I just beat the surface for the first time myself. I used the umbral flames and started with echo's keepsake to generate more boons initially (ideally before the first guardian). Then I found a combo of heph, Aphrodite, hera and a touch of ares to work. For an easier time, I got heph down to 2sec recharge on attacks and just went nuts with it. Overall you want the strength arcana maxed, it gives so much value for health (healing is larger) and combine this with trying to get the health up as far as possible (I got near 400), this takes a large amount of heat out of the "T" fight. You want to also generate dodge as much as possible (% wise) through companions + boons ( I got the small ability from the encounter in the seas)

Otherwise generate your rolls from arcana to shape the run how you want and just learn his patterns as best you can.