Greece Lightning: FAQ and tactics

introduction

that achievements requires lots of practice, patience, knowledge, good planning and ahead-thinking, however it is not tremendously hard (in my opinion, "legendary don't die ever" achievement is way more harder)

Ragnarok DLC

most important question you have to decide, is whether should you use a Ragnarok DLC or not

you see, if you disabled that DLC (or don't have it to begin with) then your game route is quite linear:

• start the game with level 1
  
• Normal: Act 1,2,3,4
  
• Epic: Act 1,2,3,4
  
• Legendary: Act 1,2,3,4

but if you have and enabled Ragnarok DLC, then with "accomplished hero" feature (allows to start the game with level 40 character on the act 5) your route will be quite different:

• start as an accomplished hero with level 40
  
• Normal: Act 5
  
• Epic: Act 1,2,3,4,5
  
• Legendary: Act 1,2,3,4,5

starting as a level 40 character is extremely good bonus (usually, in non-Ragnarok run, character hits level 40 about Epic Act 3). it allows you to pickup masteries and skills right from the beginning, avoiding any possible re-specs; you also able to equip high-level gear right from the start. the downside is, however, that you need to beat Act 5 three times

another route you can select is a bit cheaty one, but game will take it:

• start as an accomplished hero with level 40
  
• Normal: Act 5
  
• disable Ragnarok DLC after finishing Normal difficulty and before starting Epic difficulty
  
• Epic: Act 1,2,3,4
  
• Legendary: Act 1,2,3,4

see what we did here? we started the game as an accomplished hero, fully finished Act 5 on normal, but then disabled the DLC and switched to a regular route. very effective! we have both a nifty level bonus, but don't require to play Act 5 three times, only once. it an abusing of the system, but on other hand, game is designed that way not our fault

you can go further and abuse that system even more and choose that route

• start as an accomplished hero with level 40
  
• save the game at the beginning of Normal: Act 5
  
• disable Ragnarok DLC
  
• Normal: Act 1,2,3,4
  
• Epic: Act 1,2,3,4
  
• Legendary: Act 1,2,3,4

that strat allows you to play a regular non-Ragnarok route, but you will get a level bonus from that DLC

any of those route will work - select whatever you want and would be easier/better for you. the second route takes about 15-16 hours to beat, so you will have plenty of time for thinking and making mistakes, don't worry about being slow

equipment

now we need to understand what to do with equipment

first, game has a transfer system where you can put equipment into Caravan and another character can pickup those equipment and use in his run - that what you will do. a speedran character will not grab, collect, loot or organize his inventory. all that hustle is a main character's headache

what you need to do is before even starting that run is collect and store equipment that your speedrun character will use in his run. preferably you need to separate those equipment based on level & stat requirement into the following groups:

• 1-3 level equipment
  
• 4-8 level equipment
  
• 9-15 level equipment
  
• 16-28 level equipment
  
• 29-39 level equipment
  
• 40-49 level equipment
  
• 50-59 level equipment
  
• 60+ level equipment

of course, if you are playing as accomplished hero (Ragnarok DLC), then you need to care only about last three groups

collect all needed equipment and store them into caravan. then, create a speedrun character, and start sending him all those equipment. in other words a speedrun character should always have a "next level" equipment in his inventory and whenever he hits a new level group he must operative switch to next equipment during the game without waiting for next caravan or teleporting

download TQVaultAE - https://github.com/EtienneLamoureux/TQVaultAE/releases - it is versatile item manager for Titan Quest that allows to quickly store, filter and send equipment between characters, or store them in bottomless storage. don't use that tool when game is open - ALWAYS CLOSE GAME before opening that tool

speedrun character should never visit shop and should not pickup any dropped equipment (apart from some green, blue and legendary equipment that you KNOW would be useful for him and you don't already have them)

remember, in that run defensive stats are more important than offensive - it doesn't matter that you will kill boss 10 seconds later, however what matters is a returning back to the boss in case of death and dealing with him again (his health will be restored). also, because of scrolls (read below) you don't need that much offensive power

the exact equipment stats don't really matter as long as your character can sustain incoming damage and kill mobs and bosses with no much efforts. however, look for equipment with the following stats:

