I've suspected the affixes on he guaranteed rare might not be affected by mf since blizzard clarified how MF works. IIRC they also implied that different mobs have different chances of dropping rares. So a rare dropped by a white mob, on average, might be worse than a rare dropped by a champ (excluding guaranteed rare)

Yeah, I'm gonna try to collect all my ilvl 63's that are 100% not guaranteed and them compare them to ilvl 63's that were 100% guaranteed. It's gonna take some time but we'll see what the data shows. Getting 3 ilvl 63's from a champ pack is the best thing that happens when farming

Don't you need something like tens of thousands of rares to even begin to have a reasonable sample size?

Depends... if guaranteed rates are 5% to have 6 affixes and random rares are 80% it'll be very obvious one is bigger than the other pretty quick.

Yeah but getting a few hundred can at least begin to show whether or not its worth continuing. If 96% of the guaranteed drops are 5 affix or below and something like 80% of the non-guaranteed drops are 5 affix or below I might just continue to collect data. If anyone else wants to help contribute I can make a google doc where you can just input your data.

Only tough thing to control for is the different amounts of magic find each player has.

Edit: lol Bremen, nice numbers

I could one way the guaranteed drop mechanic might work that would result in the guaranteed drops having fewer props than a random drop. Maybe they just set a 'floor' and then roll like normal. Like say, 3-prop rare is the minimum item that can drop. If they did that, it would result in a really high proportion of 3-prop rares from your guaranteed drops. No idea if that's what they do.

Example, normal drop (numbers made up):

Legendary: 0.0001%
Set: 0.003%
6-Prop: 1%
5-Prop: 1%
4-Prop: 2.0%
3-Prop: 2.0%
Blue item: 10%

When getting a random item with those ranges, 6-props will be like roughly 15% of your rares.

If you did the same thing but made 3-Prop a guarantee, then like 96% of your rares would be 3-prop.

This would also explain why you're always seeing legendaries come off of trash mobs, barrels etc. If they come off of an elite or trash mob at the same %, you should see more of them off of trash mobs.

Now the question to answer is MF increases those drop rates or if you are stuck with the base chances since it's a different drop mechanic. If it doesn't and you get an ilvl 63 as your guaranteed random drop it's actually a very bad thing then

Identified a bunch -- about 200 -- guaranteed rares (ilvl 61-63) and a large majority of them were only 4 affixes (90%+). Since you only get non-guaranteed rares during the first 5 champ packs it will take a while before I get a decent sample size to compare.

In co-op do the other players NV stacks affect my drops? If three of us are lev 60 with NV stacks and we are joined by a lev 59 does the level 59 player benefit from our stacks?

Only the gear-based MF is shared with the group, the NV stacks only apply to the individual.

edit: I said that, but I'm not entirely sure. The guaranteed drop is definitely not shared, but now I'm uncertain about the 75% MF.

edit: For what it's worth, DiabloWiki says that it IS shared, but there is no official source: http://www.diablowiki.net/Magic_find..._in_Diablo_III

Almost certain NV stacks aren't shared with chars under lvl 60, that would be ridic

Decent rares at level 40 or whatever are still worth 100k in hardcore. Is it worth running around in nightmare A3 with 300+ MF and then 5 valor stacks?

For the Act 1 Cemetery of Forsaken, there is usually one of the crypts with a setpiece, either Jar of Souls or Lady something.

For Jar of souls, you can trigger the jar, then leave the place and go clear the rest of the map. When you come back at the end the quest is finished and all you have to do is break the jar.

For Lady something, you can trigger all three jars. (Most people already know this). But then, you don't even have to fight the ghost guy. Just go directly to the sarcophagus and open it, and the ghost guy and all the skeletons disappear.

The only recipe I have had drop is the Exalted Shield. I've gotten 5 of these and judging by the ah price they are very common. Is this standard or is getting 5 of the same recipe unlucky? Is there a chart for recipe drop calculations? thx

The AH price is also a reflection of how worthless the recipe is. Only 6 prop recipes are really worth anything.

Otherwise you're just unlucky.

Found 5 recipes tonight...all 4 prop garbage valued at around 236 gold a pop lol

i've found 5 recipes total, 3 exalted shield and 2 exalted something or other, both completely worthless.

Don't even worry about plans that drop outside of act 3+. They have never been worth anything.

Exalted Grand X is the only type worth anything. All other non-legendary are for trash.

So it sounds like I am running fairly average with regard to recipe drops. I wonder if recipe drops willl also be changed in 1.0.4.

Is there a big difference in farming inferno act 3/4 compared to act 1/2?