Mitigation and life regen are what matter most. You need to reduce the incoming damage as much as possible and match it with life regen. Mitigation makes life regen more efficient, so you need fewer items with life regen. Vitality simply increases how much burst damage you can sustain without dying. But It doesn't (normally) help you get your life back. It's for surviving stuns, freezes, and big hits. Those should be rare situations where you can easily recover your life with a potion.
It's hard for anyone to tell you what you need more without a thorough investigation of your character and what difficulty you're playing. But you should be able to play, see how low your life dips when frozen or hit hard, and judge from that.
I would also like to add that I've found resist all to be better than armor for pretty much every class, even for int users, and even when using passives to boost armor by a percentage. I know it doesn't help the OP in his current situation, but it's useful to keep in mind for future upgrades.
Because as it stands now most elements correspond with a type of rune; lightning stuns, cold for bigger aoe radius / slows, ect. Fire seems to almost always be for a pure dps increase which is making it the best element type and narrowing skill choices.
The other issue with fire is that you can stack more fire skill damage than any other element. Also cindercoat reduces the resource cost, and I don't know of any equivalent items for any other element. It would be nice if they introduced some new legendaries in the next content patch to help balance out the other elements from a gear standpoint.
Mal dropped the mat for me, along with the plans, the first time I killed him. From what I've read from other threads, the droprate is either very low (no drops in 35+ kills) or it's bugged and can only drop on your first kill of him. I did a little researching on the Angelic Shard mat as well, and people were getting the same results: a few reported getting it on first kill of Izual, and others had killed Izual 40+ times and never saw it drop.
I have not yet crafted them, as I have legendary bracers on my level 70 monk, and I will wait until I level another class to 70.
Since trying to get a HC barb to 60 and failing 3 times so far, I discovered seismic slam aswell and love it. Specialy since you get it early on and it just destroys white packs.
Edit : scratch that. Gotta rethink that build some more ^^
I just got my barb to 60 in HC in 20 hours. I used Frenzy with increased movement speed and Rend with Ravage. When I got to the hard parts of Hell (certain parts of Act 3), I switched to Bloodlust rune for Rend. Other than that, I used Battle Rage, War Cry, Revenge, and Leap (Iron Impact). Nice thing about Leap is it saves you movement time and gets you into a middle of a pack, where you can rend and kill everything near you. I was able to do Normal, Nightmare, and the first parts of Hell at MP10. Gear was decent, but nothing expensive; it was all stuff I picked up while leveling my Monk and WD to 60. Only thing I spent gold on was a reduced level weapon, of which i picked up a 700 dps one at level 48 for 80k, and a reduced level shield (the armor and block amount increases are really helpful for Hell).
Also I learned a few tricks to survive hardcore along the way. I always switch to MP0 for Fields of Misery and Highlands because the charging guys can charge from offscreen and at high MP levels they can one-shot you. Also the explodey guys in Act 2 and 3 are a problem with Rend, but since you can run faster than them when they arm, I will rend and then run or leap away. Also I used a shield the entire time. Hope this helps!
And all that MF on gear becomes what? Taking away a desired stat and devaluing gear is only going to piss off more players. Some people paid real money for incredible MF gear. Others are making good money selling this gear. It's hard enough swallowing the IAS change. Further nerfs to item stats are really not feasible at this point in time. You would have to create a new stat that's even better in MF, and that would potentially unbalance the game (ie. make Inferno a joke).
Also, we already have a base MF to work with: it's called nephalem valor. They have talked about increasing its value if they nerf item switching, and I feel that would be a fair trade. Those who weren't item switching win out completely. Those who were item switching get a bunch of inventory space back.
Making gearing decisions isn't supposed to be straightforward in Diablo 3. There are often more than 6 desirable stats per slot, and that's done on purpose, as we're supposed to think about how we're gearing ourselves and what priorities we want. Having fewer desirable stats would turn this into WoW's state of gearing (very streamlined and boring imo). Individual players get to decide how high they want to prioritize MF over other stats. For many people it's more effective to forsake MF altogether and increase their killing speed. This was the same case in Diablo 2; both games have diminishing returns on MF.
Also picking up extra movement speed is incredibly helpful. Unfortunately you only have a few legendary non-boots to choose from, and prices aren't cheap. Cap is 25% movement speed.
Dual wield damage is the average dps of both weapons, and then a 15% IAS bonus on top of that. If your crappier weapon is not close to the better weapon's damage (should be at least 74% of the dps; though this will vary with more IAS), then even with the 15% IAS you will lose damage.
