There's been a lot of Magic Find talk lately, and I've seen a resurgence of new players and players picking the game up after a long break. Either way, there are a lot of people without items who want a good way to MF.

Most MF builds seem to require a lot of powerful, hard-to-find, hard-to-trade-for stuff, which seems counter-intuitive unless you're some kind of big trader. No first character is, and after years, I'm still not. This character will get you started. After that, you might want to make a big-gun MF sorc with crazy items that can run Mephisto, Pindleskin and Baal in 4 minutes. This character's an area runner, not a boss runner.

Why a Summon Necro?
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Easy. It's entirely equipment independent. You can build a good MFer from nothing. THEY do the fighting, and you can sit back and rake in the items and money. The Pit in Act 1 is ideal for your purposes here. The monsters are easy, it's an infamous lvl 85 Area, and you'll never find anything immune to anything you have. You can solo almost the whole game on this character, so you'll get your valued socket quests, Hellforges, and imbues, too. Magic Find goes hand-in-hand with Gold Find, since a lot of MF items have GF properties too.

Stats
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Strength: About 100 will be enough for equipment. You can tweak this depending what you want to equip.

Dex: None

Vitality: All you can spare

Energy: 0-60, since you're not going to be in the thick of things, you can skimp on energy. But it's nice to have decent mana when spamming Corpse Explosion and when raising an army, so I put points here until I was satisfied.

Skills
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You'll have plenty of points to spare, so tweak these as necessary. After the first 3, you should customize the rest to your liking.

Max Rasise Skeleton
Max Skeletal Mastery
Max Corpse Explosion
5+ Revive - This one's up to you. The get annoying to keep up, but they'll help you a lot later in Hell mode. I have 8 here.
-1+ Amplify Damage - Some people might only want 1 point here, but I worked mine up to a decent radius, at about 7 points
1+ Skeletal Mage - Nearly useless in late Nightmare, they do make good decoys if you want more of them :)
1 in all the other curses
1 in Bone Armor
1+ Bone Wall (not really useful, but a synergy for bone armor that helps more than actual points IN Bone Armor)
1+ Bone Prison (same as Bone Prison)

Gear
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You skills and merc will do the killing. Gear is centered on maximizing your MF potential. Fortunately, there are some coicidences that will help. I've listed the working and final equipment for each type.

--Helm--

Working: 3 socketed helmet of any type, socketed with 3 Perfect Topazes.
Work up to this. Start with 1 socket and a chipped Topaz if you have to, but cube your gems and work at finding 3 sockets. The kind of helm is irrelevant, since THEY do the work. You shouldn't be getting hit. (72% MF)

Final: Harlequin Crest Shako, socketed with a Perfect Topaz.
"But wait, isn't this a CHEAP build?" Yes! Trade your NM hellforge rune for it if you get Pul or Um. If you trade an Um, you should get one with the Topaz already in it. You can trade Pgems or anything you've happened to find along the way for this, too. It's not impossible. (74% MF, +2 skills, life, mana)

--Armor--

Working: 4 socketed armor of any type, full of Perfect Topazes.
Once again, work up to it. Cube gems, trade gems, and keep on the lookout for 4-socket armor of any type. (96% MF)

Final: "Wealth" runeword (Lem+Ko+Tir).
This is really cheap to make, and perfect for this build. You'll find all of these runes before the end of Nightmare mode. The type of armor is unimportant, but shoot for the most you can carry with your strength. (100% MF, 300%(!) Gold Find)

--Belt--

Working: Whatever you can find that has some Gold Find and/or Replenish Life is good. I've never seen MF on a belt, except...

Final: Goldwrap Heavy Belt.
Trade some Pgems for this guy, or find one. They're pretty common and easy to find. If you're dying to have one more potion slot, upgrade it in the cube to a Battle Belt with a Tal+Shael+Pdiamond in the Cube. (30% MF, 50-80% GF)

--Gloves--

Working: Any gloves with MF.
Shop, gamble, and check the ground at your feet. You can have up to 25% on magic and rare gloves. If you find some with a few more MF%, switch 'em out. (13% MF avg.)

