Titan Quest Anniversary Edition – Greece Lightning Co-op Raw Mode

 

Core assumptions

This is not really a step-by-step tutorial, but an account of an actual, successful Greece Lightning run under somewhat unusual assumptions (which we term “Co-op Raw Mode”), making it arguably more challenging:

• it’s a co-op run by two players
• both players start in Helos with brand-new level 1 characters
• only team self found gear is allowed (so there’s no gear prep – you only use what you found during this run)
• no help from outside is allowed in any form (including no Vault)
• only the base game is ran (no Ragnarok nor Atlantis)

In this tutorial we’ll describe how we managed to run the whole game in under 20 hours in these circumstances. We’ll share the concept, builds and combat strategy, as well as the route and quests to do. Finally, we’ll give you some real numbers from the actual run – timings, final gear, skills and stats.

Before you proceed, be sure that:

1. You know the game well. This means not only the world map, but also: quest scenarios (where to go and who to talk to), enemies and bosses (where to expect whom, what they hit you with), etc. If you need to stare at 2 items for a minute to decide which one to pick – you’ll probably fail this.
2. You have some manual combat skills. Your characters will be significantly under-equipped for the most part of this run and fights will be hard. If you’re used to just spamming LMB and watching how your Harbinger grinds mobs to dust – this will be much harder.
3. You set the game to normal speed. I can’t stress this enough: higher speeds also speed up the in-game clock so always keep it at normal! Why is this important? Because you will need to read item descriptions, browse through the stores, and do other activities that cost you real-world time. With higher speed settings, the 10 seconds you spend reading stats on a new item actually count as more than that in-game.
4. Your voice communication is perfect. Don’t use push-to-talk, don’t use voice detection unless it works absolutely flawlessly, make sure your connection is stable. If one of you doesn’t hear the other for one crucial second – be it a warning of a new danger, call for a specific action to be taken, request for something, this one second can turn into a much longer delay if you die. This also includes your communication skills – team work is crucial for this run!
5. You are prepared to fail and start over. Although we succeeded on first try with this strategy (after failing twice with other ideas), we did it on a very tight margin, killing Legendary Hades in 19 hours and 44 minutes. Your mileage might vary as there is an element of luck involved.

 

Builds and combat: concept

Over the next few sections we will discuss the core idea for combat during the run, builds and recommended skill progression for both characters. We followed this route and succeeded, but it doesn’t mean that it’s the best or only way – you can consider this chapter a set of recommendations and a reference for your own experiments. Any comments suggesting potential improvements are welcome. For your own planning: you can assume you’ll finish the run around level 55-60 (we achieved level 57).

In essence, what you need to complete any sort of run is (1) damage output, and (2) survivability. This run is based on the following crucial skills:

• Ternion Attack (Spirit) coupled with Earth Enchantment and Volativity (Earth) – for huge amounts of direct DPS in high-density situations
• Heart of Oak (Nature) – essential health boost for the whole party
• War Horn (Warfare) – for crowd control
• Call of the Wild (Nature) and Summon Liche King (Spirit) – minions provide both additional DPS and distraction, improving your survivability by keeping enemies off of you

Thus, the natural configuration of the team build is:

• Conjurer (titanquest.fandom.com – https://titanquest.fandom.com/wiki/Earth_Mastery + titanquest.fandom.com – https://titanquest.fandom.com/wiki/Spirit_Mastery)
• and Champion (titanquest.fandom.com – https://titanquest.fandom.com/wiki/Nature_Mastery + titanquest.fandom.com – https://titanquest.fandom.com/wiki/Warfare_Mastery).

In the following sections we’ll talk about the builds in greater detail, culminating in the basic combat strategies in the final section.

Builds and combat: Conjurer

The Conjurer is the main source of DPS for this run and will be built as a serious case of a glass cannon. As such, they have two key tasks:

1. Provide maximum DPS in minimum time.
2. Survive.

In this run, the Conjurer will be built, as usual, around the powerful Ternion Attack, but will also strongly depend on the Liche minion. Skills distribution:

• 
  Ternion Attack +
  Arcane Lore
• 
  Earth Enchantment +
  Brimstone (ignore Stone Skin, its armor&resistance buff is too weak to be worth a point)
• 
  Volativity – this 5-skill combo provides insane amounts of concentrated DPS as well as significantly buffs wolves that the Champion will summon. Max them all out.
• 
  Summon Liche King (including all the passives) – Liche is probably the strongest minion in the game, not only because he’s dangerous even on Legendary, but also can survive even very thick battles. Max it out.
• 
  Deathchill Aura +
  Ravages of Time (first passive) – slowing all the nearby mobs down and reducing their damage greatly improves your survivability. Ignore Necrosis (the second passive), you don’t do a lot of bleeding/vitality/life leech damage anyway. In our experience, maxing the base skill (for maximum slowdown) turned out most effective, with a single point in Ravages of Time; feel free to experiment though.
• 
  Stone Form – critical defensive skill, gives you 6 seconds of immortality for those most dangerous situations. Remember that monsters remain aggro’ed on you when you’re in Stone Form, which means the remaining party can dispatch them more easily. One skill point will suffice, as more only increase the amount of health regenerated under the spell (it’s not a bad thing per se, just that it’s a luxury that you might not be able to afford).
• 
  Death Ward – another critical defensive skill. Even with only 1 point invested, these 330 health recovered when you drop below 15%, coupled with 13% damage absorption for the next 3 seconds is a literal lifesaver and you will hear it trigger many, many times.
• 
  Heat Shield – a single point can be worth investing for the temporary 15% physical resistance.
• 
  Dark Covenant – useful for its 10% total speed increase in non life-threatening combat situations – this includes bosses when they’re aggro’ed on someone else. One point at most (speed boost does not increase with level, but the active health cost per second does), and avoid the Unearthly Power passive.

