Chance to drop ethereal items

I've perused the forum, and haven't found a good answer to this question:

Is there a way to help ethereal items drop? Is lower MF better? Zero MF?

From what I've come to understand, any item that has a chance to 'become' ethereal, has a 5% to do so when said item drops.

Note some items never become ethereal and others are always ethereal.

Nosgothy is right. Items have a flat 5% chance to roll ethereal. This is not influenced by any modifier. (Similar to rune dropchances not being influenced by MF).

Source:
https://diablo-archive.fandom.com/wiki/ ... Diablo_II)

BUT: I guess you are talking about ethereal bases, then your best bet would be to have 0 MF (to get as many bases as possible) and run things like Cows because of the high monster density. You won't increase the actual chance to roll ethereal but you increase the amount of dropped items that can be ethereal and are in the right category.