Need advice heading into Act 2 Inferno

[Kinneas]

I've gotten through the game and have Act 1 inferno farmable, all by myself!

But I've hit a wall and I realize that if I need to advance further, I need to start using external sources: calculators, a bit of math, advice, etc. So I need your advice, oh so masterful experts of the Demon Hunter!

What I particularly want to know about is if my approach has any ground or if I have to rethink everything. Right now my focus is on health, resistance, dexterity and damage, and no crit (I found it hard to stack a reasonable amount of crit and +crit damage, but maybe this is wrong).

So what do you use for skill configuration and what stats do you aim for? What benchmark numbers would you suggest before I start trying to make it through Act 2? Should I expect to die a ton? I tried and crap I die fast. Since Blizzard has upped the death fee, I don't think it's feasible to learn the hard way.

Right now I'm at about 20k dps, 450 resistance, 32 000 health.

Thanks!

[Lanthanide]

I can easily farm Act 1 inferno now and am going to make the jump to Act 2. I've got 58k life, 38k DPS with SS maxed, not sure about resistances but probably not great since I haven't focussed on them for my gear. Dunno about armor either.

I use ball lightning + evasive fire and spike trap scatter for bosses (and just got me some armor with +10% spike trap damage). Spike trap seems to be awesome in terms of DPS for hatred, since it only costs 30 to cast and you can cast it and run away. Most bosses will step on 2 of the mines and sometimes 3, particularly good in narrow corridors where it will stack. Only real elites I have trouble with are waller (can't easily retreat and lay mines) and frozen with any other movement impairing or damaging combo when I get frozen and can't even heal.

[Ziodyne]

Wow, you's two are more geared than my DH, totally get in on that A2 farming gogogo. I'm only setup with 4000 armor, 34k HP, 125% MF, 250 all resists, 12% move, 21k dps (no SS) and selectively farming Zoltun Kulle with 5 NV. You's sound to be perfectly ready to farm up to Zoltun kulle with those stats, only Fast elites and Writhing Decievers (they go invisible until they're in your face) should be able to kill you if they're in large numbers. I use smoke screen and preparation heavily against elites. Skill build is Hungering + Devouring, Entangling + Chain, Prep + Scars (for damage reflect elites), Smoke + Fog, Rain of Arrows + the guided arrows rune because I suck spam too much smoke screen, Ball Lightning everything else.

General Tactics I use: Stutter stepping bread and butter as usual with Hungering Arrow + Devouring Arrow because I don't kill treasure goblins fast enough with Evasive fire or Ball Lightning. I throw out Entangling Shots + Chain Gang as part of my Hungering Arrow/Ball Lightning stutter stepping against elites and normal foes alike. Against elites out in the field, if they're tough, I use two crutches. The First is the NPCs at Khasim outpost, smokescreen when you're in danger and they'll go after the NPCs. The second is the random Necromancer with the 3 skeletons event, lots of nice escape routes and the NPCs are immortal. Just don't kite Vampirics to them or you'll be in for a long fight haha.

Mortar elites: Now that they buffed the range of mortar and the dead zone still feels too close for comfort, instead of running away in a straight line, run zig zag. Just like in real life!

Vortex Elites: Smokescreen when you get pulled in and continue kiting. Pray you have enough dps to kill them before disc runs out.

Frozen Elites: Keep moving and stutter stepping. Pay good attention to the orbs and just run out of their range while stutter stepping. If you get hit or can't evade it, pop smokescreen when its about to explode.

Waller: Only golden wallers should pose a problem imo they do the U shaped wall which you just gotta Smokescreen and run out of it =\. Fight them out in the open if you can. If you can't and get trapped, Smokescreen and pray for dps! If it's waller + mortar and they trap you in walls smoke screen through it and pray, I'm sure you heard about mortars hitting the spawned walls and exploding in your face if you're close enough. Is it me or does evasive fire no longer hit through walls? ; ;

Jailer: Broken by smokescreen. Pray for DPS. If you think you feel safe enough during jailer don't use smokescreen, for instance versus mosquitos and none of the bullets are coming at you. Jailer+Desecrator/Plague/Firechains/Mortar you'd probably want to burn smokescreen.

Damage Reflect: Can smoke screen out of some of the damage reflected. Try not to burn too many smoke screens if they have a scarier mod.

Specific tactics against monsters in A2
Mosquito: Run around the projectiles, if using evasive fire just shoot in their general direction with shift + mouse 1. Evasive fire + Covering Fire = imba

Lacuni Huntress: They pop out of the ground and do either invincible jump at you or lob a mortar at you. Either way just keep moving away and snare or root them with anything and kill. Always be stutter stepping.

Locust Swarms: Usually found in Ruins their hit range is deceiving, kite them farther than you normally would most melee enemies.

Writhing Deceivers: Usually stay invisible until they're within hitting distance of you and then chop you to pieces =\. Practice your smoke screen reaction time on them... If you have a tanky follower/party, that's good too. If you can snare or root them and run out of hitting distance then kill but not too far else they would just go invisible again. I tend to avoid elite versions of them. Fast/Teleport/Jailer/Vortex/Golden Waller (U wall instead of l wall) on them is I don't even.

Sand Lizards: Treat them like Deceivers but they're easier to manage because they don't immediately attack when they pop out the ground. If you run into an elite pack of them, they get stuck at the gate at Khasim Outpost because they're too fat. You can walk just shy of their hitting range and keep shooting at them until they die. Hope you got a trigger finger for Smoke screen if they have Vortex though.

Everything else is stutter step snare kite-able. If you get hit with any kind of crowd control, just break out of it or pre-empt with smoke screen. Deaths shouldn't be too much, you basically only die if the Elite pack is bull****, you're not paying attention to the mosquito bullet spam or your surroundings, don't have any bonus movement speed, run out of discipline against said bull**** elite pack, or things 1 shot you. It's all about the damage you can output imo. Elites and bosses take awhile to die in act 2...

[Adeyj]

Nice info. I think that evasive fire was 'fixed' in the last patchAnd it no longer fires through walls. The step up to act 2 from act 1 is still massive, I still Prefer to farm act 1 than grind in 2 as I can cut through 1 like a knife through butter. Act 2 does require a different Type of play or a big gear upgrade. I just chopped out elemental - frost for impale - over penetration, And it's immense! The stopping power is awesome.

[Lanthanide]

I've moved into Act 2 and finding it much more difficult than I anticipated. I'm not using smoke screen at all though, which you seem to use a lot. Might look into it.

[viljarast]

I've moved into Act 2 and finding it much more difficult than I anticipated. I'm not using smoke screen at all though, which you seem to use a lot. Might look into it.

Kudos for surviving this far without it!