Cruel and Merciless difficulty

I usually get first taste of the new difficulty with act 3. Most of the time I feel that act 3 normal is more difficult than act 1 cruel, and it repeats with act 3 cruel > act 1 merciless. Act 2 tends to be the one that eventually balance out the difficulty in cruel and merciless. Act 3 merciless is pretty much preparing you for maps, so if you die constantly to almost anything, you are not going to fare better in maps either way.