We have also experimented with Volcanic Orb, as its final passive (Fragmentation) provides 1.5 seconds of stun on all hit enemies. However, it’s very difficult to aim reliably and takes too long to cast (remember, it’s a team self found only run – don’t count on finding a lot of +% casting speed gear), so we reclaimed the skill points from it.

Regarding stats, this character relies strongly on intelligence, so you will want to max out both masteries (+192 int) and add about half of your stat points in it. 500 int without items is a good target for levels around 55-60. The other half should go into health – you should try to hit 8-10k when under Heart of Oak, so assuming you’ll get some 1k from the items, you should have 4-5k health on your own. Last but not least, dexterity. Some legendary items will require up to 192 dex, while you only get 50+2×48=146 from the masteries, so be prepared to spend a few points on that if necessary. Of course, no points go into strength and none into energy as well – you will be chugging potions like crazy anyway.

Conjurer’s recommended skill progression looks as follows:

• start with Earth mastery, putting 1 point in it and 2 in Earth Enchantment on each level up
• on level 5 you unlock Brimstone – pump all points in it, and when you’ve maxed it out go back to Enchantment again
• on level 8 unlock the Spirit mastery and put 1 point in Deathchill Aura
• unlock Ternion Attack and go straight for Arcane Lore; you need to max out both – base skill to remove its damage reduction, passive to increase the splash radius (be sure to pick up Summon Liche King on your way there, if only for a single point)
• unlock and max out Volativity – this should complete your offensive development (pick up Stone Form and Heat Shield on the way)
• from this point on all the points should go into the Spirit tab; first you should go for 32 points in the mastery itself and 1 in Death Ward (pick up Liche’s passive buffs as you unlock them)
• finally you can proceed to max out Liche’s skill tree, starting from the base skill, going through the passives as you see fit.

Of course, this is by no means set in stone – proceed whichever way suits you. Situation might necessitate adjusting the plan anyway, so be flexible!

Builds and combat: Champion

The Champion is a mixed offensive/support character in this run. Their tasks are to:

1. Keep everyone in the party alive.
2. Control the crowd.
3. Provide secondary DPS.

Champion primarily walks around with the Heart of Oak aura keeping everyone’s max health high, and a pack of wolves taking most of the aggro on themselves. You will spend a considerable fraction of your time on healing the team, but also engage with monsters directly to take the aggro on yourself (away from the Conjurer). The Champion’s real value is however in blowing the War Horn to stun the mobs for these few seconds which are all the Conjurer needs to destroy them. Recommended skill distribution:

• 
  Call of the Wild – your basic offensive skill through most of the normal difficulty, and a foundation throughout the entire run. Max the base skill and put one point in each passive. Seek items to boost the base skill to 18/16 as this lets you summon a third wolf.
• 
  Heart of Oak – +65% max health is the key to survival of the whole party. Max out the base skill and the last passive (Permanence of Stone), but don’t add more than 1 point in Tranquility of Water.
• 
  Regrowth – this is vital to keep the wolves alive later on. The whole tree must be maxed out; Accelerated Growth lets you basically spam healing, while Dissemination means the less hurt wolves will be healed automatically as you click on those more seriously damaged.
• 
  War Horn – crucial crowd control tool. Your success on Legendary depends on this skill. Max it, but don’t add more than 1 point into Doom Horn (passive).
• 
  Onslaught – your primary offensive ability. Max out the entire tree.
• 
  Battle Standard – very important for its +1 all skills and damage absorption, the latter improves with level. However, we found its passive skill (Triumph) to give more kick for the investment, directly reducing damage the monsters do and increasing the damage they take. We recommend maxing Triumph but only putting a few points in the base skill.
• 
  War Wind – put a single point here.
• 
  Weapon Training – passive boost to attack speed and offensive ability. Max it.
• 
  Dodge Attacks – 21% chance to dodge attacks when maxed. Well worth it.
• 
  Battle Rage – small chance to trigger and add a bit of damage and a lot of offensive ability. Base skill and the Crushing Blow (first passive) are worth a point, Counter Attack (the last passive) is not.

It is probably not a good idea to use Dual Wield, as it’s not very effective at low levels. Remember that you will finish the run on level 60 at most, so there is not a lot of skill points you can invest. It is our opinion that Onslaught-based characters with a shield have better chances of survival. Another important thing is that you might not be able to max out both masteries. There’s no reason to level up Nature above level 24 – the difference is only 12 dexterity and 160 health. These 8 skill points are better spent on the offensive abilities.

