While not as popular as Magic Find, gold find can still be quite valuable. Just like Magic Find, Gold Find boosts the amount of gold dropped by monsters and objects of all types. Unlike MF, GF suffers no diminishing returns, and since gold drops much more often than items, the quantities of gold obtained with high %GF can be very impressive.
The downside is that gold isn't that useful in the End Game of Diablo II. Most repairs aren't very expensive and there are seldom any items worth buying, which leaves gambling as the only real gold sink. Gambling can be rewarding, but it takes a long time and has very low odds to produce any quality Elite gear, plus it can't provide any runes or items useful for runewords, which is why most players place "obtaining gold" fairly low on their to-do list.
How Gold Find Works
The % gold find on a character (+ that on the merc, if the merc makes the kill) multiplies the gold that the monster/chest/barrel/etc would otherwise have dropped. 100% gold find means that gold drops are doubled: a 100 gold drop would turn into 200 gold. 500% gold would make that 100 into 600 gold. (Not 500, which is where most players go wrong on their calculations. Remember that the base amount is modified. So 900% gold find = 10x the usual gold.)
Gold Find Values
The Lem rune is the easiest way to increase gold find; it grants 50% GF when socketed in helms/armor/shields and 75% in weapons.
Tabulated by Tempus.[1]
Weapons
- Kingslayer 40%
- Passion 75%
- The Patriarch: 100% (only one for D2C)
- Heartcarver: +lem 75% (nice if you dont have FI skill)
- Echoing weapon with 2 socketed Lems (150%) (+3 to warcries)
- Blade Of Ali Baba: 249% GF 99% MF(at lev99): +2 lems (399%)
- 1-6 socket weapon: 75-450% GF
Armor
- Goldskin: 100% GF, 35% resistance to all: +Lem (150%)
- Wealth: 300% GF, 100% MF
- 1-4 socket armor: 50-200% GF
Helms
- 230% GF (jewelers/artisan's of greed tiara/diadem) 80% + 3 lems
- 180% rare/magic Circlet with Greed mod (80% + 2 lems)
- 150% Crown of Thieves (100% + lem)
- 150% 3 socket helm, barb/druid helm with +skills (3 lems)
- 140% IK helm (40% +2 lems)
- 125% Tarn (75% + lem)
- 50% shako (lem)
- 50% any helm + lem
Shields
Gloves
Chance Guards 200% GF 40% MF rare, magic, crafted with 80%
Belts
- v1.06 and older could have up to 120%
- v1.10 magic, rare, crafted 80%
- Goldwrap 80% GF 30% MF
Boots
- v1.06 and older could have upto 120%
- v1.08 War Travelers 100% GF 45% MF
- v1.10 magic, rare, crafted 80%
- Infernostride: 70%
Amulets
- v1.06 and older could have upto 120%
- v1.10 80% is max
Rings
- Dwarfstar v1.09+: 100% GF
- v1.08 Dwarfstar 70%
- v1.06 and older, magic rings, more then 50%
- v1.10 40%
Socketing
Lem rune: 50% in armor/helm/shield, 75% in weapons. Jewels: up to 30% in any item.
Charms
The best combination is 1 Gheed's Fortune, + 9 40% grand charms, + 10 10% small charms = 160 + 9x40 + 10x10 = 620% GF.
- Small charms: 5-10% GF
- Large charms: 5-22% GF
- Grand charms: 10-40% GF
- Gheed's Fortune Unique Grand Charm: Max 160% GF, 40% MF
Note that large charms can yield more GF per inventory space than small charms, making GF one of the rare modifiers where large charms can potentially come out ahead of small charms. However, since grand charms beat large and small, and it's impossible to hold any large charms with 10 grand charms, the best possible total does not include any large charms. Two large would get you to 44%, while a grand and a small can yield 50%.
Maximum Gold Find
The most gold find possible, in v1.10+, is 3990%. That's more than 40x the gold you would get with 0% gold find. At that level a monster that usually dropped 500 gold would drop 20,150 gold.
The maximum possible in D2C is ~1000%.