• "%% damage reflected"
  
• "%% armor protection"
  
• various "resistance", like "fire resistance", "vitality damage resistance", "physical resistance" etc
  
• "%% reduction to enemy's health"
  
• "%% dodge attacks"
  
• "xxx reduced armor"
  
• "%% attack damage converted to health"
  
• various damage modifications, like "poison damage", "vitality damage", "fire damage" (mind you need to find stuff like "44-60 fire damage", not just "+20% fire damage"). the more modifications you have the better. in case of petmaster builds find modifications for pets' attacks
  
• "%% total damage"
  
• "%% total speed" - more preferable than just "%% movement speed" or "%% attack speed" or "%% cast speed"

all other stats, like regenerations, extra attributes, offense, defense, retaliations, etc are less important and will come up from other gears

remember, that as in usual Titan Quest gameplay, green and olive equipment with right relics are, situationally, better than 80% of blue and purple equipment. don't force yourself to use only legendary equipment, equip the gears to maximize a character's potential, not just because it is purple and have high level

the main thing, however, are not gears, but scrolls. let your main character visit shops in every major city on legendary difficult and buy tons of offensive and defensive scrolls like "Unbroken Fortitude", "Behemoth", "Ice Nova", "Armageddon" and many others. send them to you speedrun character. no matter how great your equipment and stats are, on level 46 it is still better to spam Behemoth and let him kill an annoying boss instead of doing everything yourself

also, you speedrun character will need TONS of potions and will slurp them like crazy. just send to a speedrun character ~200 potions of each kind and call it a day

if a speedrun character needs money (for whatever reason), then send him the completed relics - they will cost enough to cover his shopping needs

build

now you need to select what build you will use in that run

ANY non-experimental, non-hybrid and non-strictly magical build (see below) will work, especially if you have started as an accomplished hero with level 40. you can play as a regular physical tank, or as an archer, or use a petmaster build - use whatever you are get used too and have experience with

magical builds are not welcome in that challenge not because of how weak they are, but because of how many skill points they require to bloom and shine. physical character of level 40 can pretty much soloing normal and epic difficulty with no hard efforts, while mage will need more careful play, planning and more skill points to make him effective

few builds to consider:

1) Ranger (Hunting + Nature)
has great speed, nice health, healing spells, pets will help you in boss fight, "Plague" and "Study Prey" skills greatly debuffs tanky enemies, bow keep you away from the danger

2) Haruspex (Hunting + Dream)
again, good speed and health, ranged attacks, but also, thanks to Dream mastery, you can get extremely good avoid stats. it is more defensive type of build compare to more all-around and tricky Ranger above

3) Conqueror (Warfare + Defense)
your typical tank with lots of health, armor and heavy DPS attacks. because of his defensive properties he will survive for a lot time

4) Guardian (Defense + Nature)
the build for those who need tons of defense, healing and prefer to play with less power but be more safe

5) Spellbreaker (Warfare + Spirit)
dual-wielding character with maxed "Deathchill aura" (and tree), "Unearthly Power", Outsider, Lich King and "Battle Standard" is just unstoppable

quests

you must complete only those quests that don't require long detour and either award good passive bonus or experience worth hustle. quests and bosses are you main source of experience. you have to complete every quest in the game to maximize your stats and experience, but don't complete those ones:

