Being hooked up in the game again actively, after YEARS of being away, i got to read guides, find out things by playing myself, etc. Some of those contradict themselves. So naturally, i beckon out to the veterans again, once more. Because as i stated already, in the old days, i was only heavily associated with 1.09 and a little bit only, 1.10.

People always advice Magic Find of at, or near, 300. As well as as Magic Find prohibits runes from dropping. My deceased character (reached halfway act 1 hell), had magic find around 100+, but uniques and sets were so scarce, it wasn't even funny. My reconstructed character, level 50 in nightmare, with magic find not higher that 33%, actually SWIMS in uniques and sets, so much that i Iron Golem, vendor, or trash them and this only whenever i am too bored to create a game for giving out free stuff... Every map drops at least 2 sets and 1 unique, as well as at least 1 rune as standard, even act 1 nightmare! WHAT HAPPENS here? 100+ equals garbage, 30+ gives me epic loot?!? (magic find)

Also, i don't know if it is my impression, but runes drop regularly, even mid tier ones. And as i perceive it, magic find regardless. Is it my idea? My luck? My error/misconception? Or randomly happened?

Finally, which is the best METHOD, to farm the player's final class set? I am not interested in runewords, but for the set. And as i see, the entire looting system has changed drastically. Old tough looting customers, as i already said before, are not what they used to be, now... Only areas of 85 level in hell? Or there are better places/enemies/whatever?

Check the drop calc i posted in other thread for specific items, usually its the higher class areas which you can kill fast, but some specific items drop better in lower areas.

MF rule is the higher the better without loosing killing speed and actually your "luck" is just sompething with probabilities. In the long run higher MF always gave more uniques which can be verified with running bots over huge amount of time ;)

Farm the Countess over and over again.

Edit: Do the above for runes

Many years ago, there was a bug related to MF where after it went over a certain amount, more MF actually lowered the total. This bug has since been fixed, and it occurred around 400% MF. There might be inaccuracies in my memory on this, because it has been years since I've bothered to check on it.

MF increases the chance that dropped loot is blue or better, it doesn't increase the chance that said loot is rare/set/unique. Think back: how much white crap did your 100% MF character ignore, compared to how much white crap your 33% MF character ignored? The apparent lack of anything above blue may well be because you are seeing a good deal more blue's with 100% than the 33%. Or it could just be dumb luck. *shrug*
I think rune drops are unaffected by MF, but I'm not completely sure on this point.

Best method is probably to farm the level 85 areas. Look for the champion and unique monsters (uniques especially, for the guaranteed drop). If you have a barbarian, then make sure to use Find Item on the corpses of those unique monsters for a chance at another full drop if Find Item is successful. Look online for suggestions on where to hunt for particular pieces of equipment.

MF DOES increase the chance of rare and unique, too!

From AS: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/magic/magicfind.shtml

I stand corrected! Also, I was right in that runes are unaffected by MF.

Well, I remember that even with the same gear, some runs were quite exceptional, whilst others were absolute crap.
A good % must be just the player's luck :P

Well, if they just got round to releasing D1+2 here then there would be a whole separate forum, hint hint :o)

Damn, if only..

For some reason, with 33% magic find only total on me, i seem to be getting MORE sets and uniques than before... The deceased player with the 100+ magic find, before, would mostly encounter CRACKED and DAMAGED whites, damn. And blues (simple magic items).

Now i SWIM in rare stuff!

Very strange, though. It seems the higher the magic find, the rates are increased disproportionately, in favor of simple blues and in disadvantage of sets/uniques... Also, certain areas, like the cave leading from stony field to dark wood, seems to ALWAYS contain at least 3 items above rare (set/unique) and 1-2 runes each run, in Nightmare...

Countess of Nightmare is a serious disappointment, though... EL, in Nightmare... :O

it depends on luck as well i had a high level mf sorc , only nightmare Andariel and hell baal dropped good stuff for me , the real shocker was when the summoner dropped a soj during the quest run

fucking mf.

scourge of this game.

Hmmmmm... I have runes to make spirit, leaf AND memory, or even ort sol helm and eth lum shield. And i always wanted one of those sorcs (mainly for magic find). I keep dying like fly on sh*t, though, somehow, continually, especially on populated games. What spells work well for sorc fast killing, fast leveling and adequate surviveability? How to play sorc in hardcore?

False. In 1.09, all you had to do was NORMAL bhaal-runs, nightmare council members/mephisto and mephisto hell. After 1.09, the entire looting system and patterns changed drastically (for the worst, as i can remember). I kept getting UNIQUE EXCEPTIONAL armors, like duriel's shell, from NORMAL'S bhaal minions, back in the day (1.09)...

And i refuse to update/play beyond 1.09d personally.

Heh.. seems like a heavy result of power creep, and then screwing newer players vs the older ones that heavily got a lot of equipment back when the game was new. I recall seeing jokes when D2 was coming out that within the first hour or two there was a unique item drop and they wouldn't leave a burning building or something until they identified it...