Illusionist - lots of questions..

[Ivaron]

Hello everyone! :)

I started my first character a week ago, and I'm now in act III normal. After spending a few hours reading up on Illusionists on this board yesterday, I've come up with what I think will be a good build (http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp?mastery=Illusionist&master1=4&master2=6&sa=7&m1=32-0-16-12-0-1-8-0-1-8-0-0-0-10-6-10-1-8-0-0-0-0-0&m2=32-8-6-1-1-0-8-1-0-0-16-0-12-8-0-0-8-0-1-6-8-0-0) to use.

Any recommendations?

Also, I'm wondering about a few of the skill and item descriptions in the game. I'm having a hard time understanding some of them..

For instance, there are lots of skills and items that give +% damage. How do I calculate this? Is it a percentage increase to the base damage, or does item1 first give a percentage increase, item2 an increase to the result of item1 and base, and skill1 an increase to the result of that?

And what about items and skills that do +% pierce/elemental/poison/whatever damage? Does that add to *normal* damage, or does it only increase on already existing pierce/elemental/poisoin/whatever damage?

How does throwing knife work exactly? The damage is not really important to me (I'm just dumping one point in there and maxing Flurry of Knives) but I'm curious. I've read some things that make me think it actually takes your weapon damage and adds to that, but the skill description makes me think it does *only* it's own damage. I've noticed that it is affected by bleeding and poison skills (at least the ones that work on your weapons, that is), but I'm not sure wether +poison/bleeding dmg and/or +% poison/bleeding dmg on weapons add to it?

As for pets.. First of all, the synergy Maul for the Wolf.. Am I doing the right thing just putting one point into it? First of all, I don't have a clue what kind of damage the wolves normally do. Call of the Wild doesn't specify. And does their damage increase per level of Call of the Wild??
Because if their damage is normally kinda low, then it might be worth it to put some more points into Maul.. but if their damage is acceptable (they don't have to be killers, long as they can do some *decent* damage and distract the enemy I'm glad..) then Maul is only interesting for it's "Reduction to enemy's health". And that's another thing I'm wondering about. At maxed out Maul (12/12), it's 13% reduction to enemy's health. Does this stack with itself (i.e. first wolf uses Maul: -13% health, second wolf: -26% health, etc)?

(And to add to that, I have the same kind of question for Fatigue. At maxed out skill level (8/8), it gives a 5% chance of reducing 69% enemy's health. Even though it would probably never happen, does this theoretically stack with itself? And does Maul stack with Fatigue's reduction to enemy's health? And more importantly, does it work on bosses? I mean, 5% change is once in every 20 hits, and if it reduces 69% of a boss's health once every 20 hits.. That seems way too good to be true. And also 69% of what exactly? Max health? Current health? And is it permanent or just temporarily until Fatigue/Maul wears off?)

And what about Survival Instinct? To be honest, I don't care about the extra damage it gives when the wolf is almost dead, because A) with normal mobs, by the time the wolf is almost dead, their almost dead too, and B) when it's a harder (boss) fight, the wolf is going to die before the extra damage actually matters.
And I don't care if the wolf dies once in a while, either, I can just resummon it.. So there's just one thing I want from this skill: making sure my wolf lives long enough so I can resummon it as soon as it dies. And I'm just talking about normal fights here. I'm pretty sure that when I get to the real bosses in harder stages of the game, my wolf *IS* going to die before I can resummon him no matter what.
So how many points should I put into Survival Instinct to achieve this (keep in mind that I'm probably going to have Heart of Oak maxed before I even think of doing anything with Survival Instinct other than dumping one point into it)?

