Illusionist (Boss modifier)

Illusionist is a Boss Modifier found on Champions and Bosses in Diablo III.

Monsters with this property will create numerous duplicates of themselves periodically, all but filling the screen with multiple identical enemies. The copies look and act just like the original, but their attacks do not deal damage. While technically they are harmless, and have very low hit points so can be killed quickly, especially by AoE attacks, they are very distracting visually.

Illusionist desert wasps look scary.

The Illusionist property works very much like the Wizard's Mirror Image skill, with multiple copies creating visual havoc, but not doing any actual damage.

Illusionist

• Monster Level Minimum: 14
• Available to: Bosses and Champions.
• Damage Type: N/A.
• Additional Resistances: None.

Strategy

The property functions largely as a distraction, since the illusion versions do not deal any damage with their attacks. However, since they look identical to the "real" monsters, it's hard for a player to know which ones to ignore and which ones to watch out for.

This is especially true with enemies that fire projectiles, such as the Desert Wasps seen in the screenshot to the right. The Illusion wasps have a silvery glow that gives them away, but their tiny wasp projectiles are identical to the normal version, requiring a player to dodge them all just to be sure.

Though Illusion versions do not do damage, they have physical mass and can serve as obstacles, blocking characters from moving to or escaping from the real monsters.

Illusionist Detection

A few of the other boss modifiers can give away which bosses are Illusions since Illusions do no damage and thus can't cast some boss effects. This is most noticeable with Fire Chains and Molten, since the Chains or Flames on the ground will only appear tied to the legit monsters and not their duplicates.

You can also tell by the monster health bar, since the Illusions have only a tiny fraction the hit points of their fully-fleshed kin.

Fallen Champions with Illusionist and Molten.

Development

The modifiers that evolved into Horde and Illusionist seem to have shared properties during development. During Blizzcon demos in 2008, 2009, and 2010 modifiers called Doppleganger and Mirrored were seen, each of which seemed to encompass some elements of both Illusionist and Horde.

Only through continuing play-testing did the developers arrive at the precise and different versions of these two similar abilities in the final game.

Media

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  Illusionist Desert Wasp battle.

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  Illusionist Desert Wasp battle.

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  Illusionist Desert Wasp battle.

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  Illusionist Desert Wasp battle.

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  Illusionist Phase Beast battle.