Gregz
Arcane
Overweight Manatee said:Health isn't the way to be tanky. I don't care how much health you have, its going to survive a fraction of the time something with high resistance will. Your main tank should have at least 80% resistance to physical after you cast your resistance buff, 90% being better. Can probably get away with a bit less in normal mode, but do this and things that used to decimate stacks just barely chip away at their health. Keep in mind that most lvl 5 units have significantly lower damage output too, if you are using all high HP lvl 5 units then you are probably taking 2-3x as much damage because you take so much longer to kill them.
I only have my mage experience, but I do remember learning late in the game how incredibly powerful defense and resists are. Try maxing those types of support spells and buffing the hell out of your units, then use the various duplication spells like phantom etc. so those mobs can do most of the tanking.
There's no shame in lowering the difficulty from normal, most games on impossible difficulty are easier than this game on normal.
Also, I'm sure you've figured it out by now, but powerful items can be upgraded via combat (fighting the item gaurdians).