Then, the Nymph.. I've read that she's made especially for the Wanderer tree alone, and that's she only good if you're putting alot into that tree. Would my current setup be benefitted by a Nymph? And if so, how many points should I dump into her. I'm quite sure I'm not going to max her, so is she than still worth putting anything in at all?
Also, her synergies... Overgrowth: one-point wonder or not worth any points at all? I'm quite sure that it's not worth putting more than one point in, but then again I'm just in act III normal :p..
Nature's Wrath once again brings up some questions.. First of all, the one thing I've noticed about the Nature Mastery, is that I don't have a clue why on earth it ups Intellect so much. Other than item requirements, why would I need so much Intellect? Energy regen is nice, but I don't think I'm going to reach the point where I can't keep up with potions. And elemental damage? Yeah, that's great for staff using characters I guess, but for us melee chars, it seems pointless since there's not one skill in the whole Nature mastery that even DOES elemental damage :/
Except for Nature's Wrath... So I'm wondering.. Does the elemental damage the Nymph does with Nature's Wrath benefit from Intellect? If it does, this skill might be more useful. If it doesn't, I think I'm going to put one point in the skill or nothing and be done with it. Actually, tbh, once maxed this skill even without Intellect factoring in, seems really nice, but it takes 12 points to max.. That's 12 points I could use elsewhere.

Something else I'm wondering. I'm not going to bother with Refresh and Sanctuary (I'm not going use Briar Ward at all), and if Nature's Wrath isn't worth one point... Then should I even put points into Nature Mastery beyond 24? If I'm not going to use the highest skills in the Mastery, is it still worth maxing it?
I could use the skills points elsewhere. But I have a feeling that the added health and dexterity is worth it. Heck, maybe even the intellect when it comes to item requirements.. Any thoughts on this?


Hope you can help me, and sorry if I'm asking too much stuff :D

[Bukikekh]

+%damage means only physical damage. All +%damage modifiers are calculated from base damage + flat modifiers and this applies the same way to +%piercing damage and other damage types.
If you do 0 elemental damage, +%elemental damage won't do anything, for example.
I am not sure about throwing knives-they benefit form each bonus that applies to your weapon, but don't know if even from those comming from your weapon (but it certainly doesn't add weapon's base damage).
One point in maul is enough. Wolves do physical damage which increases per level.
Their damage is not very high, but not too low either when there is 3 of them. I think maul isn't worth more points. The stacking of %reduction to enemy's health happens this way:
example:
100hp enemy, maul with 13%reduction (let's neglect the piercing and bleeding damage of the skill for simplicity):
after 1. bite- 87hp
after 2. bite- 76hp=87hp*0,87
and so on, the target will die after infinity bites.
Some points in survival instinct may be needed at the end of normal, because wolves die too quickly here, once you get to epic, wolves get tougher and you can remove the points from it.
The Nymph is weak and not worth any points IMO, she doesn't benefit from the +%damage from wolf's strength of the pack (as she deals piercing, not physical damage), nor does inteligence amplify her potential elemental damage.
Maxing mastery is always a good idea, not that you should rush for it, but don't be shy to sink some points in there. By the end of 3rd act normal, I usualy have both masteries maxed.

[Tennai]

The Nymph is weak and not worth any points IMO, she doesn't benefit from the +%damage from wolf's strength of the pack (as she deals piercing, not physical damage), nor does inteligence amplify her potential elemental damage.

I was under the impression that piercing damage IS a form of physical damage, just the type that ignores armor (but has its own resist). I sure notice a nice improvement in my damage/dps when equipping +% damage on my bow/spear hunter. Now, does call of the wild only affect the wolves, or them + you + nymph? I don't know. But as far as I know, if it does then she would surely improve from +%damage.

[Ivaron]

What he said (quoting all that is a bit redundant..)Thanks! That really helped :)
Alot of the skills and item descriptions in this game could really be improved upon. Or at least some notes about how this stuff works should be in the little book that comes with the game.. It's pretty confusing sometimes. But your explanations clarify it completely :happy:

I was under the impression that piercing damage IS a form of physical damage, just the type that ignores armor (but has its own resist).Hmm.. Well, that wouldn't really make sence to me. The fact that it's classified seperately makes me think it's a completely seperate type of damage.