If you find yourself unsure which offensive skills to invest points in, we suggest the following importance tiers:

• key tier: Onslaught (base skill), Weapon Training – for passive +% attack speed, Ardor (Onslaught last passive)
• valuable tier: Dodge Attacks, Ignore Pain (Onslaught second passive) – for +% physical and pierce resistance when on Onslaught
• “if you’ve got points left” tier: Hamstring (Onslaught third passive) – it’s a great skill for Warfare characters, but one lesson from our run is that you will rarely happen to land a series of blows on a single enemy to make use of the debuffs this provides (the rest of the party does a lot more damage).

Stats distribution will be similar to the Conjurer. You will also need a lot of health to survive – optimally around 10k, so at least 50 stat points should go into health (50×40 = 2000 health, plus 1660 from masteries (remember, you will not max them both!), on top of the base 500 => 4160, +65% from Heart of Oak => only around 7k hp). If you can find health-boosting items, cool – otherwise you might need more points here. Another 50 points should go into strength – unless you’re lucky enough to find something like Alke that would massively boost your str (+% hopefully). Otherwise you’ll end up unable to put on some of the better Legendary items. Also be prepared to put some 20 points in dexterity – masteries give you only 100, and good swords might require 200-250 dex. Consider keeping a few spare points to add into dex or str in case you find a nice new item.

Champion’s recommended skill progression looks as follows:

• start with Nature mastery and unlock Call of the Wild; you want to put 7 points into it as soon as possible, because at that level you will be able to summon 2 wolves (this should happen on level 4 and leave you with one spare point; put it into the mastery itself)
• on level 5 unlock Heart of Oak and develop that skill together with wolves; put one point each in Regrowth and Maul (first CotW passive)
• on level 8 unlock the Warfare mastery and Onslaught, but don’t pump too many points into it yet (it’s quite weak at first)
• develop Onslaught and Warfare until you unlock War Horn (the sooner you get it, the better)
• develop Warfare to unlock the Battle Standard before the Minotaur fight; put one point into War Wind too when you get there
• your primary value throughout Normal is in CotW, secondary in War Horn (which starts getting effective around level 4, get there soon but don’t max it too early), tertiary – your own damage output; so care about Onslaught and all the offensive passives as a last priority
• around levels 15-20 you want to unlock Dissemination (chain healing) which will require putting 12 points in Nature – this is more important than the base healing skill which you will max out later; pick up Survival Instinct (second CotW passive) on the way to make your wolves more tanky
• once you’ve maxed Heart of Oak, CotW and Dissemination, go for offensive skills in Warfare
• unlock and max Permanence of Stone before you enter Legendary

Champion has more flexibility than the Conjurer here, and probably more decisions to make on the spot. Many skills will be developed in parallel (health aura, healing, horn, Onslaught tree) and you might find that the above does not fit you and make balance changes yourself. Communication here is key: there’s two of you, talk to each other and figure out what you need as a team. The Champion’s support role is a priority.

Builds and combat: strategies

Your fundamental combat strategy emerges naturally if you consider the two key facts:

1. This is a speedrun and you don’t have the time to kill every single monster on your path.
2. Ternion Attack is the most effective if you can get many monsters within the splash range.

Offense

First, the Champion charges towards the monsters (use War Wind) to attract their attention. Conjurer immediately follows and as the mob is as tight as possible, launches a few Ternion bolts at the mass, while the Champion hacks away. In many cases this might be too much for you to tank – this is where the War Horn comes into play; unless you’re in an emergency and need to stun the mass right now (communicate!), you can usually time it so that the mobs align conveniently for the Conjurer. Once you’ve killed the thickest of the mass, leave the rest and run onwards. Rinse and repeat that for 20 hours 🙂

Conjurer: be aware that you can control the spread of your Ternion projectiles by aiming closer or further away from the character. Use that to concentrate the fire to make the most of it (practice first if you have to). Most of the time it only takes a few bursts to destroy the crowd; if you can kill in 4 hits what would normally take 5, you’re already 20% faster.

Champion: be aware that you can command minions to attack a given target. Use this to focus your DPS where it’s most needed (perhaps there’s some dangerous foe that should be taken out fast) or most efficient (it’s better to kill one monster than scratch 3 different ones).

Defense

Mobs will often retarget when the Conjurer packs too much DPS. Usually you should be able to tank them for a second or two needed to burn them, but when the heat becomes too much and the Champion still has cooldown on War Horn, your plan B is to use Stone Form. This will happen regularly on Legendary, but you should get plenty of opportunities to practice this earlier as well. The strategy is simple: the Conjurer stoneforms (mind that you can still use potions and receive healing under the spell), while the Champion either heals them up or helps the team kill the mobs (which will remain aggro’ed on the stone-formed wizard). Ideally, the Horn cooldown will be over before Stone Form runs out – you should then synchronize the horn to hit it right before the stone runs out.

A note on dying: if (when) your partner dies, your priorities shift to survival at all costs. You want to open up a portal and stay alive until your partner has returned. If you die too, it means you both have to walk all the way back.

Bossfights

Your success depends on your knowledge of their attacks, your situational awareness, and your co-operation. Your strategy will be based on the fact that there’s two of you, while the boss can only focus on one at a time. Thus, at least one of you should always be free to throw some hits while the other kites the boss. Often, the bosses will target one of the minions (usually Liche) instead – don’t waste that opportunity. Set a Battle Standard if you haven’t already, Champion keep the bait alive and Conjurer do the damage. Know the bosses’ attacks and beware that some of them can one-shot the wolves (or even you!) with some of their attacks (e.g. Yaoguai, the demon bull of act 3) – you should know how to avoid these. Don’t underestimate your minions by letting them die easily.

