A Level 50 Illusionist need YOUR help!

[Dedo]

Hey everyone, long time reader but first time poster.

I've been playing TQ like a mad dog, I've successfully got a range of characters to legendary, covering all types of attacks, from an archer, Pure Caster, Pet character, dual welder, Spear+shield and so forth.

I decided to take up the Illusionist challenge. To cut a long story short, all through normal wolves, knives, poison and calculated strike kept me in business.

Early epic started hurting, in Egypt and Early Orient I did some serious farming/leveling, normally I wouldn't be level 50 until the start of legendary. I got quite a few legendary and epic drops. My helm and greaves are not ideal but the rest suited my character quite well, I had full wolves, heal and a nice dps.

Anyway, Late orient I realized I have to do a total respec of the skill points and items because my resistances were sufferring from my "dps" quest.

My plan now was to get -%recharge items and use lethal strike+knives+plague nearly constantly while kiting around

Energy recharge and my energy pool was fine to spam these nonstop. So I took all my points out of wolves/healing and decided pots will do. Anyway, titacal doesn't seem to work for me so I'll type out my skill specs here.

Rogue Mastery

Calc. Strike+lucky hit 8/8 6/6
Blade Honing 6/6
Knives+Flurry 10/10 6/6 [yes I know it only needs 1/10 but I had quite a few spare points left over]
Lethal Strike+Mortal Wound 12/12 1/8
Disarm Trap 1/6 [one point wonder, had it spare]
Evenom+Nightshade+toxin+Mandrake 1/12 8/8 1/12 8/8

*Basically this is now my dmg mastery while nature is purely defensive plans for legendary

Nature Mastery

Heart+Tranquility+Stone 12/12 1/6 6/6
Plague+Fatigue+Suscept 8/8 4/8 1/8

* I still have tier points to add, refresh is the only option I have left.

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Ok, I'll get to my point soon, I just want to give you details to help you help me

Here is a link of my character which is now about to take on Wasu Mountain. I've had to run pass a few mobs now since surivability has taken down my dps dramatically.

http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=3233343

It shows I have great resistance, hp, energy [great regen on both btw], good total speed but poor average damage. To overcome this I engage mobs by casting plague, then knives. I have -40% total recharge, I run around and cast knives again. I pick the caster enemies for lethal strike and I throw in a few normal hits to get calc.

I've gone more strength, but a few great drops have given me some bonus dex. This has helped since I am using piercing dmg with my spells and normal attack. I've had no need to pump points into int/hp/energy since items have made them more than enough.

This has proved quite well since the reduction all up on their total speed is insane and I have 140% run speed, 178% attack and decent cast speed [forget the number].

My problem lies with BOSSES. I've had headaches trying to kill them. I went through like 100 gazillion pots against the bull, my mob technique is great but against bosses I need to follow it up with quite a few normal/calc attacks sicne my recharge is not THAT fast yet. I also am looking towards legendary, resistance won't be an issue, neither will hps, but the bosses are going to give me a headache if I don't find good recharge items. I have such a good attack speed but it's wasted with a low average attack.

Any suggestions or advice on my current approach with my illusionist? Please only advice from experience or very good judgement. This character is definitely the hardest I've had to use.

Thanks!

[Dedo]

No replies, but I've been brainstorming and had a few solutions.

1. Item drop, be nice to have +2-3 items with same bonues dmg and resistance for an illusionist. My head gear and weapon, even legendary just are pretty poor.

I had no choice but on my 2nd weapon swap, I had to arm myself with a relic'd green spear and immortal pendant of rage which gave me an extra 3k damage. I had to to pass Wasu mountain, I had no choice. Which kind of sucks since I want my illusionist to be only using a sword.

My resistance is a lot less but it's all in the positive at least, except for poison.

So, do I continue using a spear or just stop using this character.

The mix with knives/plague/lethal strike is slaughtering Greece Legendary, but if I continue to use the spear I might of aswell picked Hunter/Rogue.

Hrm

[ZombieBunny]

Unrelated to your quest for perfection, but did you find the wolfs useful at all in Legendary? I specificly made a Illusionist for the wolfs and it would be kinda disappointing to level up to 40-50ish just to find out they are worthless. Dont get me wrong, I especially enjoy a challenging gameplay, but I dont feel like babysitting the wolfs is something I got high on my list.