I sure notice a nice improvement in my damage/dps when equipping +% damage on my bow/spear hunter.Well, spears and bows (at least where I'm at in the game) do primarily physical damage, and some of that is (converted to??) pierce damage. So it's only natural that your damage increase from +% phys. dmg items..
This raises another question for me actually.. When a bow/spear says % of the dmg is converted(?) to pierce dmg, is this only the base dmg of the weapon itself, or does it include +dmg/+%dmg from weapon itself or even other items/skills? Is that factored in BEFORE it's converted to pierce dmg, or is the base dmg taken, a percentage of that converted to pierce dmg, and AFTER that the bonusses from items/skills are factored in?
And what happens when you have items that have +% pierce damage? Is that calculated BEFORE the dmg from the bow/spear is converted (and thus, if you don't have anything that does +pierce damage, doesn't do anything) or is it converted AFTER?

Now, does call of the wild only affect the wolves, or them + you + nymph? I don't know.It says it affects "those who hear it".. I'll assume that means all allies (wolves, you, other pets, other people in the party in multiplayer, and their pets)..
But I think that what Bukikekh says makes sence, so I'm thinking it doesn't affect the Nymph since she's fully piercing dmg, it doesn't affect the Maul synergy from the wolves, it affects only your own physical dmg, and it may or may not affect the pierce dmg that is being converted from the bow/spear depending on what is calculated first..

Meh, I'm just guessing here though :)

[Bukikekh]

I was under the impression that piercing damage IS a form of physical damage
No, piercing damage and physical damage are separate damage types. The issue is that some weapons (bows, spears,...) have %piercing modifier, which converts part of the physical damage of your weapon into piercing damage. So by increasing your weapon's physical damage, the piercing part increases as well (but indirectily).
The nymph however deals only pure piercing damage, she doesn't have a weapon dealing physical damage with a %piercing modifier.
And the same goes to traps.
Strength of the pack affects everyone in the radius (you, wolves, nymph, traps), but not everybody can benefit from their +%damage.

[Ivaron]

So bonusses from items/skills for +(%)dmg is factored in before the pierce dmg from your bow/spear is calculated..
Than it would seem that +% pierce dmg modifiers are calculated in advance as well (meaning they don't actually improve upon your piercing dmg from a bow/spear, as that isn't calculated yet). Am I right?

Order of benefits:

1) Base Damage
2) + Damage Modifiers (items, skills, strength, dexterity) applied to 1)
3) +% Damage Modifiers (items and skills) added up to each other
4) Resulting +% Damage Modifier from 3) applied to resulting Damage from 1) and 2).
4. For bows and spears: % of resulting dmg from 4) converted to pierce dmg.

?

[claudius]

I think Strength of the Pack helps a Ranger (nature/hunting) because the physical damage is calculated first 1 then modifiers to it are applied (str, %damage) 2 then it is converted to piercing 3 then the piercing modifiers are applied (dex %piercing damage). So if you could follow that a bowhunter benefits from SoP.

A nymph I don't think there is a damage calculation which is converted to 100% piercing. I think that step is skipped and she just does piercing. This is just a theory. In any case pets do fair damage but they don't rock the house I have tried max nymph AND max SoP and it wasn't insane or anything.

For your build I would leave flashpowder alone or max it. You want more radius and more certainty of disabling. It is a panic button and lets hope it works! Late legendary take some points out of traps because they won't help much anymore and max out flashpowder. You might want 1 pt in refresh so you can recast flashpowder and lethal strike rapidly.

The healing line is not bad in legendary either. Once I got tons of +skills (stonebinders, sacred amulet, etc) I skilled into healing and that kept wolves up to tank in big fights plus I had big time healing for myself I could click healing spell or potion and double the healing rate. Makes you quite a tank with all the HP from HoO.

Illusionists struggle for damage. The plague and wolves help. Traps are great until later in legendary when by that time you have good enough gear to be taking things down without the traps. Rapid construction is great for traps. Lets you have the mana to lay out tons of them. You might want tranquility of water for times when you are a trapper (before you get the good gear to be a warrior caster) then you can crap out max traps and lure them to their death.