We do not give any specific advice on each boss except a quick note about Typhon. Especially on Legendary, he will deal massive damage to the wolves, to the point of making them nearly impossible to keep alive. Try to draw them away and heal them up before reengaging – especially when Typhon is in reflect damage mode (he has a temporary ability that causes him to retaliate every melee attack with massive bleeding damage). Use the shrines wisely: don’t go for all of them at the same time, remember that they also affect the minions if they’re in range. Expect this fight to be a nightmare, and don’t be upset if it takes you 10-15 minutes to kill him.

Gear guidelines

This is a team self found only run, so we’re not going to insult your intelligence by trying to give you any specific item recommendations. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when trying to build the best possible characters with whatever trash the RNGods send you.

Generally, survivability comes first, damage second. First of all look for armor and primary resistances on anything you find. Health regeneration is also very useful, but only the + health regenerationper second, not the percent version. Of course, you will never find enough gear to cover all of the resistances you might ever need – the strategy is to keep multiple item options for each slot, each with different set of resistances, and quickly swap the gear when needed. This starts to become important on Epic, and is absolutely critical on Legendary. For your convenience, here’s a short list of the most dangerous enemies (i.e. the ones whom you’ll find the most punishing without resistances):

• Act II: Scarabeus – poison is useful but his attacks are easy to dodge, so you should rely on your skill to simply not get hit
• Act III: Xiao (huge peng on the Chinese Wall) – some cold resistance is helpful
• Act III: Ormenos (Telkine), especially on Legendary – massive fire resistance mandatory
• Act III: Typhon – fire and vitality needed, some bleeding is also helpful
• Act IV: Machae, especially in the Tower of Judgment (due to tightly confined areas), especially on Legendary – pierce resistance mandatory, and lots of it
• Act IV: Cerberus – poison res recommended – on Legendary you will fight for your life with every touch of the green floor flames without at least 50% res
• Act IV: Hades – vitality, however if you’re unable to evade his most deadly attacks, it won’t matter if you have +80% or -80% resistance as they will one-shot you anyway

Conjurer: DPS is more important than defense (within reason). Pick gear with any boosts to intelligence or fire/burn damage. Stuff like “Socrates’ Amulet of …” with +% int or “Volcanic Ring of …” with both fire and burn bonuses are worth losing some resistances on. For your weapon, naturally a fire-hitting staff will be your first choice. If you can find one with % of attack damage converted to health or +% attack speed – it’s your lucky day.

Champion: defense is more important than DPS. Armor is just as important as resistances – the numbers you see at merchants should be enough. Offense-wise, try to use fast or very fast weapons. Any boosts like +% attack speed or offensive ability are nice to have, same as chance of stun or slow enemies, if you’re lucky to see anything like that. Don’t bother with % of attack damage converted to health – you won’t deal enough damage to observe any significant effect.

The only equipment slot that you both can sacrifice defense on are boots: +% movement speed is more important than everything else.

Use monster charms and relics, even incomplete ones. Charms are better because, as opposed to relics that drop randomly, they can be farmed pretty predictably (many areas consistently spawn specific monsters) – you can spend more time in these areas, simultaneously exping and farming for charms. Here’s a handy list of charms that we found particularly useful:

• 
  Mechanical Parts – for total speed (torso armor)
• 
  Boar Hide – for bleeding resistance (all armor)
• 
  Pristine Plumage – for poison resistance (all armor)
• 
  Hag’s Skin – for pierce resistance (all armor)
• 
  Rigid Carapace – for (lots of) pierce resistance (shields)
• 
  Demon’s Blood – for vitality resistance (rings and amulets)
• 
  Viny Growth – for health regeneration (all armor)

Several relics can also be useful, for instance Anubis’ Wrath gives % of attack damage converted to health (in weapons), Dionysus Wineskin improves physical resistance and health (rings and amulets), Aegis of Athena gives vitality damage resistance (shields), et cetera. We’re not listing every useful relic here as you can’t rely on these rare drops anyway. Same goes with with arcane fomulae – it’s unlikely that you will assemble even a single minor artifact, even less likely that it will happen to be useful to either of you.

Last but not least: gold. You will need it. Pick it up, and pick up items to sell at merchants. In our experience, 2×2-sized items sell better (for the space they occupy) than 2×3 or larger ones, and items with both a prefix and a suffix (so with 2 magical properties) sell better than those with a single affix. Don’t waste too much time travelling back to sell the loot, especially early on, but don’t waste opportunities to make some coin.

Quests and route: Greece

Quests give a lot of XP and they are as important as farming, especially on Epic and Legendary. Exporing side locations just for the sake of clearing them is a waste of time – unless there’s an added reward from a quest located within. Therefore, our proposed route is centered around side quests and skips all other side locations. The guide is organized act by act, since gameplay is mostly similar between difficulty levels (except where noted). For each act, we give a list of quests to do as well as important farm-worthy areas (that means: where it’s okay to wander around and kill more than just what’s directly on your path). Note that our quest order is different than the in-game (or wiki) list: we list them in the order of the actual activities they require, while the game sorts by the time they appear in your quest log (usually when you meet each quest-giver).

