I'm currently a level 53 monk. After having issues, I joined a public game just to level up a little bit, and somebody was nice enough to give me a nicer weapon than I had as well.

Sweet, a 1157 DPS 2H Decapitator! .

@Baalzamon.

My monk is still at level 16 so I can't really help you much there, but how are your stats?

I thought they were good...until I started playing in a public game and realized I have horrible stuff (apparently it is a huge mistake not to have magic find items). It does help that my buddy gave me lvl 60 legendary shoulders that have a 11 level reducer on them.

HP: 11,500
DPS: 2,800
Armor: 3700
40% passive dodge, 50% active dodge
46 for all my resistances (15%)

I've just been having an incredibly hard time finding gear that actually works for my person. I still have lvl 21 gloves and lvl 27 bracers because I literally cannot find any that work better. With all the magic and rare ones I have found, you would think I would have found at least a little better, but the only thing better is always armor and everything else sucks on them.

That's a pretty low DPS for a melee char in early Hell. My suggestion for you is that you farm gold so that you can open up the secret level on Nightmare and farm there, since there's Hell grade items there. 

50% Active dodge is good, but without the DPS to back you up, you'll just end up being a sitting duck that's poking elite mobs with a wet stick.

Well I got even bigger problems now. I played in a public game and basically got carried through act 1 of hell...and i still have horrible stuff.

So I went to the auction house and bought a whole bunch of new armor for 5,000 or less gold each.

Here's my new stats:
HP: 12,000
DPS: 4,500
Armor: 4,700 (63.3% reduction)
Resistances: 19-30% (Physical & Fire being near the top)
Dodge: Still 40% Passive, 50% Active
I also have 3% damage reduction for ranged and melee attacks now, which is quite a bit

I honestly feel twice as tanky now as I did before, not to mention I do about 60% more damage.

I would have much rather gotten the stuff the old fashioned way, but I'm sort of trying to get caught up to my friends as quickly as possible so we can work on inferno together as well as so I can make some real money in the auction house!

That DPS is shaping up, that's usually how a melee finishes NM Diablo/Act I Hell. Bear in mind that gear checks are going to become tougher as you go along on Hell (and become insane on Inferno), especially once you hit Act III, especially in the Towers&Heart of Sin area (you should be hitting 60 by then though).

OT - Got some pretty damn amazing gear from the areas before the Bridge of Korsikk, thanks to my MF gear that boosts my MF to 242% (with 5 NV stacks). I get a lot of yellows and I think I might have found some multi million gold pieces (like a 1525 armor shield with 100 Int, 70 Vit and 50 All resist and a pretty damn amazing amu with 70 all resist, 60% crit damage, 40 dex and vit plus 30 GF).

I think I'm gonna do some heavy farming on the Siegebreaker quest, since the mobs there are rather easy (unless some pretty broken affixes come into play). Have found some decent pieces for my Wiz, DH and most importantly, my Barb (Rare Archon Armor with 210 Vit and 55 All resist ftw ).

The real money AH is flat out ridiculous, there are weapons going for 250 euros!

I can see some destitute people moaning and whining on the servers in the near future, if they have enough left over for the internet bill that is...

By the way; did they already implement the increased repair cost? Wasn't that launching with patch 1.0.3?

Mummelmann said: The real money AH is flat out ridiculous, there are weapons going for 250 euros! I can see some destitute people moaning and whining on the servers in the near future, if they have enough left over for the internet bill that is... By the way; did they already implement the increased repair cost? Wasn't that launching with patch 1.0.3?

I don't think so, my repair bill for Yellow stat is still on the 6 - 7k mark.

Edit - I've just checked my AH and guess what? I made 3M profit overnight *rolls in the gold*

I did a lot of Act 2 farming this week end.
Got some minor upgrades for my Wizard ( +1k dps, +30 MF) but mainly got monk gear ( sold 2.5 mill worth of monk stuff) and a lvl 62 legendary warrior belt. Sadly it didn't drop very good stats but it could have been worse and it's still a good upgrade for my barb ( it actually has the potential to be the best barb belt out there as it can roll +12% fury damage or up to +7% revenge crit chance and it has very good str, damage converted to life and even 1% crit chance and I rolled some vit).

I did play Act3 with my wiz and I managed to keep 5 NV till middle of the third quest. I have to change my spec for Act3 and the killing is slower but I actually don't die so much.
If I can actually get arcane power on crit and a higher crit chance I could actually switch to farming Act3 but till then I am sticking to Act 2...( my only offensive spell in Act 3 are celestial orb and venom hydra as I added teleport).
One thing I noticed is that I had to switch prismatic rune to force rune on my energy armor and it makes a lot of difference against electrical mobs or those that reflect damage. With prismatic I can ignore damage reflection, with force armor I have to pot and try not to burst damage too much.........

I did get two decent amulets too.

My wiz got one with 30% MF that actually was a dps upgrade too. ( at the expense of vitality).

And my barb got an ammy with 42 res all as well as + crit damage and +8-16 dmg.

Right now my Wiz is running 4700 armor, 27k hp, 31.8k dps, 610 resists ( less resists if I use force armor) and 64 MF. ( I dropped the shield and use a source and still can take plenty hits in Act 2).

My barb is running 7260 armor, 15.7k dps, 500 resists and 27 block % (blocking btw 2700 and 3700).

I could run more resists and less block ( the shield has no resists and I have one with 40 res all but this shield gives more damage and I kinda like the block so far) 

I played half of Act 1 inferno with the barb and only died like 5 times and some of those deaths could have been prevented ( I skipped nothing and had a few deaths killing a molten/invulnerable/plague pack but I got them !).

I have not purchased a single item that my barb uses on the AH either, they were all found by the wiz or the barb himself...