I swear by scrolls of the stallwart alliance as a means to make the mega boss battles not so painful. Lethal strike makes hero monsters a cakewalk. (once you have a good spear)

According to the Rogue FAQ that bit about weapons modifying knives refers to auras on the weapon (earth enchantment, storm nimbus, envenom). Of course a % modifier on a weapon (% piercing damage eg) applies to the whole character (or % fire damage in conjuction with earth enchantment % poison in conjunct with envenom and % bleed).

[Ivaron]

I think Strength of the Pack helps a Ranger (nature/hunting) because the physical damage is calculated first 1 then modifiers to it are applied (str, %damage) 2 then it is converted to piercing 3 then the piercing modifiers are applied (dex %piercing damage). So if you could follow that a bowhunter benefits from SoP.So pierce/elemental(?)/whatever dmg is calculated AFTER conversion but physical dmg is calculated BEFORE conversion? How weird.. But I guess it makes sence, otherwise +% pierce modifiers would be pretty much useless.


For your build I would leave flashpowder alone or max it. You want more radius and more certainty of disabling. It is a panic button and lets hope it works! Late legendary take some points out of traps because they won't help much anymore and max out flashpowder. You might want 1 pt in refresh so you can recast flashpowder and lethal strike rapidly.Up 'till now, I've noticed that it doesn't need more than one point.. The double 30% or something happening still ensures that enough monsters are rendered semi-useless to be able to survive when combined with a quick healing potion. And the radius doesn't seem to need an increase either.. The way I do it, is I use Flash Powder, drink a healing potion, and if needed run away around until I'm healed for at least about 40-60%.
It's mostly a defensive-measure against melee-monsters.. And just so that they won't kill me before I'm out of their reach. So if used like that, I don't see why I need a bigger radius?
As for Refresh, according to this (http://www.titanquest.net/forums/attachments/skills/724d1178529944-list-cooldown-timers-timers.jpg) table, it has a recharge time of 20-35, whereas Flash Powder has 15 and Lethal Strike has 12. Which means you can pull off 2-3 Flash Powders or 1-2 Lethal Strikes before Refresh .. ehr.. refreshes :D
So using Refresh for those skills seems useless to me :/


The healing line is not bad in legendary either. Once I got tons of +skills (stonebinders, sacred amulet, etc) I skilled into healing and that kept wolves up to tank in big fights plus I had big time healing for myself I could click healing spell or potion and double the healing rate. Makes you quite a tank with all the HP from HoO.Yeah, I thought so.. My thought was that if I had enough defensive options combined with fast killing, I wouldn't need any more healing besides potions.


Illusionists struggle for damage. The plague and wolves help. Traps are great until later in legendary when by that time you have good enough gear to be taking things down without the traps. Rapid construction is great for traps. Lets you have the mana to lay out tons of them. You might want tranquility of water for times when you are a trapper (before you get the good gear to be a warrior caster) then you can crap out max traps and lure them to their death.I'm very happy if I won't be using traps the whole game. To be honest, I just put those points there because people seem to think traps are pretty good, but I *really* don't enjoy using them. It kinda takes the fun out of the game for me. So if I can the late-game without them, I'm really happy about that.
As for Tranquillity of water.. I dunno, 28% chance of -50% energy cost sounds really bad to me. And so far, I've been able to get by with energy potions easily. Although with rapid construction and lethal strike, I can see how that might change..


I swear by scrolls of the stallwart alliance as a means to make the mega boss battles not so painful. Lethal strike makes hero monsters a cakewalk. (once you have a good spear)Yeah, I'm definately going for spears as main weapons. Their damage per hit is really high. In fact, I've been on the edge of using a mace sometimes because I happen to find alot of those that do even more damage per hit, but even 20 damage differense isn't enough to be better than Blade Honing apparently :lol: (although I have a hard time testing out if a potential new weapon is better than my old because I have a complete Valor of Achilles on it).