We label the quests as follows:

• 
  – do
• 
  – skip
• 
  – consider
• 
  – special reward, important
• 
  – can be sped up using a “portal trick”: strategically placing a portal by one player before making a detour to do the quest so that you don’t have to run all the way back on foot.

For more details on individual quests, refer to the titanquest.fandom.com – https://titanquest.fandom.com/wiki/Quests.

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When starting the game, run straight to Helos and leave a portal before going after the Shaman.

Helos

 

• 

  
  Monstrous Brigands – loot from monsters and the final chest can be useful.

• 
  The Cornered Man
• 

  
  Medicines Waylaid – one player runs ahead while the other runs back to return the quest, then the first one sets up the portal.

Sparta

 

• 

  
  The Lost Dowry

• 

  
  The Ancient of War

• 

  

  
  The Poisoned Spring – passive reward: +75/+150/+200 health; leave a portal next to the nymph, the way through the cave is longer than from the nymph back to the city.

Megara

 

• 
  Skeleton Raiders – too long a detour, run straight to Polyphemus (kill him for the majestic chest).
• 
  News of a Shipwreck – it’s not really worth the rewards, but not a long way away either; we skipped it.

Delphi

 

• 

  

  
  The Good Centaur – set a portal right next to him; grants +2 attribute points.

• 

  

  
  A Proper Offering – leave a portal at the grove entrance, only kill Arachne; the passive resistance reward is well worth it.

• 
  Goods Abandoned
• 
  A Master Blacksmith
• 
  The Grieving Widow – very small detour and an easy fight.

Parnassus Hinterlands (the second part, right after the portal and the Satyr merchant) and Lower War-Camp (except the southern section filled with undead) are great places to exp as they’re very densely packed with Satyrs – we recommend clearing both.

Athens

 

• 
  Trapped in the Ruins – as long as you’re able to kill the Limos quickly.
• 

  
  Spartans Lost – best way to do that involves two portals: player A leaves a portal at the quest giver, then stays at the swamp entrance as player B runs to the soldiers and returns to player A’s portal to complete the quest; then player A places a new portal at the crossroads so that B can join them again.

Athenian Battleground is another high-density Satyr-dominated area, very good for farming. Ignore the undead side area.

Knossos

 

• 

  
  Xanthippus the Healer

• 

  
  The Undead Tyrant – both of these require you to make a significant detour (even if you portal-trick back), so we recommend skipping them on Normal difficulty; on Epic and Legendary however, assuming you’ve managed to find some movement speed gear, the XP reward can be worth the time.

On Epic and Legendary try killing Talos, he’s good XP and the chest is famous for dropping relics. If you don’t know the Labyrinth layout, use the MAP
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=763519162

Quests and route: Egypt

 

 

Rakotis

 

• 
  The Family Heirloom – act 2 is shorter, so you should have the time to farm a little; clearing Rakotis Slums to find the sword is worth the time.

Nile Floodplain is full of Reptilians which you’ll find very convenient to kill as they’re slow and have huge hitboxes, making the Ternion extra effective. Very good farming area.

Lower Nile

 

• 

  

  
  The Beast of Legend – leave a portal at the center of the last section of Wadjet Canyons; absolute must-do for +2 skill points.

• 
  Plight of the Nile Farmers – be sure to pick up the portal in Village Sais first or use the portal trick.
• 
  A Promethean Surrounded

The small ruin right on your path through The Lower Nile is farm-worthy due to tons of undead crawling in tight packs. Don’t go inside, just clear the surface part.

Memphis

 

• 
  Lowest of the Low – it’s a quick detour but the XP is worth it, and chances are you’ll receive some useful ring as well.

You should go for Giza first, as it’s faster than the other way around. Leave a portal at the entrance to the Great Sphinx, run to the Giza Plateau portal, then to the Khufu’s Pyramid. After doing the quests there, teleport back to the Sphinx portal and follow the main quest path. Finally, return to the Giza main portal and run to Fayum and Temple of Atum. Once you’ve got the Eye, simply teleport to Memphis and go straight to Thebes.

Giza

 

• 

  
  The High Priest’s Request

• 

  
  Khufu’s Curse – do these two together.

• 

  
  The Missing Brother – it is a detour from the main path, but the quest is rather simple, rewards a magical ring, and you can portal-trick back.

Fayum

 

• 
  A Hidden Treasure – it is a detour but if you’re good on time you will benefit from the XP and loot from the chests.
• 
  Caravan Woes – Iznu is very easy even on Legendary, but also a slight detour from the main path (Fayum-Temple of Atum).

We recommend either doing both of these or neither. If you choose to do them, run for the Eye (Temple of Atum) first, teleport back to Fayum and go for Iznu first, then straight to the Treasure tomb and portal to Memphis from there.

Thebes

 

• 

  
  The Corrupted Priest – this might be too long a detour for Normal, unless you’ve already found some decent movement speed gear; on Epic and Legendary just place a portal at the crossroads then teleport back after killing Neb-Kemi.

Valley of the Kings and Tomb of Ramses can be run without killing anything, Scrolls of Frenzy advised. Lose the aggro and kill the Constructs before entering the Telkine room.

Hatshepsut Path is the last exp-worthy area, densely packed with Hyenas and Jackalmen which you’ll kill quickly. You can also consider exping earlier, in Thebes Outskirts, which also spawn Reptilians.