1.3 Skeleton Raiders (Megara)
1.5 Spartans Lost (Kephisos Valley)
1.7 The Undead Tyrant (Herakleion)
2.2 The High Priest's Request (Memphis)
3.1 Mystery in the Mountains (Shangshung)
3.1 Stalker in the Woods (Zhidan)
4.1 An Impossible Task (Rhodes)
4.1 The Torch-Lighter's Gauntlet (Coastal Asomata
4.1 Outpost in the Woods (Ixian Woods)
4.2 The Wealth of Ancient Kings (Medea's Grove)
4.4 Eurydice and Orpheus (Upper City of Lost Souls)
4.5 The Siege Striders (Aetolian Polis)
5.2 White Gold (Heuneburg)
5.2 The Golden Sickle (Hercynian Forest)
5.4 Giesel (Birch Forest)
5.4 The Restless King (King Gylfi's Settlement)
5.4 The Magic Cauldron (King Gylfi's Settlement)
5.4 The Survivor (Birch Forest)
5.5 Legendary Craftsmanship (Master Forge Chamber)

well, if you are playing on legendary and see that you have plenty of time left then, of course, do those quests too for extra experience

I also would like to mention the quests that give passive rewards

main quests:
1.2 Spartans at War (Helos) (1 Skill Point)
2.2 The Invocation (Memphis) (2 Attribute Points)
2.3 A Telkine in Egypt (Memphis) (2 Skill Points)

side quests:
1.2 The Poisoned Spring (Tegea) (+Health)
1.4 A Proper Offering (Megara) (+Elemental Resistance)
1.4 The Good Centaur (Ambrossos Farmlands) (2 Attribute Points)
2.1 The Beast of Legend (Wadjet Canyons) (2 Skill Points)
3.1 A Gargantuan Yeti (Shangshung Village) (+Health for pets)
3.2 The Emperor's Clay Soldiers (Chang'an) (2 Attribute Points)
4.2 Lampido's Potion (Medea's Grove) (+Strength, +Health)
4.3 The Stygian Lurker (The River Styx) (+Strength, +Intelligence, +Dexterity)
4.4 The Dust of a Titan (Upper City of Lost Souls) (2 Skill Points)
4.6 Hades' Generals (Argolis) (+Total Damage)
5.3 The Trapped Nixie (Wild Heathlands) (1 Skill Point)
5.5 Dvergar History (Kaupangr) (2 Skill Points)

tips and tricks

• don't kill enemies - run through them. kill only bosses and various monster heroes (if you feel that way). avoid fighting with enemies that takes too much time to kill, for example skeletons if you are using a bow
  
• best place to farm experience is a last area of Act 2. save nearby last fountain and destroy nearby Undead Pillars. they give enormous amount of experience. just save, load and repeat
  
• learn all in-game maps by heart: you need to know where to go, where NPC are, etc. if you need help to remember where you should go next, then check those maps - https://titanquest.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Maps
  
• abuse teleport system. whenever you finished the quest don't try to walk back, instead just teleport yourself. for example, after you have killed Porcus the Ketos in Act 5 don't walk back to Corinth, instead just teleport yourself. another example, after you met Jade Emperor in Act III, instead of going into cave, just teleport back into Chang'an and continue the main quest
  
• use "normal" game speed, because playing on "fast" and "very fast" will also increase the speed of in-game timer, making achievement harder to get
  
• if you have saved your game and then loaded it, then you will be revive near a fountain with all enemies' position reset. it might be useful if you want to lose some chasing you enemies
  
• be prepared to some pain and rage moments in the second half of Legendary run. be sure Legendary Typhon will beat you goodly. raise your Vitality, Poison, Fire & Lightning resistance as high as possible and spam scrolls from safe distance

easier way to get that achievement - a multiplayer

the way easier and fully legit method of getting that achievement is just playing multiplayer with a player who is extremely overpowered and who will kill every single threat for you, while you rushing to the end of the game

it is important that you - a person who need an achievement - be a host!

create a game session and let some 85-level character to connect your game and rush like crazy the whole way, first on normal, then on epic, then on legendary

if you want to thank me...

...then check my guide about fixing various game issues: launching, crashing, optimization, stuttering, gamepads, etc. the guide is huge, but the topic is broad to begin with
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1935376439

copypasted from my astats guide: http://astats.astats.nl/astats/Steam_Achievement_Info.php?AchievementID=49&AppID=475150&SteamID64=76561198967068402&Tab=1

[Likalo]

Would making a legendary hero (level 70 with eternal embers dlc) work or not since we haven't been doing normal and epic ?

