Inferno Stats to get through Act 2 as a Wizard?

Question

I've been reading a lot of forums and watched quite a few videos.

While most people seem to agree All Resist are the best-stat-ever you could get, and suggest getting it to 1000+, some say it's worthless, I've also read about people saying how they dropped to like, 20k life, or how they've around 15k DPS (and are still somehow able to solo inferno act 2), while others seem to have crazy amounts of life and/or DPS.

I've based my build on a thread I've found here:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5235402096?page=1

Just using Diamond Skin with Crystall Shell instead of Teleport, since to me it's better in quite a few situations. (plus I'm used to it, which is actually huge).

So this would be my build:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aRlSOX!YXT!cbYZYa

As to the stats, it's just better if I post a picture, but I've:

31.5k DPS 36k life 300ish resists

Full stats (buffed):
https://i.sstatic.net/hfB0C.jpg

And this would be my gear:
https://i.sstatic.net/LwPYT.jpg

My weapon could definately be better, at 725 dps and +100 vit, but weapons get so expensive past that threshold. Other than that I'm slowly moving from a Int/Vit gear towards a Int/Vit/Resist one, but each piece is really expensive, ranging from 1kk to a zillion. My rings are really lacking, at 15% IAS and 66 int, 13% IAS and 63 vit respectively.

The thing is I'm getting nowhere in Act 2, any mob is a real threat, and elite packs are oh-so-tough to beat. So what I'm looking for in this thread?

What stats did you have when you were able to manage beating Inferno Act 2 on your own, and is something horrible wrong with my build? I'd really like some more advice on what kind of armor to look for in the AH since I'm on a not-so-great budget, and stuff gets very expensive at the inferno tier item levels.

Answer 1

You should be using magic missle, with the rune that adds 4 arcane pwer per hit. Then Tornado, with the decreased arcane power rune. Don't forget to use energy armor, with the rune that adds all resistance. And diamond skin, with the rune that adds more damage absorbtion. Also use arcane hydra. And lastly, either magic weapon or archon with teleport and that should do it. Gearwise, get all resistance gear with as many sockets as possible.

Answer 2

Hey man i was in the same boat as you similar stats but struggling in act 2. Found this vid on youtube

Its the Life regen build they nerfed somewhat however its still a very viable build i spent 1million gold on the AH to get 1800 Life per second running 15khp and 20kdps and 500-600 all resists. Flew through act 2 with those stats and this build!

Answer 3

There is no such thing as a "best-stat-ever". All stats are balancing acts. If you have more than 10,000 armor, you should increase your all resistances to a 1000 to match (the ten to one rule). Basically, if your ratio is out of the ten to one balance, you can gain more by increasing the underweight stat.

If you want to get a better idea of what the tradeoffs are for your specific character, you might try an EHP calculator (or see here for more discussion). The specific one with which I'm familiar is D3Up -- you can import your characters from your battle.net profile. Once your character is in D3Up, you can look at the DPS Gains by Stat and EHP Gains by Stat sections to get some idea of the tradeoffs between various statistics. D3Up also allows you to compare different pieces of gear as well as see how each piece of gear that you have contributes to your DPS and EHP.

All these decisions are heavily dependent on your current character and your play-style. For example, the Windup Wizard build was actually helped by keeping vitality low (although that's since been nerfed). The Force Armor limits hits to 35% of your hit points, so monsters do less damage to your Diamond Skin if you have a low vitality. The build relies on getting enough critical hits (crit) to keep your cooldown as low as possible (near zero seconds), so you recast your Diamond Skin before it falls off. Your low hit points never matter. That worked in that build, but it wouldn't work at all in a build without Critical Mass or one that doesn't crit enough to replenish Diamond Skin before it fades. That build is also helped by high attack speeds, but a channeling build can be helped by a low attack speed. See here.

In the end, we all have to tailor our own builds to our own styles of play. There are a fair number of different builds that will work. You have to find your own.