Quests and route: Orient

 

 

Babylon

 

• 
  The Seeds of Destruction – clear the area for XP, quest monsters also have a good chance of dropping some useful gear

Silk Road

 

• 
  Caravan in Trouble – it’s just a single fight that shouldn’t pose much trouble until legendary
• 

  
  Mystery in the Mountains – the cave is long and the fights challenging, but the XP reward is decent and there’s a large majestic chest at the end; whatever you choose, do not attempt this on legendary, as Barmanu will wipe the floor with you.

• 

  
  A Gargantuan Yeti – the fight is very easy and +100% extra health for pets is incredibly important

Orkhan Valley and Mongolia areas are full of Tigermen which are good for exping. Just beware of large packs with more than one Warlord (the black variation).

Great Wall

 

• 
  The Child and the Raptor – quick quest, just kill the monster and talk to the mother, there’s no need to wait for the child to return to her
• 
  Peng Problems – it’s hard to avoid this fight, especially that Xiao sits close to the exit which is crowded with Tigermen, so just do it

Jingyang Woods is a good exping place since it’s rich in quests you can do at the same time, and the monsters (Arachnos, Ichthians) are rather easy.

• 

  
  Stalker in the Woods – very good XP. You can do this quest together with the Wealthy Collector, if Bloodfang spawns near the cavern entrance. Leave a portal at the main road so that you can teleport back from the cave if that’s the case.

• 
  The Wealthy Collector – the figurine is in two caves (both of them!) in the Jingyang Woods. Do not explore the first (larger) cave unless you’ve already fought Bloodfang near its entrance, normally it’s faster to make a small detour to the second cave (on the other side of the river) which is smaller. Just don’t forget to return to Zhidan to return the quest (Great Wall portal).
• 
  A Lesson in Despair – good XP from the monsters and the quest itself (just talk to the guy three times)

Chang’an

 

• 

  
  The Emperor’s Clay Soldiers – Bandari is moderately difficult, but well worth the good XP and 2 attribute points. Just don’t forget to talk to the Spirit guy to get the points immediately.

• 
  Terra Cottas At Large
• 
  A General in Repose – the cave is an unnecessary detour, but all you have to do is run to the chests (and back); just beware of the second exit from the cave – there’s often a pack of Dragonians guarding it.
• 

  
  Behind the Waterfall – it’s a detour you might not want to do if you’re low on time, but the fight is easy and there’s a chance to receive a decent amulet. If you choose to do it, don’t forget to leave yourself a portal near the quest giver, as you’ll have to talk to him to complete the quest.

Qiyun

 

• 
  The Hermit Mage – it’s literally on your way, just don’t miss the spot (southernmost part of the Jinghe River Valley)
• 
  Three Sisters – you shouldn’t even be in Jinghe Wetlands.

As soon as you reach Mount Qiyun, defeat Yaoguai, and talk to the Yellow Emperor in the Jade Palace, teleport right back to Chang’an and leave for the Wusao Mountain. Forest of the Ancients is the last viable area for some exping (full of easy Arachnos and moderately challenging Dragonians). Consider clearing the second part of Obsidian Halls, at least the path from the fountain to Typhon’s Prison, to accelerate returns after possible deaths by Ormenos.

Don’t hurry on your way to Typhon, as it’s not easy to survive a straight run through the Olympus ascent (especially when caught and slowed down by a Limos). Even if you try this, at the very least do clear the area around the fountain.

Quests and route: Hades

On Normal and Epic difficulties this act is full of valuable quests and farming. However, on Legendary you should run straight through it without doing anything else – being able to kill Typhon means you can kill anything else, so no need to farm anymore. You’ll only need up to 15 minutes to prepare for the act-long run and final combat (200-300 potions, Scrolls of Frenzy, gear etc.) and at most an hour to get to Hades.

– marks these few quests that can be considered on Legendary, as they don’t take any time OR provide better rewards than just XP (in case you need just a bit more to level up).

Rodos

 

• 
  A Crab Story – good XP reward can be worth the slight detour.
• 

  
  The Torch-Lighter’s Gauntlet – leave a portal near the quest giver.

• 

  
  Outpost in the Woods – leave one portal by the camp, kill the Anteok and split: one of you backtracks through the Den and makes a new portal, the other returns the quest.

Ixian Woods

Ampelian Caves, soon after Medea’s Grove, are full of easy-dying Formicids, ripe for some exping.

• 

  
  The Stolen Sigil – it’s right on your way, the fight should be easy even on Legendary.

• 
  The Wealth of Ancient Kings – 3 long detours involving annoying fights with Lost Souls.
• 

  

  
  Lampido’s Potion – must do for some great passive rewards: strength and max health.

• 
  The Treasure Hunters – two extra detours for a slim reward.
• 
  An Impossible Task – it’s a minor detour and a moderately difficult fight, could be worth the XP reward (and, though unlikely, the Arcane Formula) unless you’re low on time.

Epirus

 

• 
  Among the Ruins – the refugees walk very slowly, waiting for them is a waste of time.
• 

  
  A Dangerous Mission – tiny detour & two teleports, worth the XP and gold.

• 
  The Enemy’s Captain – the fight is not of the easy kind (in part due to Proseia’s debuffing AoE strike) but she’s right on your path anyway.

