It's autumn again - the hard work is over, the coronavirus is back at full force and i get to enjoy some time off. So what better time to go back to my favorite hack'n'slashers? I was thinking of playing some good old Diablo 2 first, but once i created a brand new character, i realized that i'm still a bit burnt out on D2... despite not playing for almost a full year. So i thought, Titan Quest maybe? Yes, but i need a fresh take on it, or i'm going to lose my patience fast. So i decided to attempt (more than once, if i have to) to beat the game deathless, in all 3 difficulties, something i have never done before. On top of that, i'm going to document the journey here, in this topic.

First of all, this forum is like a labyrinth. I've looked everywhere (at least i think i did) for a TQ section to post this, but it appears that there isn't one. So i hope i'm allowed to post this topic here and if i'm not, a heads up message would be appreciated if it gets closed.

Before i start, i want to explain a few things and lay some ground rules for the challenge.

Why deathless and not hardcore? Well, this game doesn't have a hardcore option, that's why. But then how can i show you that i'm progressing through the game without dying? That's simple... the character screen, inside the hero's inventory has a death counter, my goal is to keep that counter at 0 when i slay the Act 5 main boss on Legendary difficulty. But don't worry, i'm sure, i'm gonna have to restart the challenge multiple times, so expect failures... in fact, there's a strong chance i would never succeed.

Where does Titan Quest stand in terms of difficulty compared to Diablo 2? Well... i can't really answer that question. It's an easier game to beat, but doing it deathless might be harder than a regular D2 hardcore walk. It's definitely easier than playing hardcore D2 on Players 8, but on the other hand, it can really surprise you when you least expect... kinda like D2. In Titan Quest you can get surrounded and destroyed way more easily than D2, but on the other hand, you can't get stuck inside an enemy group. It's also important to note that there's no skills that allow you to teleport away from danger. There's a lot of mechanics that work way differently than in D2, like blocking with shields for example... but more on these things i'll be explaining as i go.
The first two acts are easy, though not completely safe. Act 3 and 4 are insane by Normal difficulty standards, i would really have to be careful what i'm doing there, because not even acts 1 and 2 on Epic difficulty would give me that much trouble. Act 5 normal i would say is more balanced but still quite dangerous. Epic should be more peaceful, until i reach act 4, but then Legendary, (if i ever reach it), will probably make me cry. Oh and i forgot to mention, here there's no mercenary helpers to carry me. Actually, i think Ragnarok added a mercenary, but to get him you need to visit an extremely dangerous secret optional dungeon, so i'm not doing that. I don't think the mercs here are as good as the ones in D2 anyway, so no point in risking my skin to get them.

I don't know how many people (if any) are going to follow this challenge and how many of you are familiar with the game in depth, so i'm going to be explaining A LOT of things about the game, the loot system, the farming process, the builds that i'm going to use... pretty much everything you can think of. Keep in mind, i'm no TQ expert, but i have some useful knowledge, that some of you may find interesting.

The rules are as follows:

1. Beat all 3 difficulties without deaths
2. No shared stash, completely self found characters
3. If a character dies, it get's deleted. Any future characters must have different names
4. Save & Exits during battle allowed
5. The Atlantis act remains optional - The newest act in game is not necessary to beat the game, it can be started, before the completion of act 4 and thus for, the final boss of the game is Surtr, at the end of Act 5. I may consider going in Atlantis in one of the difficulties, but it is unlikely that i would take the extra risk to finish it... that place can be very dangerous.

I think that covers it for now. See you tomorrow for the first update, if the this thread see the light of day.

This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Oct 20 2020 09:03am

Okay, let's try this and see what happens. I hope Hector the 1st here can deliver on the high expectations. He doesn't have a class yet, but soon enough...



We arrive by boat near the small village of Helos. This is where the journey begins and there's no looking back, it's non stop going forward from now on.



An optional tutorial task serves as the first quest in the game - saving this guy's horse from a group of weak satyrs. Simple and harmless

I arrive in the village of Helos where i can pick up my first real quest from the village elder. I have to kill a satyr shaman, who's minions are terrorizing the village.



This torch is always guaranteed to drop on that bridge. It is the best melee weapon you can get in the Helos area, unless i get extremely lucky and drop a magical or even a rare weapon, but that is highly unlikely to happen in this starting area, but still possible.



Despite TQ's early game being considered very easy, this starting area is actually quite dangerous at level 1. As you can see, i'm almost killed by these boars hiding in the crops, while i'm bashing a crow with my torch...

I'm forced to take a step back and chug a healing potion. The boars drop my first charm segment, we'll be seeing a lot of charm and relic segments drops from now on. I need 5 segments to complete a single boar hide charm. Relics are more powerful than charms and only require 3 segments to be completed. Wen completed, relics and charms also get a random completion bonus from a table that is unique to each type of relic or charm. Think of these as the TQ's version of the runes from D2. Except here they are used to socket rare or magical equipment (only one charm or relic per item), or can be used to craft specific artifacts that serve as an additional piece of gear next to your regular body armor, helmet, boots, gloves and so on...



Level up! Finally i get to chose my firs mastery (at level 8 i can add another mastery to form my class) My first choice is Defense, at level 8 i'll add Warfare mastery to it, to form the class of Conqueror. This is the ultimate melee class in the game. What i love about the TQ melee combat is that it is actually quite effective and on par with caster and ranged builds... not only that, but playing Conqueror is actually fun, it's more than your generic boring melee brute... However, i have a lot of work to do to make him viable. If this guy dies, i have a ranged class in mind for a second attempt at this, but let's see how far we can go with this guy first...



