For those of you that haven't read PC Gamer's Interview of Jay and Wyatt, its here.

Some highlights that you may already have known:

1) No achievements related to Monster Power Levels
2) A3 Inferno in its current state is the equivalent of MP Level 3
3) Increasing MP Level past 1 will NOT cause an increase in chances for LVL63 loot.
4) They admit the metagame are farming runs.

I've read it earlier, interesting interview

I am relieved for the i63 items in Act 1 and 2

I'm a little bit confused about this:

However, cranking up Monster Power beyond MP1 does not further increase your chance of getting 63 stuff.

It’s also worth noting that the magic find and gold find can go above the 300% cap.

Does increased MP provide increased MF? As I understand it, the chance of ilvl drops is separate from MF. MF regulates the TYPE of item, but the ilvl chance is built in and does not change (except across Acts). So I'm assuming increased MP will give you MF, but as stated, it won't alter the chance for drops.

This is a pretty minimal change ever since they buffed ilvl 61 and 62 items. 63 items have a higher limit on their stat rolls, but stat rolls are insignificant compared to the actual affixes. I'm positive there is no difference in the chance to hit specific affixes between ilvls, so any 61+ item still has to hit the same stuff (AS, CC, CD, AR, Primary, Vit, Sockets, LOH) to have any value.

I don't really understand the value in increasing MP unless there is a sizeable increase in EXP/MF. If, let's say MP6 is twice as hard and takes twice as long as MP3 and only provides 2x the exp, then there's really not much incentive to fight in MP6 unless the boost in MF was significant. I'm sure everyone will have a different sweet spot where it's slightly more efficient to run on a certain MP level, but the thing I got from this article is that the advantage of running on MP10 versus MP1 is pretty... minimal.

Posted by Metta at 09/25/2012 12:55 PM

but the thing I got from this article is that the advantage of running on MP10 versus MP1 is pretty... minimal.

Yeah. Thats what I got form it also. The MP level appears to be a system utilized to answer the complaint of "its too easy". "Easy? Duh, turn up the MP level then and stop complaining."

@Metta For weapons, there's a chasm of difference between ilvl 62 and ilvl 63 mods. Critical Hit Damage maxes out at 65% for ilvl 62 items so the very best have to be ilvl 63. If Echoing Fury didn't exist (one of Blizz' biggest mistakes, imo), every 1H primary weapon would be an ilvl 63. Offhands you can get away with ilvl 62 as long as it has a fantastic LOH roll, Critical Damage and a socket. For armor, Crit Chance maxes at 8.5% at ilvl 62 so that's a limitation. All the details you need are exhaustively covered at d3inferno.com.

At this point, people are pretty much only farming for Legendaries and Magic Find will help find Legendaries faster. Going from 300% MF to 550% MF means finding Legendaries dropping almost twice as often. The rule, as always, will be to run the highest monster level you can without slowing your kill rate. There's still a substantial bonus for running MP10 vs. MP1.

@ecocd

I understand the difference between the maximum rolls. It just doesn't matter if you have gloves with 10% CC if the other mods are health globes, pickup radius, and 40 dex. The chance to roll say, AS+CC+CD on gloves will be the same regardless of level. While the upper limits are better on ilvl 63, the most important thing is rolling the RIGHT mods. I can't remember the last time I cared whether a weapon was 61, 62, or 63. The ABSOLUTE best weapons will of course, be ilvl 63, but we're talking the difference between items worth 100M and 500M. Nearly every other time, 63 items will be worth the same as 61 and 62 items: very little.

@metta

You are right, but MF does affect the quality of rolls if I am not mistaken, so more MF leads to more affixed, and finally better affixes. I think...

@zerokewl

Yes, it affects the quality of the item. An item first tries to be a set/legendary (MF increases this chance). If it is not, then it drops down to a six-affix, then five-affix, and so forth. MF affects this chance, so you have an increased chance at better items with MF.

My point is that the chance to roll a specific affix is equal across the board. Your chance for one affix to be CC is the same as the chance for it to be health globes. Even if you hit an ilvl 63, six affix rare, if two of those affixes are health globes and pickup radius, the item is pretty much "ruined" and it has very little chance at having any value (it would have to not only hit something like AS/CC/CD/Primary on the four open affixes, but also those rolls would have to be on the high end).

@Metta The chance of rolling a given affix is not even across the board, but they are constant, so the jist of you posts are correct. The probability of rolling any given value within a mod range within an affix level is even across the board as far as anyone can tell, but the probability of rolling any given available affix level isn't even.

Search the auction house for great, not even elite weapons. You'll find maybe 3 ilvl 62 weapons within the first 30 pages. The fact that 50% crit damage is worthless without a socket to accompany it now, while 90% crit damage without a socket still holds some value is an indication to me that ilvl 63 is very important.

Actually, after thinking about it, I think you are right. The chance to roll a given affix is not the same for every affix. But I think they are the same for all ilvls.

I think the cap on ilvl 62 is 70% CD. So while there is a 30% difference between 62 and 63 (70 and 100) CD, the majority of CD rolls are going to be much less. So even if you managed to roll the upper level of CD, you'd still have to hit high rolls on Damage, or hit a primary or socket.

I can tell you that the real money maker on a weapon is a socket. I can't imagine someone buying a weapon without one. In terms of buying a weapon, what I'm looking for is 1) medium damage (850) or better 2) socket 3) primary 4) some natural CD. All of those things can roll on 61 or 62 weapons. Yes, the ultimate weapon is going to be ilvl 63, but until I get 1B gold to buy it, those key affixes are more important than the absolute stats.

