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→Comparison of MF targets for high TC items
For TC75 and less, the best target is Mephisto, for jewelry the best source is Andariel and Duriel, who can drop all jewelry. That is nothing new. I will compare efficiency of Baal, Diablo, Pindleskin and lvl85 boss for TC78 and higher. I will count drops of Baal's minions into Baal run, and drops of 3 seal superuniques into Diablo runs. I will ignore the minions for all kind of targets. Again character with 400MF will be used. (The ratio will be around the same for all MF amounts)
The number in ratio column means number of unique drops from appropriate TC equal to number of Pindleskin drops. For example for TC87 1 Baal run (including minions) is equal to 2.4 Pindleskin runs (You will get the same avg. number of TC87 uniques from 10000 Baal runs and from 24000 pindleruns). For TC84 Baal run is equal to 9.7 Pindleskin runs etc.
I personally look for TC87 only (because I have most of the items from lower TCs).
My average time per run for Pindleskin is 22 seconds. For Baal it's ~4 minutes, but I usually kills around 3 bosspacks on my way through WSK and throne. So I will add 1.5 to Baal ratio for these 3 bosspacks. So i get 3.9 "pindleskin TC87 drops" per 4 minutes of my Baalrun and 1 "pindleskin TC87 drop" per 22 seconds of my pindlerun. It's 163 "pindleskin TC87 drops" per hour when running pindleskin and only 58.5 "pindleskin TC87 drops" per hour when running Baal. For Pits it's better, I can do full-clear in 4 minutes ~ 103.5 "pindleskin TC87 drops" per hour. However for TC84 I get 163 "pindle TC84 drops" per hour from pindle and (ratio 9.7+1.5=11.2 for my Baal run) 168 "pindle TC84 drops" per hour from baal runs, so they are about the same for me.
It's really easy, just compare the ratio for appropriate TC to time per run. Pindleskin is so good for me, because I don't have a better Pit runner, and because I play SP on my fast PC where setting the new game doesn't take much time. BNet players can't set/join 150 games per hour like me when I am running Pindle, so for them running lvl85 areas will be much more important (It's still clever to start each session with killing pindle).
Note: When I talk about 168 "pindle TC87 drops" per hour, it doesn't mean that I get 168 TC87 items per hour, it means that I get 168 drops, each of them having the same chance for TC87 as Pindleskin has.
==MF Builds==
I will not go too deep here, I will just list most efficient builds and add some notes. If I will forget someone's favorite MF build, don't be rude to me. Either I have forgotten or it's only average build and I can't list them all.
The best build for Mephisto, Pindleskin and Andariel runs. It's because high damage, large area of effect (large monsters as actbosses are hit more) and Cold mastery that lowers cold resistances. The best amount of Cold Mastery is -175 (skill level 32 with items), because it will lower the Mephisto's cold resistances to -100. (monster resistances cannot be lowered to more than -100).
Sorcs need 63% FCR to get fast and safe teleport through areas. You can use "the +skill+FCR" weapon switch for teleporting and lowering boss life and second - MF switch - for killing. You can pack a lot of MF on this character, while still having good killing ability. Because it's 1 element sorc, she will have some difficulties in areas where CI spawns, but she still can run Ancient Tunnels (no CI, alvl=85) effectively. She can also run Baal, but there are CI monsters in the throne sometimes....
===Meteorb Sorc - ===20 Meteor, 20 Fireball, 20 Fire Mastery, 20 Frozen Orb, 5+ Cold Mastery, 1 Static Field, 1 Teleport, 1 Warmth
The most universal build. Powerful fire skills and also good FO as backup. She can do Mephisto and Pindleskin almost as fast as Blizzsorc, Andariel maybe even faster (because she is vulnerable to fire) and she can kill effectively in all lvl85 areas and Baal runs.
===Other sorc builds===
Almost all main sorc builds are good MFers. On BNet lightning sorc (using lightning an Chain Lightning as main skills) is very popular - especially if her merc can wear Infinity. Or other kinds of dual sorcs as ChainLightning/FrozenOrb, Blizzard/Fireball or FrozenOrb/Meteor. All sorc use teleport and static field, these skills make wonders...
===Hammerdin - ===20 Blessed Hammer, 20 Vigor, 20 Concentration, 20 Blessed Aim, 5+ Holy Shield, 1 Redemption
There are almost no monsters in the game immune or even resistant to their attacks (resistances/immunities of undeads and demons are ignored), so they can be effective in all areas. Even if they don't have static field, their main attack is so strong that good hammerdin can kill bosses fast (they can also use fast weapon with CB or static field on attack on switch and smite to apply CB/SF). To be fast killers, they need more expensive gear as Herald of Zakarum, good amount of +skills and FCR at least 75; they depend more on good gear, but when they have it, they could be godly. (Enigmadins are often better than sorcs, but Enigma is very hard to get). Even without teleport, they can move very quickly with vigor/charge.
===Summoner - ===20 Raise Skeleton, 20 Skeleton Mastery, 20 Corpse Explosion, 1 Clay Golem, 1 Golem Mastery, 1 Decrepify, 1+ Dim Vision
They don't need good gear to kill effectively, thus they are popular as starting characters. All they need is bring down the corpse and then blow all monsters with Corpse explosion. That is especially effective on low player settings. This build doesn't need much +skills and FCR, so it can be dressed in full MF. They are also very safe, that could be an advantage in HC. They are slow runners though.
===WW Barbarian - ===20 Whirlwind, 20 Mastery, 20 Shout, 20 BO, 1 Natural Resistances, 1 Stone Skin, 1 Increased Speed, 1+ Find Item
Melee characters need a very good weapon to be effective, and some leech, because they get hit more. Barbarians can run quite fast with Inc. Speed and they can also whirlwind through monsters - killing them on move makes the runs faster. They are not fastest killers, but they can "hork" - use their Find Item skill, that gives them effectively 1.4x more drops. They are quite good in Pits.
Frenzy build is also possible - they can move really fast...
===Strafer - ===20 Strafe, 20 Penetrate, 20 Valkyrie, 10+Critical hit, passives
They are good only with the best bows in game like Windforce or upped Witchwild String. They also need some IAS and leech which limits their gear choices and they move quite slowly. But IMHO they are cool . They can do good in the Pit and in Chaos Sanctuary. The similar Multishot variant can be also used.
===Trapsin - ===20 Lightning Sentry, 20 Death Sentry, 20 Charged Bolt Sentry, 20 Fireblast (optional, it can be Shock Web for more lightning power), 1+ Burst of Speed, 1 Cloak of Shadow
More than average and easy to build. Not so good when killing act bosses. (equip some items with CB on your merc)
===Lightning zon - ===20 Lightning Fury, 20 Charged Strike, 10+ Valkyrie, 1+ Pierce, rest to lightning Synergies, optional 1+ Strafe for physical damage.
Good lightning zon dominates non-LI monsters with the strongest group attack in the game (Lightning Fury) and very powerful Charged Strike used against single monsters, but she has hard time against LI monsters. It could be solved by wand of Lower resist on switch or several points in Strafe and good bow on switch. Charged strike is one of the fastest boss killers. Good in Baal runs, also Chaos Sanctuary and Pits. It's the best build for killing cows. Her big disadvantage is slow moving (she has no skill increasing speed) and even if she has teleport, her casting rate is very slow...