Normal difficulty, Act 4, incredibly difficult

[Rainalkar]

I am playing only with found gear and a few weapons from a friend, both nothing special, but I am dying like crazy, I have 1350 life, and my kill speed is nothing special as well. I had to kill Izual with the ancients, I couldn't get near to him for he would one hit me, and it's pretty much the same with every other boss, I can't melee anything remotely dangerous, mortar kills me in seconds, and so does Diablo (where I am now). How much HP am I supposed to have? I mean, this is norm for goodness sakes, I am supposed to be able to make a crappy build and beat it easily, but this is crazy what I am experiencing.

[Valeli]

I want to say I had 4000 hp towards the end of normal, and worked it up to around 7000 hp for the start of nightmare. I could be a bit off though, it's been awhile.

Basically, imo, while Blizzard says you can beat the game with only found gear (and that's totally true, if you're the very patient type who enjoys repeatedly grinding a lot), the AH speeds things up a ton. The danger here, on your first play through, is that it basically turns normal and nightmare into a cakewalk. I don't know if there's a good middle ground between using the AH at all, and not at all.

Either way, you should definitely try to grab some slightly better gear. I'm guessing your dps is a bit low as well (unless you ended up with really low hp by boosting strength a ton). Jewels help fantastically when it comes to raising your vitality and strength. Of course, for them you'll need socketed items which are, once again, most easily found on the AH.

But don't give up if you want to do it without the AH. You can. You'll just have to grin and bear it.

[Rainalkar]

I spent ~100 000 in the auction house and now i have 6000 life and diablo was a breeze... Funny, without the auction house it would have been quite tedious to get the required gear to continue. Thanks

[galzohar]

You didn't have to spend so much. Often 5000 gold per item (and only upgrading the ones that really need to be upgraded) can get the job done for leveling. 10k if you want to be fancy. Though you should spend 5-10k on a weapon every ~5-6 levels, and at higher levels every 2-3 levels, as it makes a big difference in your leveling speed. Other items can be upgraded every 5-10 levels.

[Sentarius]

My Barb, with only found gear, had about 4500 life at that point.

I'd say you've either been incredibly unlucky or you've failed to prioritize Vitality enough. You can easily rectify this on the AH or by farming a bit in Act III.

Edit: Didn't see that you'd already decided to go the AH route.