[Lazybones]

Thanks very much for the guide, it was very useful. It turns out I was unnecessarily worried about the time it would take since it took me 7 hours 45 minutes game time lol. I used the accomplished hero feature to get a level 40 hero then disabled Ragnarok DLC. So my route was Acts 1-4 (x3) but I think disabling Ragnarok after completing Act 5 normal is probably faster.

Something that really shortened my time was combining your tip with rebirth fountains with SotiCoto's tip for using colossus form ie reopening the game will reset all cooldowns. So you can pretty much continuously pop colossus form then run to next rebirth fountain then exit the game then repeat.

[SotiCoto]

Also... if you're messing about with uninstalling DLC or fiddling things in TQVaultAE, I could also recommend a more cheaty way of getting the achievement:

#1. Start a new character. Presumably level 40 though it doesn't matter much. Start playing, then go back to the start menu.
#2. Open the character in TQVault AE. Go to character edit and use it to unlock Legendary difficulty.
#3. On another character, get right up to the last well before the final boss on any difficulty, then save and exit.
#4. Open the save file directory for the second character, go into the folder of the difficulty you nearly completed the game on and copy ALL the files in there. Go back to the save directory of the original character you want to speed-run with and paste all the files into their "Legendary" folder.
#5. Open up the first character. Start the game in Legendary. They should be right before the final boss of Act V with only about 10 seconds on the game clock.

[SotiCoto]

I'd like to note something I discovered that I believe is pretty significant...
The Eren Yaeger version of speed-running.

The Defense skill Colossus Form is a hidden gem for going ludicrously fast.
You wouldn't think it because it explicitly has "-15% Total Speed" on it.
BUT because Colossus Form makes the character bigger, it also scales up their run animation, so they cover ground faster. Like A LOT faster.

SO, keeping in mind that the movement speed cap is 166%, if you can raise movement speed to 181% by any means, you can offset the -15% Total Speed penalty from Colossus Form and thus run through the game at an absolutely ludicrous rate.

Assuming you can raise the level of the skill up to the absolute max possible level of 12, it lasts 24 seconds a cast... and as a bonus it gives huge boosts to tankiness AND physical damage too.


The only snag is that if you activate it in the wrong place, you can get stuck in the scenery and have to wait for it to expire.

[Adam Jensen 007]

nice do you have any advice for I have minions for that?

[rarestMeow]

hello, @breadman

>>> some missions like The Magic Cauldron or Legendary Craftmanship require to you take items to them, get those items in another char and send them over your speedrunner.
good advice, agree.

>>> reaching max speed might be better than going into resistances
agree. resistance is really needed to get rid off some tanky enemies and bosses. one can just use two different sets of items (+speed / +defense) and switch them before/after boss fights

>>> The achievement itself is overfeared in my opinion
absolutely! a regular player can finish that achievement in 17-18 hours with lots of errors, mistakes and not with the best build/gears. a really geeky players (in a good sense!) can finish that run in 14-15 hours. it took 17 hours in my case. not the toughest challenge. "not dying once on all three difficulties" is way more harder

[breadman]

The guide is really good, but I would add that some missions like The Magic Cauldron or Legendary Craftmanship require to you take items to them, get those items in another char and send them over your speedrunner.

Regarding survivability, reaching max speed might be better than going into resistances. With Art of the Hunt's passive from Hunting along with Dream's passive you can reach 150-166% (cap) and just evade everything.

The achievement itself is overfeared in my opinion, people fear that the lack of level will render you useless against bosses in late game, you can complete it in less than 12-13 hours via Ragnarok accomplished hero or in less than 14-16 hours via lvl 1 start (another famous build for this start is going fully commited into Ice Shard from Storm, you have debuff from Squall and you also have Freezing Blast to escape when cornered + any other mastery).

[rulikstanislav]

this achievement is still possible do it from level 1 with ragnarok alone...
i´ve done it with 15 minutes left. :)