Well I did it. The end of Act 3 was extremely stressful but the spirit tree has a lot of oomph so I'm thankful. I've been swapping out equipment as needed for resistances for certain encounters, which I normally only do after I'm having troubles. But playing hardcore that's not an option. I saved a Pious Sash that dropped, which has 105% life leech resistance, and bought the only "Hallowed" helm I saw in a shop for vitality resistance. Those items made Typhon the easiest he's ever been for me.

btw @rakshir i noticed you have 21 unspent stat points at lvl 18. that's really how you play?

@botebote77 Yeah I wondered if anyone would notice that lol. Old habits die hard. I've always saved my points until I "needed" them for equipment reqs or needed the health to survive a specific fight etc. And, generally, the game starts off easy enough that you can get away with it. I've been aware that it's not the smartest thing for this challenge.

I was going to join the challenge but I'm embarrassed to say I can't figure out how to post an image. Any help?

Hey soa. I don't have a lot of time to play but I'll drop a little feedback when I can. Enjoying the mod so far!

1. I ran into Goatsucker, the bat hero, in the cave where you get the quest necklace. I had cleared everything up to that point. He was absolutely unkillable. He would one shot me if I stood still, refill himself, and I could hardly dent his health bar anyway.
2. I got one of those rare arachnos poison daggers. it was "of ignition" and it had a casting speed bonus. I only mention it because I was expecting a fire affix with that name.
3. I find the vanilla flame surge spell to be useless, not only in endgame, but very early on. I don't love the way they tried to "fix" it with the lowered defense and chance of fear either. For such a short range spell, what it needs is much higher damage. That having been said, the spell template is lame as well. I don't mind the concept but I think if they would have had a wave template when they made the original game, that's what they would have used. Actually, the current template has the bolts coming out of the character's crotch or lower, which looks silly. So for what it's worth, my recommendation if you want to keep the concept would be change to wave and re-scale damage.
4. One last opinion: Speaking of flame surge, I don't love the concept of modifiers turning a cooldown skill into a no cooldown skill. I think it's much more intuitive for the player and easier to balance when a skill is just one or the other.

I had the same issue with heat shield, although putting a point into heat Accretion seems to fix it. 

Good to know I'm not crazy, although I tried it with and without Accretion to no avail.

Can you send me your save (My Games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne\SaveData\Main => make a zip of the folder of you character) ?
So far I tried only with a male PC with unarmed and staff. I was targeting myself or a pet.
Do you play on Very Fast Speed (I play on Fast) ?
DX9 or DX11 ? (I'm on DX11)
Quickcast enabled ? (I have it enabled)

Sure I can send you my save. Just let me know where to send it. I can't promise it's not an install error on my end but I tried to follow the instructions. I tried on all speeds after I read your post. I tried DX9 and DX11. I tried with and without quickcast.

First of all, congrats soa and others on the release! Earth's heat shield skill is bugged in my game. The pc just goes through a very fast animation and nothing else happens. Just wanted to let you know in case it wasn't just an install error.

As someone who's gone through acts just redoing monster stats and skills (not adding new ones), I have some idea of the amount of work it takes to complete an act. It's enormous, so congrats! I only made it through act 2 when doing so, so keep it going!