[claudius]

As for Refresh, according to this table, it has a recharge time of 20-35, whereas Flash Powder has 15 and Lethal Strike has 12. Which means you can pull off 2-3 Flash Powders or 1-2 Lethal Strikes before Refresh .. ehr.. refreshes

To start the battle refresh is active so you can click it. It need not cool down. If you need to use 2 flashpowders in a row (that means big trouble) or 2 lethal strikes (2 pests to assassinate) then you use skill A (eg flashpowder) then hit refresh which recharges all your skills now you can immediately flashpowder again. You can't do it 3 times in a row or I'd advise putting LS on the LMB and refresh on the RMB and getting - energy cost gear :lol:

You can also summon 2 wolves in a row (not 3)...thats why I started using refresh.

I used Tranquility of water when I was a dedicated trapper which meant I was doing nothing but retreating and building traps that had been destroyed. Kinda fun I thought haha. Then later when I wasn't using much traps I still used it because I was level 60+ and had +6 skills to both nature and rogue...

You want more than a 30% chance of incapacitating formid onslaught dudes and melinoe onslaught chicks

[Bukikekh]

So pierce/elemental(?)/whatever dmg is calculated AFTER conversion but physical dmg is calculated BEFORE conversion? How weird
Yeah, it's wierd. It's funny how lethal strike is powerful with this mechanic-on 12/12 it deals +500% damage and cca +400% piercing damage, so if we neglect other modifiers, the usual pierce damage is multiplied by 30!

[claudius]

My illusionist was hitting for 25,000 damage sometimes on LS...and my gear wasn't really even designed for max LS or anything like that.

[Ivaron]

To start the battle refresh is active so you can click it. It need not cool down. If you need to use 2 flashpowders in a row (that means big trouble) or 2 lethal strikes (2 pests to assassinate) then you use skill A (eg flashpowder) then hit refresh which recharges all your skills now you can immediately flashpowder again. You can't do it 3 times in a row or I'd advise putting LS on the LMB and refresh on the RMB and getting - energy cost gear :lol:

You can also summon 2 wolves in a row (not 3)...thats why I started using refresh.Ah, of course. Silly me :p
That would indeed come in handy, then :)


You want more than a 30% chance of incapacitating formid onslaught dudes and melinoe onslaught chicksHmm.. well, I'll see when I get there :happy:

In other news, I've just beaten Typhon on normal mode :D
He was surprisingly easy, actually.. First time I ran up to him to start hitting and died pretty much instantly when he summoned down some rocks to crush me :/
That's pretty much instant death, right there lol.

After that, I just kept moving in the fight.. Casting plague on him, moving in for a Lethal Strike after his insta-death move, threw some knives at him for the heck of it, planted some traps in places where they wouldn't be destroyed.. He went down real fast, and I wasn't in any life-threatening situations during the whole fight (except for that one death, ofc).
He dropped a Captain's Signet! :D
Amazing.. now I have two of them. My resistances for now:
Fire: 51%
Cold: 43%
Lightning: 59%
Poison: 0%
Pierce: 14%

I'm not too worried about the poison resistance, but pierce could be higher.. Since I have the expansion, I don't have to worry about -40% resistances from Epic until I've finished the final act :)

I just recently decided to take away most of the points I'd invested in the wolves (only leaving 1 point in Call of the Wild, Maul and Survival Instanct), since they seemed pretty useless near the end of normal, and I also scrapped the Nymph. I put those points in Rogue Mastery (nearly doubling my hit points, among other things) and boy did it show!
Before that, I had alot of trouble with Dragonians.. Had to keep moving and plauging them until their a little softened up, then kill the casters first. Now, I could just stand still, kill them and use maybe 1 or 2 potions during the fight.
Even though my wolf was just at level 2 (I have a +1 to all skills amulet), his health made no difference whatsoever. When I had him at level 13, he died when the enemy targetted him. At level 2, same thing. Only difference was that now he also died immediately when the enemy used aoe attacks. Oh well, it doesn't bother me. He's probably not even worth using at the moment, anyway..

My build atm (http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp?mastery=Illusionist&master1=4&master2=6&sa=5&m1=16-0-1-4-0-1-8-0-1-8-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&m2=31-8-6-1-1-0-1-1-0-0-1-0-9-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0).

[claudius]

Yeah the wolves and nymph are useless in normal hades. But they will be good again in epic because they get huge boost in damage and health.