Styx

The River Styx – whole area from the encampment to the bridge – is a very good exping area, with lots of Formicids and Troglodytes. Exploring the second part (after the fountain) is highly recommended.

• 
  One Who Would Lead – you should be clearing this area anyway.
• 

  

  
  The Stygian Lurker – passive reward: +4/6/8 to str/int/dex.

Plains of Judgment

 

• 
  Hades’ Treasury
• 
  An Invitation – plan your route through the Salt Flats to pass by the carts.
• 
  Admetus Among the Dead – Kondor is an easy kill. Requires completing A Dangerous Mission.
• 
  Eurydice and Orpheus – small reward for two detours and one very difficult fight.
• 

  
  An Inside Source – leave a portal near Keutonymos, but skip it if low on time. Requires completing An Invitation.

• 
  The Necromanteion
• 

  

  

  
  The Dust of a Titan – leave a portal at the entrance to Deep Caverns; +2 skill points might be worth the time even on Legendary (assuming you’ve got any).

Run through Dread Halls, but consider leaving Scrolls of Frenzy for the Tower of Judgment.

Elysium

From this point it’s recommended to just run ahead, unless you’re missing only a little XP for the next level. These areas are so dangerous that it’s better to skip them altogether and return to farming in act I of the next difficulty.

• 
  The Siege Striders – requires exploring too much of Aneslasia.
• 

  
  Flight of the Messenger – he’ll teleport to you if you run too far.

• 
  The Achaean Pass – standing in one place for a few minutes; do it only if you’re good on time.
• 

  
  A Noisy Diversion – a moderately dangerous fight (Leucothea has a nasty AoE attack); if you choose to do it, remember to leave a portal near the quest giver.

Palace of Hades

 

• 
  The Shards of Erebus – we recommend against it due to very long and dangerous detours (especially the final one that requires you to pass by Warden of Souls). However, you might want to gamble some of your time on the chance of completing a +1 to all skills Crystal of Erebus (10%-11% chance of receiving this mod as a completion bonus).
• 
  Hades’ Generals – you will not be able to kill them anyway.

Palace is the riskiest place of all due to the possibility of encountering Dactyl. The recommended way of dealing with him is to quit and restart the run from the last fountain (unless you’re desperate on time).

---

Final remarks:

• 20 hours / (4 acts * 3 difficulties) = 1:40 hours per act (6:40 per difficulty). Use that number to gauge your pace.
• Don’t worry if act 1 normal takes you over 2 hours. It’s okay to spend some more time farming to pick up the pace later.
• Act 2 is the shortest and least dangerous so you can spend more time on farming there.
• Rough targets for gauging your XP progress: Typhon (normal) @ level 25, Hades @ level 30. Epic Typhon @ 40+, Hades @ 45. Legendary Typhon @ 55.

 

Tricks

This is a list of random tips that can help you along the way. You should already know many of these but we’re putting it out there for completeness.

Mechanics

 

• Enable “fast casting” in the game options (casting with a hotkey directly where your mouse points, without the need to confirm with a click).
• You can cast spells on your teammates/minions by pointing at the character portraits on the left. Easier than looking for them in the thick crowd.
• Use Scrolls of Frenzy, but plan ahead: run through dull areas (Minoan Labyrinth) or very difficult sections (Tower of Judgment), stop at exp-worthy places to farm up while the scroll cools down.
• Beware: if you die while running through an area, the monsters that were chasing you will run back to their original spots. It might happen that when you re-run the place, you’ll encounter them again as they return!
• Bosses who summon minions often respawn them only after you’ve killed the previous lot. Sometimes it’s better to keep one summoned monster alive to prevent the boss from spawning more.
• [Champion] If you don’t have +2 to Nature skills yet, use the Battle Standard or Shrine of Mastery to summon the third wolf. Mind the cooldowns – Battle Standard runs out faster than CotW cools down!
• [Conjurer] Playing on high resolution with camera on maximum distance will help you get the most dense fire stream of the Ternion Attack: aim at the far corner of the screen.

Teamplay

 

• Portal trick: you can teleport directly between each other’s portals, not only the big “city” ones. Use that to speed up certain quests.
• Concurrency: there’s two of you, so learn what tasks you can do in parallel. E.g. browsing through the stores in various cities is twice as fast if you share the work.
• If both of you can host the game, try to alternate who’s the host and who joins. With the laggy online lobby joining might take a while, causing the host’s timer to go up for no reason. By alternating, you split this overhead between each other evenly.

Items

 

• If you have a weapon set that gives you +2 to all skills or just Nature/Spirit but is otherwise inferior to your main gear, keep it on swap and use it to buff the summoning skills.
• If you’re lucky enough to find any +% experience gained items – don’t throw them away! Keep them and remember to switch them when turning in quests, as their XP rewards are affected by this modifier.
• You will need potions, lots of them. They’re cheaper on lower difficulty levels, so it might be worth it to stay on Epic for 5 more minutes to buy a few hundred rather than run out of gold on Legendary. Shift+click buys stacks of 10!
• Appreciate the goods sold by merchants and take the time to browse through their offer. Do that on all difficulty levels!