Primary stats matter too, if there's any on the shield.
2) I've farmed act 1 pre-patch for weeks with another char and again no upgrades, so I'm not saying this after like 2 days of being in inferno or anything. I understand they just changed the percentages to get better item drops at lower lvls. I'm just saying I have yet to see this after a full day of farming and only saw 3 blue ilvl 63 out of hundreds of items. I know it can be lower for some than others (just so the forum trolls don't jump on me for that), but I also know that what they say in patch notes doesn't always work they way they say either.
You aren't the first person to say this, but it just is unfathomable to me. I found plenty of upgrades in Act 1 Inferno for my DH and Wizard. About 3/4 of the gear on my DH is from drops in Act 1 Inferno, and it would cost 2m+ per slot to get a slight upgrade from the AH. Not to mention I've been able to sell dozens of items for 100k+ and as much as 2m for a few items. The really valuble drops I kept, and from what I can tell, would sell for even more than 2m. Obviously I had to purchase a weapon, but there have been a lot of really good armor drops. There's only so many options: I'm really lucky, you guys are really unlucky, or people are exagerating their crappy drops. I just don't know.
Irregardless, the content in Act 1 is very easy and is highly profitable to farm, even more so now.
Easy? I am not so sure about that. Before the patch yes, now no. I was able to farm Act 1 on my DH without much problem before but now I have a very difficult time with elite and champion packs. So much so that the repairs eat up much of the gold I do find. It is just going to take persistence and playing around with a new build maybe. And no I didn't have tons of IAS, only on my quiver and Amulet.
They didn't buff Act 1 in any way, and you said yourself you didn't have much IAS. You need to find a new build, because there are a lot of options to replace nether tentacle that are nearly as good. I personally went from farming Act 1 prepatch with ease to farming Act 2 with ease on my DH. I changed Nether Tentacles to Screaming Skull and life was good again.
2) I've farmed act 1 pre-patch for weeks with another char and again no upgrades, so I'm not saying this after like 2 days of being in inferno or anything. I understand they just changed the percentages to get better item drops at lower lvls. I'm just saying I have yet to see this after a full day of farming and only saw 3 blue ilvl 63 out of hundreds of items. I know it can be lower for some than others (just so the forum trolls don't jump on me for that), but I also know that what they say in patch notes doesn't always work they way they say either.
You aren't the first person to say this, but it just is unfathomable to me. I found plenty of upgrades in Act 1 Inferno for my DH and Wizard. About 3/4 of the gear on my DH is from drops in Act 1 Inferno, and it would cost 2m+ per slot to get a slight upgrade from the AH. Not to mention I've been able to sell dozens of items for 100k+ and as much as 2m for a few items. The really valuble drops I kept, and from what I can tell, would sell for even more than 2m. Obviously I had to purchase a weapon, but there have been a lot of really good armor drops. There's only so many options: I'm really lucky, you guys are really unlucky, or people are exagerating their crappy drops. I just don't know.
Irregardless, the content in Act 1 is very easy and is highly profitable to farm, even more so now.
Nice bow for your follower though! However, I use a templar. Fun fact: I let my buddy try a 990 dps xbow w/ 291 dex I found on his Scoundrel and it went up to 7000 damage. I wonder if you can potentially get a follower up to 10,000 damage and if it would then be worth swapping to a damage companion for more DPS?
True about the follower. However they don't go for much. I spent 50k on a lower dps one with similar stats.
Locusts Swarm. With the change to DoTs to be able to crit it hits like a truck filled with little trucks.
I hate you. They didn't fix any of the spells for Wizards. Blizzard, disintegrate, ray of frost, venom and mammoth hydra, the tornado spell: none of them crit still. Some have suggested that crit gets rolled into the damage for venom hydra, and I don't know if that's true, but it still sucks when our main regen stat on wizard gear is AP on crit.
My favorite now is Elemental Arrow with Screaming Skull. Nether Tentacles had blinded me to its existence.
Tried with impale. It works, but mobs with illusionist are a pain in the ass to deal. So far, i'm very succesfull switching smoke screen with Shadow power + gloom (And i'm not even beastly geared) and frost arrow. Dropped sharpshooter, added cull the weak....i think no ? (+15% dmg to chilled or frozen targets)
I've been using Shadow Power with Gloom since for weeks now. Assuming you have decent amount of health (30k), you can take multiple hits in Inferno. The life steal makes reflect damage a joke. And the duration is twice as long as Smoke Screen.
