Guild Wars 2, like many MMOs, has a lot of loot. There’s a ton of chests you can crack open to get equipment, crafting items and more. And to get the best stuff, you often have to rely on luck. But Magic Find can be one way to help the odds of getting good stuff. Magic Find in Guild Wars 2 is a bit different to the mechanic in some other games. The key difference compared to other games is that GW2 doesn’t apply it to all loot. Magic Find instead only applies to certain loot containers. The containers you find throughout the game’s various mode and quests will be marked with a notice in their tooltip that says “affected by Magic Find” if your MF rating affects the drops.
Here are some items that can be affected by this rating. Again, you will see a notice on its tooltip if this applies:
- Any box that has “loot box” or “cache” in the name
- Event loot boxes and caches
- Heart of Thorns loot boxes from Meta-events
- Bandit Chests
Where can you get Magic Find?
Total sources of Magic Find in Guild Wars 2 break down into a few categories. The most common source of boosting MF for new players comes from Luck. Anytime you do certain tasks—like salvaging or opening chests, you can get Essences of Luck. Any item that grants luck can be consumed to add a small amount to your MF. The Magic Find you can gain from Luck is capped at 300%.
You can see how much each source is giving your by hovering over the Magic Find element in the Achievements screen on the bottom-right. Hit H by default to open this window. Getting max MF will take many hours of play, as it’s a very slow process. A single point of MF from this method can consume hundreds of Luck items. It’s a nice passive way to get some loot boosts, but don’t dump Gold into it, it’s not worth it.
Achievements are some of the best things you can increase Magic Find in Guild Wars 2, You will earn dozens or even hundreds of these over your time in the MMO. They not only unlock loot chests, but also offer an additional 36% total Magic Find to your character once capped.
You can get limited-time MF boosts in GW2 from a few sources. These items and buffs can be consumed at any time. But it’s best to stockpile them while you can. Most of these buffs have a timer, so they can’t always be counted on. Here are some of the most common sources of Magic Find boosts:
- Luck and MF Boosters (Celebration, Item, Black Lion, etc.)
- Food items
- Zone buffs
- Event buffs
- Guild buffs from Research and Banners
- WvW auras from the main Keep
Boosters are handed out pretty often, save them. Your best way to get maximum Magic Find is to hold all the boosts you can until you have a big cache of items. Once you have a few stacks of MF-affected chests, go get all your boosters and max out your MF. Then, rush through and open as many items as you can while the buffs are active.
This means it’s often best to hoard event chests until you can boost your Magic Find. Zone-specific buffs can also be helpful here. Going into the Silverwastes, you will notice a lot of players standing around. There is a good chance some of them are popping buffs to stack with the Hero of the Wastes zone buff to open boxes. In fact, the combination of this and the Perseverance buff is the best place to boost MF while opening items. Stack all of your buffs, and you can get upwards of 800% Magic Find in GW2 with this method.
