Gearing for Act 3 Inferno

[Tab]

OK, so I got to Inferno a week or so ago. Act 1 was a cakewalk, as was the first half of Act 2, although the Zoltan parts started to get a bit difficult, and there was the odd rare/champion pack that I couldn't handle. I've just got to the start of Act 3, and the difficulty has taken a huge leap. I'm running a Blizzard/Hydra build with:

Electrocute (Chain Lightning) (I'll probably change this to Seeker Missiles soon - while it's useful for killing quickly in Act 1, I don't really get much chance to use it at the moment)
Blizzard (Snowbound)
Teleport (Fracture) (I'm thinking of changing this to Safe Passage - the two decoys don't really do that much for me very often)
Mirror Image (Duplicates)
Energy Armor (Prismatic Armor)
Hydra (Venom Hydra)
Passives: Galvanizing Ward, Illusionist, Glass Cannon

I haven't really done a vast amount of farming yet. For the most part, my equipment is what I've managed to scrape together on the auction house for not very much:

Equipment: http://i47.tinypic.com/z4u4l.jpg
Stats (after Prismatic): http://i49.tinypic.com/keyk3q.jpg

I'm aware that my armor could do with bumping up a bit, as could my crit chance - are these the only things I should really be looking to improve on at the moment? I can't realistically afford a much better weapon, so short of crit chance and big Intelligence increases, I can't really improve my DPS very much, and I think my resists/life are for the most part OK?

I guess what I'm asking is where should I aim to improve, without it costing me a fortune? What kind of stats should I be aiming for to make Act 3 easier?]

Thanks.

[Omelet]

I've only just moved into Act 3 and being able to clear elites without losing substantial sums of gold, so take that into consideration when looking at my advice.

Your armor is decent, but 6k+ would be preferrable. Your total life is fine, but you may be able to get a bit more mileage out of some items with life% as people can undervalue that stat vs. vitality. Resists are fine, but I personally run with energy armor as a lot of things hit for well over 13k even with 60-65% resists from armor/Resist all.

The main problem is the DPS. With your current build you are going to be kiting a long time before the elites go down, and this opens a lot of opportunites for deaths due to mistakes and ugly monster affix combinations.

Increasing your DPS while maintaining your current stats (armor/res/int/vit) is unfortunately not going to be very cheap. I would suggest the following:

If you can afford a new weapon, get one with a socket and/or crit damage and similar DPS. Add crit chance to your off-hand, gloves, bracers while maintaing the rest of your stats (you could maybe afford to lose some resists... but not much). If possible, items with Life Regen would also help.

If you get a helm with a socket, you can put in a purple %life gem and get away with buying items with Int/All Res/Crit which is substantially cheaper than items with Int/Vit/All Res

Unfortunately I would say that you've backed yourself into a bit of a corner by focusing a little too much on survivability.

[SparkFour]

From a dps prospective, i still have to go pretty slow with 55k buffed. I could imagine 65-70k would be smooth sailing.

[NissanSkyline]

From a dps prospective, i still have to go pretty slow with 55k buffed. I could imagine 65-70k would be smooth sailing.

This

Your damage is way too low. I run a bang for the buck build with force armor and IAS right now (because I am paranoid of an incoming critical damage nerf in 1.0.4, even though there is no proof yet). I have 47k dps, it's enough to avoid enrage timers and I barely die with kiting. But 65-70k dps would save a lot of time, go for more crit chance+damage/ias/int when you can afford it. Oh yea the runs I do are heart of sin.

[Tab]

Thanks for all of the advice so far! After doing some farming and getting very lucky on the AH (I somehow managed to get the wand for 1.5m), I've managed to make a pretty big improvement by focusing on crit rate/damage, without throwing away much survivability:

Stats (before Prismatic, so 700+ resists after): http://i45.tinypic.com/xqki9c.jpg
Equipment: http://i48.tinypic.com/15ehb42.jpg

At this point, I'm still quite a way short of the 50k+ DPS you've mentioned, so what should I focus on now? I doubt I'm going to be able to improve my weapon at all any time soon, so getting more than an exta 10% or so crit damage there isn't likely, which is leading me to believe that trying to bump up the intelligence on my armor might be the way to go? I could probably get an extra 250 or so by slowly upgrading one piece at a time, which would leave me at 40k DPS, and I'm really struggling to see how to go much higher. Maybe trying to get a couple of rings with crit rate and damage?

[magicrectangle]

High DPS makes farming much more tolerable, but isn't at all needed for progression. Your stats are better than I had when I beat act 4, let alone act 3 (and that was before the 1.03 content nerfs). I say just go for it. Some elites will be a problem, some may even need to be skipped, but you're more than past the minimum mark for being able to get through the content as a whole.

[psyadam]

how the hell did you get that wand for 1.5m?

Thanks for all of the advice so far! After doing some farming and getting very lucky on the AH (I somehow managed to get the wand for 1.5m), I've managed to make a pretty big improvement by focusing on crit rate/damage, without throwing away much survivability:

Stats (before Prismatic, so 700+ resists after): http://i45.tinypic.com/xqki9c.jpg
Equipment: http://i48.tinypic.com/15ehb42.jpg

At this point, I'm still quite a way short of the 50k+ DPS you've mentioned, so what should I focus on now? I doubt I'm going to be able to improve my weapon at all any time soon, so getting more than an exta 10% or so crit damage there isn't likely, which is leading me to believe that trying to bump up the intelligence on my armor might be the way to go? I could probably get an extra 250 or so by slowly upgrading one piece at a time, which would leave me at 40k DPS, and I'm really struggling to see how to go much higher. Maybe trying to get a couple of rings with crit rate and damage?

[magicrectangle]

It is definitely good for the price (probably a 5-10 mil wand easy), but people really are wanting AP-on-crit on wands these days, so that may be a bit of the reason for the good deal.

[Tab]

Heh, as I said it was extremely lucky - I'd done a few searches throughout the day for 100+ int socketed 1h weapons, and hadn't really seen anything, then did one last search and someone had put that up minutes ago. It'll certainly make up for all those times I've gone to click buyout on a good deal I've spotted only to find its already sold!