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It's hard for anyone to tell you what you need more without a thorough investigation of your character and what difficulty you're playing. But you should be able to play, see how low your life dips when frozen or hit hard, and judge from that.
I would also like to add that I've found resist all to be better than armor for pretty much every class, even for int users, and even when using passives to boost armor by a percentage. I know it doesn't help the OP in his current situation, but it's useful to keep in mind for future upgrades.
I have not yet crafted them, as I have legendary bracers on my level 70 monk, and I will wait until I level another class to 70.
I just got my barb to 60 in HC in 20 hours. I used Frenzy with increased movement speed and Rend with Ravage. When I got to the hard parts of Hell (certain parts of Act 3), I switched to Bloodlust rune for Rend. Other than that, I used Battle Rage, War Cry, Revenge, and Leap (Iron Impact). Nice thing about Leap is it saves you movement time and gets you into a middle of a pack, where you can rend and kill everything near you. I was able to do Normal, Nightmare, and the first parts of Hell at MP10. Gear was decent, but nothing expensive; it was all stuff I picked up while leveling my Monk and WD to 60. Only thing I spent gold on was a reduced level weapon, of which i picked up a 700 dps one at level 48 for 80k, and a reduced level shield (the armor and block amount increases are really helpful for Hell).
Also I learned a few tricks to survive hardcore along the way. I always switch to MP0 for Fields of Misery and Highlands because the charging guys can charge from offscreen and at high MP levels they can one-shot you. Also the explodey guys in Act 2 and 3 are a problem with Rend, but since you can run faster than them when they arm, I will rend and then run or leap away. Also I used a shield the entire time. Hope this helps!
Also, we already have a base MF to work with: it's called nephalem valor. They have talked about increasing its value if they nerf item switching, and I feel that would be a fair trade. Those who weren't item switching win out completely. Those who were item switching get a bunch of inventory space back.
Making gearing decisions isn't supposed to be straightforward in Diablo 3. There are often more than 6 desirable stats per slot, and that's done on purpose, as we're supposed to think about how we're gearing ourselves and what priorities we want. Having fewer desirable stats would turn this into WoW's state of gearing (very streamlined and boring imo). Individual players get to decide how high they want to prioritize MF over other stats. For many people it's more effective to forsake MF altogether and increase their killing speed. This was the same case in Diablo 2; both games have diminishing returns on MF.
Also picking up extra movement speed is incredibly helpful. Unfortunately you only have a few legendary non-boots to choose from, and prices aren't cheap. Cap is 25% movement speed.
Primary stats matter too, if there's any on the shield.
It's even better when it's people in General chat saying how much D3 sucks and how D2 is better.
They didn't buff Act 1 in any way, and you said yourself you didn't have much IAS. You need to find a new build, because there are a lot of options to replace nether tentacle that are nearly as good. I personally went from farming Act 1 prepatch with ease to farming Act 2 with ease on my DH. I changed Nether Tentacles to Screaming Skull and life was good again.
You aren't the first person to say this, but it just is unfathomable to me. I found plenty of upgrades in Act 1 Inferno for my DH and Wizard. About 3/4 of the gear on my DH is from drops in Act 1 Inferno, and it would cost 2m+ per slot to get a slight upgrade from the AH. Not to mention I've been able to sell dozens of items for 100k+ and as much as 2m for a few items. The really valuble drops I kept, and from what I can tell, would sell for even more than 2m. Obviously I had to purchase a weapon, but there have been a lot of really good armor drops. There's only so many options: I'm really lucky, you guys are really unlucky, or people are exagerating their crappy drops. I just don't know.
Irregardless, the content in Act 1 is very easy and is highly profitable to farm, even more so now.
True about the follower. However they don't go for much. I spent 50k on a lower dps one with similar stats.
I hate you. They didn't fix any of the spells for Wizards. Blizzard, disintegrate, ray of frost, venom and mammoth hydra, the tornado spell: none of them crit still. Some have suggested that crit gets rolled into the damage for venom hydra, and I don't know if that's true, but it still sucks when our main regen stat on wizard gear is AP on crit.
My favorite now is Elemental Arrow with Screaming Skull. Nether Tentacles had blinded me to its existence.
I've been using Shadow Power with Gloom since for weeks now. Assuming you have decent amount of health (30k), you can take multiple hits in Inferno. The life steal makes reflect damage a joke. And the duration is twice as long as Smoke Screen.