The Champions is the fifth quest in the House of Ballads questline.
Walkthrough[]
You receive a Resurrection Potion from Hallam and are on your way. To reach Windemere go to the northeast of Odarath. You will have a short scene with the Maid of Windemere before you reach Sir Airmer. Choose your opponent but watch out for the Crudoks that jump into the fray. Loot the unlucky challenger for the House of Ballads Set.
Alternatively with a Dispelling skill level of 3+ (depending on your level), it is possible to dispel the curse and get the armor without a fight.
Equip the set to unlock the door (you can remove the armor right after that) and move east to fight a Rock Troll that impedes your path. Climb to the top of the hill and you will meet the Maid of Windemere again who tells you that you cannot proceed without defeating Sir Elswin (Champion of Windemere) who was already killed. Run back down into the water and find his corpse (located closest to where the river breaks in two paths but on the eastern side). Resurrect Sir Elswin and then slay him. Before heading up the ramp again check around the corner in the water for a (very hard locked) chest. Be careful, do not bring him back to life and leave; he will be dead again and you won't be able to bring him back.
Cross the gorge and face off with Creth or Airmer (whichever one you did not defeat to loot the House of Ballad armor set from) and a Thresh. Alternatively you can dispel here as well to avoid the battle with a Dispelling skill of 3+ depending on your level. With all foes out of the way, enter Summer's End, thus completing the quest.
Loot[]
- House of Ballads Armor Set
- Mage's Gem (If Airmer is slain)
- Quest completion XP (but no Gold) - about 5800 (at level 25)
- Through the waterfall is an Altar of Belen with two lootable skeletons (random loot)
- Across the river to the north lies a dispel chest (hard), (random loot), guarded by a Rock Troll, 2 Sprites, 1 Sprite Champion.
- Average locked chest to the right of the bridge. (random loot)
- Skeleton on bank of southern branch of river. (random loot), looting skeleton triggers 3rd potential Rock Troll encounter.
- Entering "cave" swimming southern branch of river, westward, dive spot (unique/rare item)
- whirpool near bridge, southern branch of river, (random loot)
- across bridge, eastern branch of river, hard locked chest (random loot with one unique random item).
- Very hard unlock chest across the bridge down the eastern side of the river (random loot) *Summer's End Lorestone, top of gorge.
Notes[]
- Sir Elswin takes his death rather calmly. Just ask him how he died.
- It is possible to use the Dispel skill on Sir Airmer and Sir Creth, which results in them giving you the House of Ballads Armor (a Dispelling skill of 3 is required).
- Sometimes even if you have a Dispel skill of 3 or even 4, the option to Dispel-Persuade Sir Ceth nor Sir Airmer does not appear. This can be fixed by either taking a Greater Dispel Potion or visiting a Fate Weaver and adding more than 3-4 points to Dispel, since it is safe to Fast Travel. (Confirmed this happens at at least level 28 on Xbox 360 and PS3, it's recommended to have at least 6 points in Dispel before you proceed with this quest if you would rather not kill Sir Ceth or Sir Aimer).
- (Tested at level 18, PS3) Make sure you have 4 points on the Dispel skill before approaching Sir Airmer and Sir Creth while they are fighting, you will be able to use Dispel on both of them.
- (Tested at level 19,PS3) You can use dispel in one of them after aproaching them.
Bugs[]
- (PC - ARR) It is possible that Creth or Aimer may permanently knock the other down while they dual, as if one has killed the other, when the player first approaches. They can be spoken to but not otherwise interacted with, and cannot be fought. Using Dispel in conversation may help solve this. You can also try fast travelling to a location further away such as the House of Ballads, then running back. Save first and do not fast travel to Windemere, as at this point they may truly be dead and can only be looted, but the quest marker will not update, rendering the quest impassable.
- It is also possible for Aimer to become stuck under the ground near the cart. This occurs when you begin attacking Aimer, and push him far enough to the cart. Currently no fix for this.
- Unable to resurrect Sir Elswin and only offered a dialog option on his corpse. One solution is to enter hostile mode and attack his corpse until he 'dies'. After that, interacting with the corpse a second time should allow the use of the resurrection potion. Converse and then kill him (again) as per the quest objective. Killing all mobs (including sprites that don't show up on the map until you come near), walking out any "settlers", and looting his corpse may present the option to resurrect as well.
- Unable to resurrect Sir Elswin and only offered the looting/stealing option on his corpse. Just loot his corpse, then you can resurrect him.
- After dispelling or killing either Sir Creth or Sir Airmer, the full set of needed equipment is not added to the inventory, thus rendering the entire quest line un-finishable. There are no current fixes to this problem.
- If you resurrect Sir Elswin, leave, and return, you will not be able to resurrect him a second time.
- (PC - ARR) If the permanent knockdown happens from above, and you do not resolve it before moving on, then Creth or Aimer will not be moved to the quest location past the Weeping Gorge for you to fight and get the key to continue on after killing Sir Elswin. You can verify this by opening your map and see the Quest Marker is still back at the initial location. The same solution can be done to resolve this as before: Save your game, fast travel away, fast travel back. It seems to reload the area and take note of the flag set for killing Sir Elswin to move Creth or Aimer to the proper location.