Is everyone stuck at Act 2 Inferno/Help with endgame gearder=0>

[Lomsomquis]

I know there's something off with my wiz, and I would appreciate some help on changing up my gear. I apologize for not providing screenshots(I will try to do that later) but I will provide you with all the info here. Obviously equipment is build-specific, but I'm having a lot of difficulty trying to figure out which stats are the most important. It seems that everything you wear should have int + res all, but it's hard to choose what comes next. In my opinion, all of the following are valid choices- could someone possibly rank them in order of importance? Additionally, feel free to add what build requires what. It seems that the most popular builds are the Blizz/Hydra and Crit Mass builds, with variations of each(correct me if I'm wrong).

Vit
Armor
Crit chance/crit dmg
Life regen

Now for part 2. Here is my current gear and build:

Sword: 855 DPS, 246 int, 195 vit
Source: +105-215 dmg, 85 each of str, int, vit
Hat: 123 int, 83 vit, 49 res all, 3.5% crit
Shouders: 75 int, 75 vit, 52 res all, +181 armor
Amulet: 230 int, 124 vit
Chest: 88 int, 89 vit, 47 res all, +149 armor, 15% MF
Belt: 70 str, 118 int, 40 vit, 41 res all, 95 life regen
Ring: 49 int, +153 armor, 2% crit
Ring: 41 str, 30 int, 16 res all, 2% crit, impair reduction 7%
Pants: 32 str, 140 int, 36 res all, 227 life regen, 15% MF, 34 vit
Boots: 90 int, 103 vit, 48 life regen, 11% movement speed
Bracers: 73 str, 57 int, 30 res all, +153 armor

Totals:
Int- 1624
Vit- 1081
3260 armor, 5612 buffed
23k DPS, 26k buffed
38K life

Build:

Magic Missile(Seeker)
Blizzard(Snowbound)
Teleport(Fracture)
Hydra(Venom)
Energry Armor(Force Armor)
Magic Weapon(Force Weapon)

Passives: Galvanizing Ward, Glass Cannon, Astral Presence/Evocation

Any suggestions for new gear or build changes would be greatly appreciated, to the point that I'd be willing to meet in game for a donation. As for my budget, let's try keeping it under 10 mil/item, but 5mil/item would be even better. I feel like my DPS is too low, my HP is too high, and that if I'm using the Blizz/Hydra build I should be using a 2H with higher DPS. Again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

[magicrectangle]

Build: I know it hurts to lose DPS when your damage is already sub-par, but swapping magic weapon for mirror image (duplicates), and swapping your astral presence for illusionist, will be a huge boost to your survivability. I'd change teleport to wormhole, since fracture over-writes duplicates, and the longer distance teleporting is very handy.

Gear wise, the low hanging fruit seems to be, in approximate order:

Offhand - you should be able to get one with 300+ top end damage for not much gold. A blue one with 350+ topend and +int +vit can often be had for cheap. The AH is annoying because it won't search by damage, but with patience this can work in your favor, as you root through offhands you can often find a steal, because people have no idea what to price them at. I just did a quick search and came up with this:
Glorious Demi-Lich of Valor
58-343 damage
84 int
111 vit
100k gold (don't look for it now though, I bought it and re-listed it for half a mil, but you get the idea)

Next I'd look at your rings. They seem to be quite bad. 2% crit isn't much in terms of damage, you could get just as much (probably more) damage from pure int rings, or int/res all rings. A ring with 80 int and 60 res all (blue "chromatic ring of omens") can be had for 100k

Where you go from there is less obvious. Pants don't seem so hot. They have a lot of life regen, but the stats and resists are low. The boots don't have any resists. I've found "sages seekers" in the 500k-1m range that have a nice spread of int, res all, armor, runspeed, and even MF.

[Lomsomquis]

Thanks for the response. I actually swapped out my weap + source for a 2H with 1300 DPS, 217 int and 6% IAS and seem to be wiping the floor with elites. I'll do the swaps you suggested regardless and see how it goes.

Would buying 2 rings with int, res all, and IAS of 6% each benefit me at all? should i leave the 3rd filter empty? Crit chance? Bueller?

[magicrectangle]

Sure, attack speed is still good, just not as good as it was, and since everybody is looking for crit chance now attack speed has gotten cheap.

[magicrectangle]

Looking back over your gear, I didn't notice you mentioning glove stats. Gloves can be one of your highest damage pieces, with loads of crit and crit damage being possible.

If you do get rings and other gear with crit on them, you won't get a lot of mileage out of them without a good dose of crit damage. One of the easiest places to pick up crit damage is on your weapon. A socket will let you pick up a bunch of crit damage from a green gem, and of course weapons can spawn with up to 100% crit damage naturally as well (but weapons with these stats can be quite spendy). The synergy between crit and crit damage is why a lot of people are now stacking the heck out of crit, but adding crit without the benefit of a big chunk of crit damage won't up your DPS very much.

[unified]

Hey, I'm at work so I can't drop a long post, but hit me up in game @unified#1694. I'd be glad to show you my stats and gear I use to farm each act. I don't have super high DPS like a lot of others, but I farm acts 1-3 with 230% base MF and around 100 for act 4. I use a little different build than the standards, but would be glad to give ya a few tips and show you my farm areas. Take care!

[Lomsomquis]

Quick update:

I made the build changes that magicrectangle suggested and bought some new gear, we'll see how it goes. I'm going to try heading into Act 2 again.

Mace: 1309 DPS, 217 int, 6% IAS
pants: 64 str, 154 int, 54 res all, 660 Armor
ring: 112 int, 50 res all
ring: 126 int, 51 res all
boot: I went for the Sage's Seekers- 82 int, 56 res all, 12% movement speed, 78 str
gloves: 107 int, 87 vit, 11 res all, 5.5% crit chance

Int- 1706
Vit- 628
Armor- 3500-->6020
DPS- 30k-->33k
22k HP

I feel like I'm gonna die a lot bc I just lost 16K on my HP, but we'll see...

[Coolhwip]

Get rid of astral presence and magic missile and use piercing orb and cold blooded.

Piercing orb as its name implies can pierce through some walls/corners and it can also shoot through platforms and it passes through several enemies at a time. It's the wizard version of nether tentacles.

Cold blooded is bugged and it's bonus applies to all damage sources (except hydra) but it's still a very powerful and free 20% increase to your damage, use it. Hint: Use a scoundrel, spec him into the tri-arrow attack and give him a fast cold damage bow, his attacks will trigger the cold blooded effect as well.

I cleared all of act2 with my wizard (4th alt) easily with 23k HP, 42k dps (I used sparkflint throughout) without worrying about resists at all.