Skyrim:The Ebony Warrior

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Locate and defeat the Ebony Warrior. Quest Giver: Ebony Warrior Location(s): Radiant city, Last Vigil Reward: Several pieces of heavily enchanted ebony equipment, several valuable gems ID: DLC2EbonyWarriorQuest Required Level: 80

The Ebony Warrior

Quick Walkthrough

1. Reach level 80.
2. Locate the Ebony Warrior.
3. Defeat the Ebony Warrior.

Detailed Walkthrough

Upon your reaching level 80, a mysterious warrior wearing a full suit of ebony armor will approach you in any major city and challenge you to a duel at his Last Vigil. After the conversation, the quest will then update to give the location, a camp northeast of Fort Greenwall. The Ebony Warrior will not attack you when approached, and will not speak. He will simply stand, brandishing his sword as a clear invitation. You must initiate the attack for the battle to begin. Make sure that you are prepared for one serious fight. It is advised to wear the strongest armor you can get and have plenty of potions at the ready. You may want to bring a follower as well.

The Ebony Warrior is arguably the toughest enemy in the game, and his high armor rating and multiple elemental resistances make him hard to kill for both mages and melee characters. He also has a number of perks to aid him in combat, including the top perks in the One-Handed, Archery, and Heavy Armor skills. He is the only non-Nord NPC capable of using certain dragon shouts in combat. These shouts include Unrelenting Force, which may easily knock you off the edge of the nearby cliffs. The Ebony Warrior can also be harmed by falling damage, but you must damage him after he lands but before he stands back up for the damage to take effect, otherwise he can survive any fall and will actually be restored to full health after he gets back on his feet.

Whatever your tactics, once you have defeated the Ebony Warrior the quest will conclude and you may loot his body for his fully enchanted set of equipment and a few other treasures.

Notes

• The Ebony Warrior will only appear once you have reached level 80.
• Since the Ebony Warrior does not attack until he is attacked, if you have the Assassin's Blade perk, you can sneak behind him and easily kill him with a strong dagger.
• The Ebony Warrior is also not immune to poison (merely 50% resistant, like any other Redguard). You can use a strong poison (for example, one derived from jarrin root) to slay him quickly.
• The Marked for Death shout can be very useful for making the fight easier.
• Because of the Ebony Warrior's Reflect Blows perk, striking him with a one-handed or two-handed weapon power attack can result in damage being reflected back and potentially killing you. Bow attacks do not incur this penalty and using a strong Fortify Archery potion and shooting him while sneaking can be an easier method for dispatching him quickly.
• If you have a Staff of Chain Lightning (which always staggers enemies upon hit, unlike the regular spell) and lots of filled Soul Gems, he can easily be killed (and kept at a distance, as he seems to prefer melee combat over archery) by using the staff and recharging it when necessary. A high Destruction skill and/or Fortify Destruction apparel will result in more charges of the staff and thus fewer Soul Gems needed.
• If the Ebony Warrior disarms you (or a low leveled follower through the Disarm Shout) of your weapon, be careful as it may roll all the way down the mountain, causing you to potentially lose unique weapons to the wilderness.

Bugs

• When the Ebony Warrior is killed, the game stats might count the death as a murder.
  • The Unofficial Dragonborn Patch, version 2.0.4, fixes this bug.
• There is a rare occasion where the Ebony Warrior will be hostile on sight to you when he initially spawns. This can be fixed by being sent to jail through submitting to the guard in the hold that he spawned in. ^?
• If the Ebony Warrior appears first, during one of the vampire attacks, he might get stuck in an endless animation loop of cowering in fear. This prevents him from talking to you, including to initiate the quest. ^?
  • Using the "resetAI" console command, on him fixes this: Face him, open console, select him with left-click, type and execute the command.
• If you use the Soul Tear shout to kill the Ebony Warrior and loot his body before he rises you can attack him again and he will gain a new set of ebony armor.
• If you run up the hill past the dead Frost Troll, the Ebony Warrior can get stuck behind one of the low rocks as he pursues you. ^?

Quest Stages

The Ebony Warrior (DLC2EbonyWarriorQuest)
Stage	Finishes Quest	Journal Entry
10		A warrior in Ebony tried to talk to me on the streets of <alias=StartCity>. Objective 10: Talk to the Ebony Warrior
100		A warrior in ebony mail approached me in <alias=StartCity>. He has challenged me to fight him at his last vigil, wherever that is. Objective 100: Meet the Ebony Warrior at the Last Vigil
200	Finishes quest	I have defeated the Ebony Warrior. May his soul find rest in Sovngarde.

• The following empty quest stages were omitted from the table: 5.

Notes

• Any text displayed in angle brackets (e.g., <Alias=LocationHold>) is dynamically set by the Radiant Quest system, and will be filled in with the appropriate word(s) when seen in game.
• Not all Journal Entries may appear in your journal; which entries appear and which entries do not depends on the manner in which the quest is done.
• Stages are not always in order of progress. This is usually the case with quests that have multiple possible outcomes or quests where certain tasks may be done in any order. Some stages may therefore repeat objectives seen in other stages.
• If an entry is marked as "Finishes Quest" it means the quest disappears from the Active Quest list, but you may still receive new entries for that quest.
• On the PC, it is possible to use the console to advance through the quest by entering setstage DLC2EbonyWarriorQuest stage, where stage is the number of the stage you wish to complete. It is not possible to un-complete (i.e. go back) quest stages, but it is possible to clear all stages of the quest using resetquest DLC2EbonyWarriorQuest.