What should I improve next?

[celanian]

I don't have a lot of money, only about 4.5M or so. When upgrading, I've been trying to pick up bargains on the AH, but it seems that all the low hanging fruit has already been plucked and I need to shell out serious cash for meaningful improvements. My gear has a cumulative cost of about 10M with about 1/2 of that in my weapon and amulet.

My current gear:

Weapon: 963 DPS 2H Xbow with 226 Dex, 77 Vit, and a socket with 70% crit gem
Quiver: 43 Dex, 60 Vit, 14 AS, 7 CC, 11 EA damage
Helm: This was a lucky drop for me. It's a 127 Dex, 63 Vit, 5% ASI, 3 CC, 90 Regen Andariel's Visage
Shoulders: 101 Dex, 64 Vit, 30 AR
Chest: 50 Dex (176 with gems in 3 sockets), 93 Vit, 38 AR
Gloves: 147 Dex, 8.5 CC, 26 CD
Bracers: 110 Dex, 3.5 CC, 35 AR
Belt: 128 Dex, 72 Vit, 42 AR, 41 Regen
Pants: 81 Dex (165 with gems in 2 sockets), 83 Vit, 52 AR
Boots: Sages Seekers with 134 Dex, 57 AR, and 12 MS
Amulet: 7-14 damage, 42 Dex in a gem socket, 105 Vit, 5.5 CC, 35 CD
Ring 1: 68 Dex, 3.5 CC, 18 CD
Ring 2: 40 Dex, 40 Vit, 2.5 CC, 16 CD, 42 Regen

I have about 27K HP, 52K DPS w/o SS, 91 K DPS with SS, 2700 Armor, and about 300 AR. I have 41.5 CC and 265 CD when using the scoundrel as a follower.

Act 1 is a breeze, but Act 2 causes me all sorts of problems and the tougher elite monster packs kill me with ease, especially the reflect damage, invulnerable, or fast ones. I haven't reached Act 3 yet, but I haven't tried in awhile since I was building up my Barbarian to level 60 and I picked up the Andariel's Visage in the meantime.

I think my rings are a little weak, but good ones cost an insane amount of money on the AH. Where can I spend my money to get the biggest improvement in my character? Any help would be appreciated.

I usually run with HA: SS, EA: BL, Vault, SS: LF, Prep: Backup Plan, and Bat Companion.

[Chiron]

I just finished Inferno last Sunday with my DH so I'll give my two cents.

I agree that your rings are a bit weak. You should use some calculator (for example this: http://d3dps.com/node/34) to calculate what stats give you the most bang for your buck. I actually switched my rings from CC+CD+Dex to ASI+CD+Dex because those were cheaper and gave me more DPS (even without SS) and more importantly, AS helps your survivability because you can shoot+kite+shoot+kite faster.

I also find your amulet to be a bit lacking. I was insanely lucky to find an amulet myself with 8.5% CC, 49% CD, 100+ Dex and ~100 vit. I feel you really should get at least 100 dex and 40+ CD from your amu, 5.5 CC is okay. My tip to finding "cheap" jewelry is to look at the Bid prices (and search without max buyout so you'll see the items with only Bids). That way I've managed to get my rings cheaper than straight out buyouting them.

As for your other gear, you could try to get more vit and +life% with AR. I have around 40k HP, ~500 AR and ~2.8k armor so I was able to withstand a hit or two from normal mobs. But I feel that increasing your damage is more important than survivability because you'll need to rely on Smoke Screen anyway unless you build a tank DH. My DPS is over 60k without SS and over 130k with SS.

As for skills I used HA: DA, EA: BL, Caltrops: TG, Prep: Inv, Spike Trap: Scatter and SS: LF. DA is the best single target DPS rune for HA and I feel that BL and Spike Trap take care of AoE damage so having a good single target skill is great. I don't really like Vault as I find it unreliable and hard to use so I use Caltrops to gain distance. Invigoration for Prep was chosen because it gives you +10 disc _every time_ and not all of your disc _sometimes_. I've found that when I need to use Prep, I'm in a bad situation so it is easy to time it with a Smoke Screen so the +10 disc is never wasted. I don't use the Bat as running out of hatred is not really a problem. I do, however, have +1 hatred regen on my quiver so it helps a bit.

Good luck!

[Vanadin]

I also find your amulet to be a bit lacking. I was insanely lucky to find an amulet myself with 8.5% CC, 49% CD, 100+ Dex and ~100 vit. I feel you really should get at least 100 dex and 40+ CD from your amu, 5.5 CC is okay. My tip to finding "cheap" jewelry is to look at the Bid prices (and search without max buyout so you'll see the items with only Bids). That way I've managed to get my rings cheaper than straight out buyouting them.

Let me add a tip on "bargain hunting":

Before you go this route, first do a search with a relatively low buyout number (e.g., 100,000-200,000), and see if there are any "fire sales": occasionally people list really great items for far less than they should.

And, in terms of staying alive with RD mobs, you need to find some life on hit. My XB has about 400, and that seems to be enough to keep up with the damage without resorting to potions, globes, or skills.

[celanian]

Thanks for the suggestions. What would be more cost effective, sinking gobs money into a better ring/amulet, buying a 80% crit gem, or saving up for a 90% crit gem? The advantage to a gem is that I don't detract from any other stats as a side effect, but I obviously lose the chance to improve any other stats as well.

[Chiron]

Thanks for the suggestions. What would be more cost effective, sinking gobs money into a better ring/amulet, buying a 80% crit gem, or saving up for a 90% crit gem? The advantage to a gem is that I don't detract from any other stats as a side effect, but I obviously lose the chance to improve any other stats as well.

This is a bit hard to answer without knowing the exact prices of the upgrades and even then you should use some kind of calculator (as the one I linked) to decide what is best. I don't think that improving the gem in your weapon is the best choice as the crit dam in your rings and amulet are quite low. If you would be able to upgrade your rings with otherwise similar stats but at least 25% crit dam, that would give you 16% more crit dam.

[celanian]

This is a bit hard to answer without knowing the exact prices of the upgrades and even then you should use some kind of calculator (as the one I linked) to decide what is best. I don't think that improving the gem in your weapon is the best choice as the crit dam in your rings and amulet are quite low. If you would be able to upgrade your rings with otherwise similar stats but at least 25% crit dam, that would give you 16% more crit dam.

I think I may have to go with the crit gem route. I was able to upgrade ring 2 to a 2.5 CC 21 CD 68 Dex at a reasonable price, but any 3 CC 25 CD, 60 Dex ring would blow out my budget. And forget about any significant improvements to my Amulet at my price range. At least a 80% crit gem is affordable for 2.3-2.4m and adds an immediate 10% to crit damage. That would be the equivalent of turning ring 1 into a 3 CC 28 CD ring.