It will get tough to keep playing if you are under the level of the monsters you face. You might want to just farm and level for awhile. Keep running Wusao and killing typhon a few times and gain a couple of levels and maybe some gear.

An easier place to level is killing all those things that create the plasma skeletons that you find in egypt on the way to the portal to babylon. Those things are level 35 or 40 I think and they are worth a lot of xp plus at your level the fights won't be too bad.

[Ivaron]

Are the monsters gonna be alot harder in Hades, than? (I did notice that some of the monsters I faced at the end of act III were like 9 levels above me, but it was doable)
Hmm, perhaps time to start leveling.. Or maybe take a break with this character for awhile and start an alt ;)

Dark Obelisks? They're level 40, I believe.. Well, the one in act III is.

[claudius]

The monsters get pretty rough in hades. Actually there is a part in the beginning of hades that is almost the most difficult. I think if you can get through there you will be ok.

I've never played a illusionist with that much plague in normal. I think it is a good idea...Your best weapon against ground troops and overwhelming numbers. By the way plague is a good combo with flashpowder. You plague a few 'disease vectors' and then you send them in random directions to infect everyone from caster to archer.

Speaking of Archers you might want to try and get flurry of knives so that you can infect archers with poison and bleeding from a distance.

Anyhow you have a lot of skills to expirement with. I am playing a sorceror through hades myself and she is doing fine with almost max traps. Traps is probably the strongest rogue has to offer in normal but it is a different experience than a toe to toe fight...

A lot of people may say hades is easy but that might be because they are equipping themselves with gear that their other chars found in higher difficulties having finally attained the level. (or it might be because they are better player than me!)

[Jin]

Traps is probably the strongest rogue has to offer in normal but it is a different experience than a toe to toe fight...
Agreed. My naked caster illusionist is currently about to fight Typhon and traps have been his best friends so far with wolves and the nymph acting as a backup when monsters managed to get through the traps. As claudius said, though, it's a whole different experience than melee and doesn't require the same skills, attributes, nor gear (which, by the way, consists on a single staff of the magi for my toon) so I'm afraid I can't help much here.

Strenght of th Pack's damage modifier doesn't affect traps, by the way, but its +15% to Total Speed does and that means a good increase in damage dealing hability. Heart of the Oak's +10% Total Speed is what has allowed me not to rush for Improved Firing Mecanism so far, making traps effective enough to deal with everything.

Congrats on your progress, Ivaron, I'm looking forward to get more feedback about how you'll fare in later acts and difficulties.

[Ivaron]

Yes, plague works surprisingly well even in normal. It softens up those annoying enemies that you would otherwise have a hard time surviving against. It really adds to the rogue's "hit and run" strategy as well, as in normal the poison damage it gives is still fairly useful.
And yes, flash powder is a great trick for spreading plague quickly :)
Some foes are even inclined to run around aimlessly even without the use of flash powder. It's especially rewarding when you use plague and flash powder on the banshee-like undead creatures. Their high movement speed makes them fly around like berzerk, spreading plague to everyone :D

Up til now the game has been pretty easy for me with the exception of certain encounters (that Neanderthal guy on a cliff you get to through a cave deals MAD damage O.o (he's cool though, I opened a chest and all of a sudden he came rushing in from the side of my screen), Typhon has an instant-kill attack, and Dragonians were horrible until I had some more health and fire resist, and even the dark obelisks proved difficult in act II when aided by sorcerers and about 4 normal undead types).
I also like the guardian mummy guys. When you kill them, their wraps fall off and they turn into a burning skeleton.. Really cool animation. Shame they're so easy to beat, though.. Especially if you just keep wacking at them while they're still looking at their hands lol. They're usually dead before they're done with that.
I think your best weapon to take on Typhon would have to be your traps (and plague if you have it), and to never ever stand still.. I noticed that his 'summoning' animation for the instant-kill thingy is pretty long, so if you just step away you can use the remaining time to shoot him. Is your toon hardcore?
Yeah, traps and the nymph work on piercing damage (pure piercing, that is, not like a bow/spear works) so phys. damage modifiers don't help them. Hadn't thought about the +% total speed modifiers though! :)

Will definately keep you updated!

