Adding modifiers to map boss / unique enemies is not worth the reward.

Have been experimenting with different levels of quant, map rarity, distilled suffering to add unique enemy modifiers, and the unique overseer tablets to get map bosses hunted by spirits, and give them extra modifiers.

I don't have a spreadsheet of scientific data, but it's pretty clear based on just the size of the pile of rares on the ground after i kill the boss; adding modifiers does very little compared to adding quant. Pound for pound, the unique tablet that adds a modifier (which can get doubled if you proc your atlas passive) is far, far, far worse than any random 7% quant tablet. This doesn't seem to change even at very high levels of quant where you might expect to start seeing diminishing returns.

Is this intended? I fought a map boss with +14 modifiers and it was harder than any pinnacle boss yet it dropped a smaller pile of loot than I get from a 3-tower quant setup.

It's probably intentional. Increasing rarity loses strength. I don't know exact numbers but the idea is it's a bigger deal to go from 0% to 20% than it is to go from 200% to 1000%.

Some streamer probably knows the magic rarity number, after which it's better to push quantity.

Lol you knows what's funny, I actually have been doing the same testing, though compared to what you said, I am doing somewhat of a preliminary testing of modifiers of unique map bosses on drop rates but not in a spread sheet level of testing.

Things are weird which means there's some minor balancing issue. Example I've done multiple map bosses with at least 3 modifiers, plus a wisp and didn't see any change from what would be the normal of a few ex orbs, one or two maps (any complaints about needing maps is a lie) and maybe getting a chaos every couple to a few maps.

This is something I will be looking into but I have a different drop rate project that will have hypothesis spreadsheet I'm going to work on soon.

But I do agree something is off what what is expected as the game portrays.