 

Reference run report: timing

In the following two sections we will briefly show you the results of our run. We will begin with a timing table that you can use as a reference for your own run. Then we’ll show screenshots of our builds, including the gear we managed to complete the challenge with. Many of our decisions were done ad hoc and under pressure, especially that we did not cheat by backing up the saves before a tough challenge. Please don’t be surprised that some of the things we actually did are different than we described above – the guide already incorporates many lessons that we’ve learned along the way.

Time table

 

	TIME	LEVEL	TIME	LEVEL	TIME	LEVEL
Nessus	0:18	5	6:54	30	13:28	47
Delphi	–	–	7:21	31	13:59	47
Gorgons	1:20	11	7:30	32	14:27	48
Alastor	1:35	12	7:45	32	14:47	49
Minotaur Lord	1:59	13	8:02	33	15:00	49
City of Rakotis	2:02	13	8:05	33	15:05	49
GREECE TIME vs reference	2:02	vs 1:40	1:26	vs 1:40	1:52	vs 1:40
TOTAL TIME vs reference	2:02	vs 1:40	8:05	vs 8:20	15:05	vs 15:00
Scarabeus	2:12	14	8:12	34	15:13	49
Memphis	2:28	15	8:30	35	15:26	50
Honor Guard	2:45	16	8:46	36	15:38	50
Nehebkau	2:55	17	9:01	37	15:43	51
Aktaios	3:12	19	9:30	38	15:53	51
Gardens of Babylon	3:22	19	9:41	39	16:16	52
EGYPT TIME vs reference	1:20	vs 1:40	1:36	vs 1:40	1:11	vs 1:40
TOTAL TIME vs reference	3:22	vs 3:20	9:41	vs 10:00	16:16	vs 16:40
Chimera	3:36	20	9:54	39	16:40	53
Yeti	3:57	22	10:21	40	17:05	53
Xiao	4:07	22	10:29	41	17:20	54
Yaoguai	4:30	24	11:06	42	18:03	55
Ormenos	4:45	25	11:21	43	18:18	56
Typhon	4:54	25	11:29	43	18:31	56
City of Rhodes	5:09	25	11:35	43	18:35	56
ORIENT TIME vs reference	1:47	vs 1:40	1:54	vs 1:40	2:19	vs 1:40
TOTAL TIME vs reference	5:09	vs 5:00	11:35	vs 11:40	18:35	vs 18:20
Sisters	5:35	26	11:58	44	18:54	56
Charon	5:44	27	12:09	44	19:07	56
Upper City	5:52	28	12:23	45	19:11	57
Cerberus	6:14	28	12:46	45	19:25	57
Typhon	6:29	29	13:01	46	19:32	57
Hades	6:39	29	13:13	46	19:44	57
HADES TIME vs reference	1:30	vs 1:40	1:38	vs 1:40	1:09	vs 1:40
TOTAL TIME vs reference	6:39	vs 6:40	13:13	vs 13:20	19:44	vs 20:00

Our most difficult encounters were undeniably:

• Alastor on normal – his slowing aura and health regen makes him a formidable opponent, wolves are very weak against him
• Yaoguai (the fire bull in act 3) – due to his general anti-pet abilities
• Xiao (the giant peng in act 3) on legendary – his shout attack is devastating and difficult to avoid due to tight space
• Ormenos and Typhon, especially on legendary
• Tower of Judgment (on any difficulty)
• The Night Mistress (the Empusa hero holding the last stone for Hades’ Treasury) on legendary

If you’re wondering about the time lost in Rhodes on each difficulty – we usually spent some time shopping for gear, potions and other stuff, and the time listed for Rhodes is actually the moment of our departure from the city.

Reference run report: builds

 

 

Conjurer – build

Note the high intelligence, mostly from multiple items (shown below). Health shown without the Heart of Oak; with HoO on level 14 (+75%) would be over 9000. Also, don’t look at resistances – both characters are currently wearing Hades-targeted gear, so for example poison or pierce resistances are extremely low.

Skill points from the last level-up have been left undistributed, we probably forgot about that in the heat of blasting through act 4. The character was complete anyway – at this moment, points could be invested into Deathchill Aura passives but with minimal effect on the run.
PS: Screenshots were taken later after the run, with Atlantis installed, hence the extended skill trees, but the expansion has not been used during the run.

Conjurer – gear

This is the currently equipped gear set:

These are the alternate items carried in the inventory to hot-swap in all sorts of situations:

As you can see, this is by no means “good” gear. With the rare exceptions of some decent unique drops, most of it is junk you can buy from a merchant. But with the above strategy it’s enough to survive on Legendary.

Champion – build

High strength necessary to equip all the gear (more than necessary thanks to Alke), rest of the points in health (shown with HoO). Int came from Nature and some items. Also note how neither of the characters actually killed Hades – we’ve had minions for that 😉

+2 to all skills coming from the equipment. If we were to run this again, we’d move points from Battle Rage into Weapon Training, for example.

Champion – gear

Currently equipped gear set, including alternative weapon slots:

And this is a bag of other gear that carried the character all the way there:

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Thank you for reading!

We hope you find this guide inspiring to try your Greece Lightning run – co-op andraw mode!

Hope you enjoy the Guide about Titan Quest Anniversary Edition – Greece Lightning Co-op Raw Mode, if you think we should add extra information or forget something, please let us know via comment below, and we will do our best to fix or update as soon as possible!