Final: Chance Guards Chain Gloves.
They can have up to 40% MF, but at the very least they'll have the same as your magic/rare gloves, plus 200% GF. If you find 40% Chancies, trade them for something you need for another character, as they are quite valuable. (25-40% MF, 200% GF)

--Boots--

Working: Any boots with MF.
Once again, shop, gamble, and identify all the boots you can. Magic boots can have up to 35% MF. Faster Run walk helps, but you shouldn't go out of your way unless it REALLY bugs you. (18% MF avg.)

Final: War Travellers Battle Boots.
Again, appears expensive, but not so much. Lower MF Travs are pretty cheap. Cheaper than a Shako, even. Perfect ones are worth a lot, and are better traded away for something one of your other characters might need. (30-50% MF)

--Weapon 1--

Working: Any shopped or found wand with bonuses to your summoning skills.
You can buy these in Act 1 of Normal Mode. Look for +Summon skills, +Raise Skeleton, +Skeletal Mastery. Any of those on a wand will help.

Final: Gull Dagger. These are pretty cheap, if you don't find one on your own. It's one of the lowest Item level items in the game. If you can't find one, trade a few Pgems, a mid-rune, or a mid-level unique for one. (100% MF)

--Weapon 2--

Working: If you really feel the need, get a wand with +Bone Armor.

Final: Arm of King Leoric Tomb Wand.
Again, not TOO expensive. THE Summoner's wand. If you can't get one of these, the other old shopped one is almost as good, though.

--Shield 1--

Working: Milabrega's Orb.
I find these more than I'd like to. You can probobly trade a couple Pgems for one if you don't find 4 more than you need. (20% MF)

Final: "Rhyme" runeword (Shael+Eth).
Easy runes, put it in anything with 2 sockets. (25% GF, 50% GF, Cannot Be Frozen)

--Shield 2--

Working: Anything that makes you happy.

Final: Sigon's Guard.
Eeeeasy to get, and +1 skill for summoning and casting Bone Armor.

--Rings--
The more MF, the better. Gamble and pick up all you find. Eventually, get 2 Nagelrings as long as they have more MF than your magic/rare ones. They're the most common unique rings you'll find, and people are always trading them cheap.

--Amulet--
More MF is better. Unless yyou find one with +2 necro or summon skills, or +3 summon skills and any amount of MF, stick to a high MF ammy.

--Merc--
Get an Act 2 Nightmare Might Merc and load him with a lot of defense and life leech. You need a walking Might Aura, and if he dies, you skellies will feel it when their damage drops. Other than that, it doesn't really matter unless you want to load him with MF, too. His only counts if HE makes the kill, though.

--Stratagy--
Switch to your summoning wand/Sigon's shield, raise an army, and cast Bone Wall. Switch back to your Gull/Rhyme. Go to the MF spot of your choice, and spam Amplify Damage. When a Monster drops, start spamming Corpse Explosion. After the first couple of castings, eveything on the screen will be dead, replaced by items and money. For this, I suggest the Pit in the Tamoe Highland, Hell Mode. If you run into a bosss, cast Decrepify on it and let the army swarm it.

For revives, I like ranged attackers like archers, but go with whatever works for you.

What? Your resists and defense are so low they have to look down to look up? Don't get hit. It's easy. Stand behind the army and spam your curses and and Corpse Explosion.

This guy should get you going. He's a slower MF character than most of the pro-MFers, but he's cheap and easy to make. You can even save his socket quests for other characters' items if you want, since he really doesn't need them.

Once again, I like thoughts and comments, so bring 'em on.

meh u get screwed by ranged attackers
somehow they got a tendency to shoot at the summoner instead of the summons and the merc
my summoner got screwed in countess many a time by stupid archers this ladder season 3
maybe its the gear, its worse than what uve posted

dim vision


myeah, this is one build i've never even thought about. prolly a great 1st char right at the start of a ladder season.

cheap & easy to make. two of the things i look for in any pvm build (especially the CHEAP bit)

I've heard that summons do not get your mf percentage

is that true?

They get your mf and best curse vs monster packs (ranged too) is attract.