runes 50%: Moser's Blessed Circle with two Ist Runes 45%: Milabrega's Orb (20% + one Ist Rune) 25%: Rhyme Rune Word 25%: Exile Rune Word (Paladin only)
Belt
30%: Goldwrap 15%: Tal Rasha's Fine Spun Cloth (10-15%); with 3 pieces of Tal Rasha's Wrappings, you'll receive +65% Magic Find, but this will use armor slots that could have higher potentials
Boots
50%: War Traveler (30-50%) 35%: Boots of Luck (26-35%)
Gloves
40%: Chance Guards (25-40%) 25%: Gloves of Fortune (16-25%)
Amulet
50%: Fortuitous Amulet of Luck (11-15% + 26-35%)
Rings
40%: Fortuitous Ring of Fortune (11-15% + 16-25%) 30%: Nagelring You can, of course, wear two rings.
Charms
40%: Gheed's Fortune (20-40%) 7%: Small Charm of Good Luck (6-7%) One perfect Gheed's Fortune and 37 small charms at 7% each = 299%, although you would have to drop Charms to pick up items. 27 7% Charms is ideal, as this leaves room for a 3x2 item and the Horadric Cube. You can place your keys and tomes in the Horadric Cube then move them out into the open to use them. This can be frustrating to do and is only recommended for extreme players.

Diablo III

Magic Find was relatively prominent in the initial release of the third game, similar to its predecessor. Since release, significant patch changes have shifted the focus from being based on items to being based on difficulty tiers and Greater Rift levels. Higher difficulty increases the chance to find higher quality items, to the point where numerous Legendary and Set items drop on each Greater Rift run of higher levels. Outside of Greater Rifts, Nephalem Rifts double Magic Find, and some levels of a Vision of Enmity have significantly increased Magic Find.

Magic Find cannot appear as a random item attribute any more, so the Cain's Fate item set and the legendary Nagelring are the only sources that can still drop. Their bonuses, and even a maxed-out set of Magic Find gear from the earlier patches, are insignificant compared to the bonuses from current high level play, especially given the added combat power of newer gear.

Development

Magic Find initially worked similarly to Diablo II. It could appear as an item attribute on many equipment types. Each Paragon level increased Magic Find by 3%. 20% of any Follower's Magic Find bonus applied to the player. A Topaz socketed into a Helm provided increased Magic find. All of these combined had a hard cap of 300% increased Magic Find chance.

When in a party, the Magic Find chance improved by 10% for all players with each party member beyond the first. Before Patch 1.0.4, Magic Find was averaged among all party members, for example one member wearing gear granting 100% Magic Find chance and the other wearing no Magic Find gear would result in both having 50% bonus to Magic Find.

Patch 2.0 preceding the release of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls altered much of the game, including the loot system and Magic Find:

• Random Magic Find bonuses were removed as a possible attribute for new item drops.
• Paragon level bonuses to Magic Find were removed.
• The effectiveness of Magic Find toward Rare and Legendary or Set items was penalized to 30% and 10% respectively. These were not hard caps, but multipliers on the overall Magic Find increase, for example +50% to Magic Find would be .3x50% = +15% chance to find Rare items and .1x50% = +5% chance to find Legendary items. With the hard cap to overall Magic Find, this means a +30% maximum to Legendary chance, a disincentive to prioritizing the stat at all compared to combat-oriented items.
• The increases to Magic Find based on difficulty were implemented in this patch, granting approximately 15% higher chance for each new level, stacking multiplicatively, without the penalties to Rares and Legendaries which applied to item-based Magic Find.
• Nephalem Rifts were added, doubling Magic Find while inside.

Patch 2.1 added Greater Rifts with their accompanying level system, allowing access to even higher difficulties of play, with the accompanying bonuses to Magic Find.

Patch 2.4.2 changed Topazes to grant Resource Cost Reduction instead of Magic Find when socketed into Helms.

External Links

• The Arreat Summit on Magic Find.