Bytheway, you put any consideration into using traps? They useful at all beyond Normal?

[Dedo]

Originally Posted by ZombieBunny

Unrelated to your quest for perfection, but did you find the wolfs useful at all in Legendary? I specificly made a Illusionist for the wolfs and it would be kinda disappointing to level up to 40-50ish just to find out they are worthless. Dont get me wrong, I especially enjoy a challenging gameplay, but I dont feel like babysitting the wolfs is something I got high on my list.

Bytheway, you put any consideration into using traps? They useful at all beyond Normal?

Wolves were great for normal, and are good for their buffs in legendary but with rogue/nature I found the knives/lethal/plague spared plenty of debuffs in masses. The only way to get them at respectable levels was to respec, since wolves not only took up points in their tree but also the healing tree.

Survability was in the debuffs rather than pure damage buffs wolves provide.

Illusionist doesn't need wolves in legendary, I am slaughtering mid-late Greece now with -%recharge items and plague/knives/crit strike combo [I one shotted spider and all miny bosses with lethal]

Saying all that, if I bother getting to like level 60, I am going to have SPARE skills. I am already done speccing rogue to its best for legendary as an Illusionist. So sure, I'll get wolves but it's only as a bonus.

As far as traps, well that is an option but a better trap build would be with a hunter class, not nature tbh

[ZombieBunny]

I respeced out of my wolfs and improved my Rogue skills and noticed im doing just as well, if not better without the wolfs. Which kinda lead me to question if Illusionist is even worth it considering nothing of the core skills of Nature really appeals to me as a rogue.

Heres some of the issues I have with being an Illusionist:

Heart of the Oak: as nice as it is to have more HP, it feels like its basicly just there to enhance your already fragile summons.

Regrowth: Absolutely pointless if you dont have any summons. On several occasions ive gotten myself killed while trying to use this skill due to it requiring to click a target. If solo, potions perform better.

Briar Ward: Again, absolutely pointless waste of skill points for a Rogue. Defintly something that appeals more for a ranged/spellcaster than a melee.

Call of the Wild: as nice as it is having several wolf pets, they require a lot of babysitting with healing and/or recasting. Often I actually find myself having my wolfs dictate which direction I should be heading to due to them running of to attack something. Even fully maxed with all their skill enhancers ive found out I really need Regrowth to get the most out of my wolfs.

Refresh: Again, pointless for a Rogue... useful for resurrecting your wolfs faster... not exactly something that youd use to promote the Illusionist class.

Sylvan Nymph: A bit more useful for a Rogue, since she doesnt require nearly as much healing attention as the wolfs. Still shes fragile and traps can do what she does, a matter of taste I guess.

Plague: The only skill that actually enhances the Rogue performance.


Guess ive come to the same conclusions you have, only Heart of the Oak and Plague are useful for a Rogue. The summons where the only reason I picked Nature as a secondary and they turned out to be the thing that made me get frustrated and not enjoying my gameplay. As much as I like a challenge, getting a mastery for only 2 skills makes for really boring character, gonna bench my Illusionist for now.

I think youve also pretty much realized that the problems you have with survivablity vs bosses and resistance issues basicly comes down to the fact that your secondary mastery is Nature. Unless your enjoing the somewhat crippled class combination, you might as well have gone hunter/rogue as you said.

[Dedo]

Originally Posted by ZombieBunny

Guess ive come to the same conclusions you have, only Heart of the Oak and Plague are useful for a Rogue. The summons where the only reason I picked Nature as a secondary and they turned out to be the thing that made me get frustrated and not enjoying my gameplay. As much as I like a challenge, getting a mastery for only 2 skills makes for really boring character, gonna bench my Illusionist for now.

I think youve also pretty much realized that the problems you have with survivablity vs bosses and resistance issues basicly comes down to the fact that your secondary mastery is Nature. Unless your enjoing the somewhat crippled class combination, you might as well have gone hunter/rogue as you said.

Exactly

I've stopped my illusionist, I got to Egypt legendary but now that I am forced to use a spear and like the points mentioned previously, I find it's boring/pointless now

However, it was surprisingly a good character for early-mid legendary if you respec and get items to support my above tactics.