I've probably ID'ed 500-1000 ilvl 61-63 weapons since 1.04 and sold maybe... 10. Weapons really need to hit 3 things right now (out of the pool of good affixes) to be worth anything. 950 DPS with primary and a socket is the absolute worst a weapon can be to sell on AH.

I disagree with you on ilvl 63 being "very important" but to each his own. Anyway, the value of weapons has been watered down so much that I don't think it even matters. Pretty much every single weapon at this point has a 99.9% chance to be garbage.

It's my heavy dual-wield Demon Hunter bias coming into this. By far, the most important stat on 1H XBows is Critical Hit Damage. With around a 50% Critical Hit Rate, Hungering Arrow pierces and over 2 aps, 200% Critical Damage is equivalent to over a straight-up 100% boost in damage. High base damage is important, but Dex isn't in the same neighborhood of importance to Crit Damage. The cap for Crit Damage on ilvl 62 is 65% so ilvl 63 1H XBows are really important.

With the socket, you're looking at 180% Crit Damage compared to 145% Crit Damage with a Flawless Star Emerald (not rich enough for Radiant Star Emeralds yet). Given you're dual wield that becomes 360% compared to 290%.

It makes sense, in retrospect, that each class needs different stats on weapons so ilvl 62 weapons can be viable. Color me envious.

@Metta I completely forgot that in 1.05 item affix levels are now tied to the mlvl of the monster dropping the item and not the ilvl. Those ilvl 62 weapons are suddenly much more potent and every ilvl 61+ piece of armor that drops could be utterly fantastic now. Moar power!

It makes sense that they are planning to up the affix lvls per mlvl for the simple fact that only the top % of players will be able to even attempt Mpower 10. This will allow item rolls to scale a little better with damage needed to fight monsters with 10-20 million health.

Add in how they doubled the Set and Legendary drop rate and it also means there's a chance players could actually find an upgrade to their equipment. What a crazy concept!

It is possible that they only doubled the Legendary rate in PTR just for purposes of testing the new drop notification system, and that it won't stick around.

Moreover, finding a Legendary in and of itself in no way guarantees the acquisition of a useful item. See the last three Legendaries which I have found.

@Baldy What do you mean about MP10? At MP1 all monsters are lvl 63, therefore items will already have potential for max stats. Increasing levels over MP1 is only useful for the 25% MF, 10% Hellfire Ring parts, and for the extra challenge.

@Sabin

I wasn't equating better item rolls with Mpower lvl, I was commenting that items will have better rolls because of mlvl (monster lvl) and thus will contribute to people being able to better handle the higher Mpower lvls.

Everything on the auction houses right now, with the exception of the l44t g34rz, will drop in price drastically because rolls will be sickeningly better (10% crit chance on rings..moar pleez tyvm) and the newer found items will take their place.

All this, of course, is assuming that monster levels are going to allow rolls on items to change that drastically.

Posted by Baldy at 10/04/2012 04:19 PM

Everything on the auction houses right now, with the exception of the l44t g34rz, will drop in price drastically because rolls will be sickeningly better (10% crit chance on rings..moar pleez tyvm) and the newer found items will take their place.

Rings will still roll with the Critical Chance Secondary mod so they'll cap out at 6% crit chance. Rings attack speed will now cap at 9% and crit damage at 50%. Amulets are primary Crit Chance and their cap will move from 8.5% to 10% and their crit damage cap will leap to 100% from 65%. Both will now be able to roll a +80 AR and +397 Armor. Don't go dropping Gold on 60% Crit Damage amulets right now.

Posted by ecocd at 10/04/2012 05:51 PM

Posted by Baldy at 10/04/2012 04:19 PM

Everything on the auction houses right now, with the exception of the l44t g34rz, will drop in price drastically because rolls will be sickeningly better (10% crit chance on rings..moar pleez tyvm) and the newer found items will take their place.

Rings will still roll with the Critical Chance Secondary mod so they'll cap out at 6% crit chance. Rings attack speed will now cap at 9% and crit damage at 50%. Amulets are primary Crit Chance and their cap will move from 8.5% to 10% and their crit damage cap will leap to 100% from 65%. Both will now be able to roll a +80 AR and +397 Armor. Don't go dropping Gold on 60% Crit Damage amulets right now.

I'm not dropping gold on pretty much anything unless I can find one that's super cheap haha.

I am atleast not buying any jewelry items as new rolls will make older stuff obsolete.

Posted by Baldy at 10/04/2012 11:25 AM

Best ammy I have ever found

@ecocd

...and to think it took this long to find an f-ing ammy with a good roll like this...and its soon to be not quite worthless. *shrugs*

@Baldy That will never be worthless! It will be worth less, but from a dps-perspective, that's good enough to get any wizard through the upper echelons of MP. They may never find a need to replace it. It will be quite a long time before the player base has an amulet that good as standard equipment! If it were just some Int and 61% crit damage, then it would probably lose whatever value it currently has.

@Baldy Ah, now I get what you were saying.

Anyone have any experience if MP > 1 has an effect on paragon XP? Initially they mentioned it was only for level 1-59 characters, but I'm hearing conflicting reports. Anyone looked at this on the PTR?

Posted by Jhonka at 10/05/2012 11:05 AM

Anyone have any experience if MP > 1 has an effect on paragon XP? Initially they mentioned it was only for level 1-59 characters, but I'm hearing conflicting reports. Anyone looked at this on the PTR?

Well whenever I play on it with one of my level 60 characters is give a 10% boost in the details page. If that actually is in effect or not, I don't know, but I'm assuming it does.