[Jin]

I think your best weapon to take on Typhon would have to be your traps (and plague if you have it), and to never ever stand still.. I noticed that his 'summoning' animation for the instant-kill thingy is pretty long, so if you just step away you can use the remaining time to shoot him. Is your toon hardcore?
Yep, it was, although keeping immobile beyond the stairs casting trap after trap upstairs to fire at Typhon was even safer than keeping moving. I came out of it without a scratch, traps are really good for a non-melee toon (it takes probably too much time to set them for a meleer). I haven't dared to get close enough to Typhon to cast plague, though, although it sure would have helped.

And yes, it's an hardcore toon, hence the choice to go caster rather than melee. you can go to the naked hardcore challenge (http://www.titanquest.net/forums/immortal-throne-gameplay/20735-naked-hardcore-challenge-48.html#post213270) if you're interested to know more about him.


Will definately keep you updated!
Thanks a lot !

[claudius]

You can still set traps as a meleer either ahead of a battle and then lure or just spewing them out every so often at random. Sort of cycling through knives plague traps and your normal attack.

In epic and legendary you have more safety because hopefully by then you get 3 wolves and a nymph running around (or 2 wolves is fine too). The commotion and distraction actually works. Lucky plague doesn't agro as much as squall.

[Ivaron]

Well, just killed Hades on Normal ;)
He was even weaker than Typhon, in comparison..
I have to say I had more problems with the Dactyls. For some reason, they sometimes just killed me in one blow, and they can stun too..
Also had some trouble with the Machae Master Archers, if there were more than one of them I would have to fight very strategically (run away, drink potion, plant trap, drink potion, cast plague, etc, while still running).
Anyway, going to do Epic now with this character.. I'd been putting points into the traps, but now I think I'm gonna take them out of there and put them in my pets again, as I hear they get alot better now.
Here (http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp?mastery=Illusionist&master1=4&master2=6&sa=14&m1=32-0-9-8-0-1-8-0-1-8-0-0-0-0-4-8-0-5-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&m2=32-8-6-1-1-0-3-8-0-0-0-0-10-0-0-0-8-0-1-4-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0)'s the build I'm going for for the next 11 or so levels.

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Gorgons on Epic were quite easy as well.. Have given up on traps now, adding those points to wolves again instead. They're real useful in Epic now :)
Build I'm going for (http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp?mastery=Illusionist&master1=4&master2=6&sa=14&m1=32-0-9-8-0-1-8-0-1-8-0-0-0-0-4-8-0-5-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&m2=32-8-6-1-1-0-3-8-0-0-0-0-10-0-0-0-8-0-1-4-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0), until end of Epic (although I think I'll be higher than lvl 50 by then..)

[The Rock-man]

So bonusses from items/skills for +(%)dmg is factored in before the pierce dmg from your bow/spear is calculated..
Than it would seem that +% pierce dmg modifiers are calculated in advance as well (meaning they don't actually improve upon your piercing dmg from a bow/spear, as that isn't calculated yet). Am I right?

Order of benefits:

1) Base Damage
2) + Damage Modifiers (items, skills, strength, dexterity) applied to 1)
3) +% Damage Modifiers (items and skills) added up to each other
4) Resulting +% Damage Modifier from 3) applied to resulting Damage from 1) and 2).
4. For bows and spears: % of resulting dmg from 4) converted to pierce dmg.

?

Wrong its actually:
1) base damage
Now it get tricky.
2) base damage (physical component) has +% physical damage applied including str.
3) pierce conversion % applied to step 2 damage.
4) +% pierce fire etc damage applied to there components.
5) +X damage mods applied with +X% damage added in.

IE lets say you got a 100 damage spear with 50% pierce conversion, and your +% physical is ~100% and your +% peirce is 50% and have +10 physical and 20 pierce on rings.

The damage you will do is ((100*2)*.5) +10*2)=(200*.5)+20=120 physical
and (100*1.5)+(20*1.5)=180 pierce or a total of 300.