I'll be getting 3 skill points for every level and this is how it goes. First i put 1 point in to the mastery tree to unlock the first tier of skills

About the skills - the square shaped skills are the active offensive, buff or duration skills, while the circle shaped skills are passive or synergy skills. The skills with links in between, synergize with each other.

I put one 1 point in the skill Batter - this is an offensive skill that requires a shield... when i get my shield, i will assign the skill to my right mouse button, that way i can use it more effectively, and while the cooldown is on, my character will just use his regular attack. This skill is only temporary for the leveling process, i'll be respec-ing the points in it it at a later part of the game.



The last skill point goes into Armor Handling - i'll be maxing this passive skill as soon as possible, to drop the requirements fo gear, but also to absorb physical damage better



And the last order of business is the Attribute point distribution. I'm going for 1:1 str/dex ratio for the entire game. Investing in health and mana is waste for me... i'll be getting plenty of health by just bumping points into my skill trees. Strength is used to equip heavy armors and also adds to physical damage. Dexterity adds to piercing, poison, bleeding and vitality damage - these are not important for me, but dex also increases my offensive and defensive ability and these are very important.



This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Oct 21 2020 12:46am

There's the stupid shaman... first i need to clear his minions so i can tank him in peace



Like that! I have also activated the nearby regeneration shrine, so at the spot where i stand, i'm pretty much invincible. You can see the purple lettering in his name and the glowing aura around him - that indicates that he's a quest monster. The aura has no effects.



I get a bunch of magical items from the shaman's drop and his chest. Nothing special, i only kept the helm and a pair of leggings i found before the fight. The rest i sold for around 5500 gold and i spent all of it on potions. The village elder also paid me 1000 gold pieces for the shaman, i'll use them to buy a basic shield so i can use my Batter skill once i leave Helos. There's a short journey ahead of me to some dangerous greek ruins swarmed by skeleton warriors and after that, to a spartan war camp, where i will face the first real boss in the game and do some farming for gold and to hopefully some rare or epic gear. More on that later...

The most basic shield will do for now, i should be able to find something better very soon, but i want to use my shield bashing skill now. As you can see here, this shield only has 8% chance to block - this can be improved with skills but it's still very bad... the better the shield - the better the block chances. The shields found in legendary difficulty, usually have above 45-50% chance to block and with the skills from defense mastery, it's very easy to reach the 75% (or was it 80%?) cap. Dexterity has no effect on the blocking here.
But there's more - shields only block a certain amount of damage, but at least they block all damage as far as i know. They also have damage output, for using the shield as a weapon, just as i do. So not only will i have to aim for a shield with good affixes, but it will also need to have good block chance and high damage output and high damage blocking capability.



I exit town to the south and take another quest - some guy got kidnapped by satyrs in a nearby cave and i have to rescue him.



On the way i to the cave i clear the satyr camps outside of town. Doing full clear is not necessary and the XP is not that great here, so past the spartan camp i'm not going to do full clears if i don't feel like it. I just like to get as much xp before the spartan area, because i'm going to farm the boss there and he can be a tough bastard in the first encounter with him.

Another level up. 1 point goes into Battle Awareness - this is a buff skill, when activated it stays activate, but it reserves a portion of my mana pool. I also put another point in Armor Handling and the last one in the skill tree for attributes and health.



There's the kidnapped guy... Note that these quest monsters are trappers. They're not dangerous here, but the trappers i will face later can make my life miserable. They throw a net in your legs, trapping you in one place for a duration of time, while you get surrounded and possibly killed. My Battle Awareness synergy that i'm going to get later on, mitigates entrapment and stun duration... it can be a real life saver. There's a quality chest near the kidnapped dude, but the drop was bad. Moving on...



Some farmer (edit: more like a lumberjack) is in need of my assistance. He rewards me with some gold and xp...



This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Oct 21 2020 09:09am

After that, i face a satyr blockade on the road to the north, with a satyr brute awaiting to be shield bashed!



He's strong and uses the same Batter skill that i'm using... still, he goes down without any trouble



And then another generic quest. I can see why some people consider the beginning of this game slow and boring... It's definitely not the most fast paced and exciting game start ever, but i found it relaxing and refreshing... also the environments make up for it. Anyway, the necklace i need to find is guarded by a few small and harmless demon creatures in a nearby cave. I'll complete the task, but not gonna bother you with it.

As i complete the quest i get another level up and realize that i forgot the last level up, so one more point goes into Armor Handling and another 5 points go into the skill tree



I can't believe i'm still using that torch... I found a knife with nice suffix, and a very fast base speed, much better than what i have, but it requires 3 more levels... so i'll sell it later, by the time i reach level 8, i'm sure i'll be using something more suitable for me. Moments later i found a generic short sword with some offensive ability and replaced the torch with it. It's not much better, but it'll do for now. Offensive ability is the stat that makes the hero attack more efficiently and strike critical hits more often. On the contrary, Defensive ability is the stat that prevents you from receiving critical hits. It also makes enemies to miss more often... which i think works separately from dodging chance.



I'm very close to the spartan camp now, but i'm not going there before i clear these skeleton ruins