I've read so much about how great Illusion is, and I've tried to use it a couple of times, but with the exception of Muffle, I never really found it very useful at all. It seems to me that the spells you can get early in the game quickly loses their usefulness due to the enemies getting too powerful for them, and the enemies that are affected are so easy to defeat anyway. Why cast Calm on a wolf? (Unless you RP someone who really doesn't want to kill animals.)
Either it's not my cup of tea, or I'm doing something wrong. And now I have this idea for a bard character, and it seems very logical for him to use Illusion - if only I could get it to work. (He will also use one-handed and some type of ranged combat, maybe destruction, but staves rather than spells. He won't join the College of Winterhold, so I won't be able to buy any expert or master spells - my plan for him is pretty much only to do the Bard's College quests and Dawnguard, and then get him a house, a wife, a couple of kids and retire him.)
So, Illusion mages out there - any advice? How do you make Illusion viable? (Especially on early levels.) What perks do you recommend? What strategy?