Wonko the Sane said:
I plan on making a new character, whose sole purpose is MF. Unfortunately, I've never done more MF than some Pindle runs with my Bnet sorc, so I have almost no idea what I'm doing.
Basically I'm looking for tips, strategies, anything helpful to start my SP MF career. I was thinking of making a Hammerdin, since he can be wearing decent MF and not slow down much at all with his killing. If anyone has advice for a Hammerdin (or a link to a decent guide) it'd be much appreciated.
PS: thanks in advance for anyone's advice. Also, I might wanna take my future Hammerdin through some MP games to speed the leveling process. I'll browse through the MP thread once I get home, maybe someone will want to join me. Cheers!
I think the first step is in deciding what kind of MF you want to do. There's two basic flavors. First is the 'boss' approach, where you focus on some boss (usually Mephisto). The other is the 'kill lots' approach, where you run an area with good drop potential (Pits, for example), and kill virtually everything that moves.
With the first approach, if you can get to the boss quickly (Meph is fastest, as there are no guardians), and kill him quickly, you have a good chance of decent drops. Even with low MF (which you'll likely have if you're just starting out), you can get some good stuff. The benefit here is you can pile on a lot of MF without compromising your kill speed or survival too much, as you know exactly what you'll be facing. Sorcies have an obvious advantage with Teleport, but you can get that on an amulet or (if you're really rich and/or lucky) Enigma. My bonemancer can run Meph reasonably fast, and with virtually no risk; Bone Prison keeps meph busy, and he's too stupid to cast his Blizzard while he's caged.
The second approach is more of a numbers game. You need more flexibility here, as you will run into different combinations of immunities, and you must be able to cope. Hammerdins can work well here, as hammers are magic damage that ignore resistances of undead and demons, and the only magic immune, non-undead, non-demon creatures in the entire game are Wailing Beasts, found in the Forgotten/Ruined/etc temple areas of Kurast. As long as you can keep a hammerdin alive, you don't have to worry about immunes. For other characters, it's trickier. You can run an area with relatively fixed monster types (ie Pit), and hope no boss spawns with immunities you can't deal with, knowing that regular monsters will not have this immunity, or you can build your character with the ability to deal two or three kinds of damage (but in this case, you give up synergies/masteries/etc, and are less focussed, which means slower killing in general). Remember that when doing this approach, your best drops will come mostly from random bosses, so while running away is an option for survival, it won't exactly help you find good stuff.
There's a sort of third approach, which is where you run a boss, and kill much or all of the stuff on the way there. Baal and Diablo runs generally fall into this category, as, at the least, you must kill the minions/seal guardians; many people do relatively full clears as well. When running Diablo, you must be able to cope with Iron Maiden (in other words, don't use a melee char) and immunes of each elemental type (quite possibly dual-immune seal bosses). If you can do this quickly, and kill Diablo too, you can get some good stuff. When running Baal, you must be prepared for a wide variety of monster types in the Worldstone Keep and Throne of Destruction. Melee characters get to look forward to possible Stygian Dolls and IM-casting Oblivion Knights (here's where you have your necro buddy declare hostility and cast Attract on you; the monsters will be after you anyways, and other curses can't override Attract). Sorcies, trapsins, and elemental druids get the pleasure of mixed-immune packs. Everyone gets a chance of Gloams here; an added bonus are possible Unravelers which will raise the Gloams you're lucky enough to kill; in the latter case, cold damage and Corpse Explosion are your friends.
I'd recommend getting a character to the point where s/he can run the Pits or Meph in Hell with relative safety. Once you've done this, worry about getting MF gear. I've only got roughly 280 or so MF on my bonemancer, and it seems to do the job. Remember MF has diminishing returns; often a little more MF is not worth the cost in kill speed or survival chances. Only pile on as much MF as you can afford to.
Oh, I almost forgot- don't forget the weapon switch trick, especially if you're a caster character. Have your main gear on one set, and MF stuff (Gull dagger, Blade of Ali Baba, Rhyme runeword shield, etc) on the other hand. Switch right before the kill, and you can boost your MF by a significant amount. Obviously, this approach only works for bosses; it's not practical to switch on every single kill otherwise.
