Farming Monster Infrequents (MIs): The Run Procedure

Prep: lock in the target and the route

The prep work decides most of your efficiency - confirm three things before running.

• ▸1) Pick the MI: start from your build page's gear/farming section. The classic early example is Cronley's Signet from Darius Cronley.
• ▸2) Look up the dropper and location: searching the MI's name in the Grim Tools item DB shows its dropper - lookup details live in the Monster Infrequents article.
• ▸3) Confirm the shortest path from the nearest riftgate: for hero/boss droppers, lap time decides total efficiency.
• ▸For family-dropped MIs (not tied to one enemy), farm areas where that family spawns densely.
• ▸Difficulty affects dropped item level - endgame rolling belongs on Ultimate.

Running the loop

• ▸The base form: rift straight to the target, kill it, grab the loot, return to the main menu, and start a new session (enemies respawn).
• ▸Killing only the target and leaving immediately is fastest. Trash can be ignored - unless you want money or reputation on the side, then add pickups and kills.
• ▸If laps feel long, rework the route - and unlock missing riftgates first.
• ▸Family-dropped and non-boss MIs stay RNG in both spawn and drop, with no lap-count guarantees - while boss MI bases (excluding legendary-tier) are certain, concentrating the RNG almost entirely in the affixes.
• ▸Locations that offer several MIs, materials, or blueprint chances in one lap are the efficient picks.

How to think about affix rolling

The MI's base never changes - each lap's win or loss is purely what rolled on it.

• ▸An MI's power is fixed base plus random prefix/suffix - rolling means hitting the combination your build wants.
• ▸What counts as a hit is build-dependent: use your build page's recommended affixes (resistances, skill bonuses, damage lines) as the bar.
• ▸Ideal rare affixes on both slots are very rare. Treat one-good-affix rolls as stopgaps and upgrade while you keep farming.
• ▸During leveling, don't obsess over affixes - upgrade speed matters more.
• ▸Surplus bad rolls can be vendored; stash only good rolls of the MIs your build depends on (see Mid Game Money).

Stop conditions and inventory management

• ▸Stop when a roll meets your build's recommended affixes. There is always a better roll - settle at practical sufficiency and move to the next gear slot.
• ▸Boss MI bases are certain, so boss hunts are purely about what rolled. Nemeses are also guaranteed per kill and lean toward rare affixes - the 20,000-infamy prep is in Legendary Farming Basics.
• ▸Keep only the roll in use plus upgrade-candidate good rolls in the shared stash and sell the rest - MIs are re-farmable, so don't hoard.
• ▸Planning a build switch? Keep good rolls of that build's core MIs only, saving a re-farm later.
• ▸MIs picked up incidentally during Shattered Realm (SR, a Forgotten Gods activity) or Monster Totem (FG) runs get judged by the same bar: keep if the affixes qualify, sell otherwise.

1. Grim Dawn Japanese Wiki: Glossary (Monster Infrequent) — Confirms MIs as designated-monster (or family) drops, the fixed-base-plus-random-affix structure, target farming, and the guaranteed per-kill Nemesis MI drop.
2. Grim Dawn Japanese Wiki: Cronley's Signet — Confirms the early-game example: Cronley's Signet as Darius Cronley's MI.
3. Grim Tools Item Database (Japanese) — The external DB used for dropper lookups (a known limitation: it renders via client-side JS and cannot be verified by automated fetching; normal browser use is unaffected).
4. Official Crate Forum: Grim Dawn v1.2.0.0-v1.2.0.3 Patch Notes — Confirms the v1.2.0.0 change making every boss drop its own MIs (excluding legendary-tier MIs) at 100%.
5. Official Crate Forum: Grim Dawn v1.2.1.6 + Hotfix — Official patch notes for the verified version.