Oblivion:Arena (faction)

The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995

Pit Dog

Brawler

Bloodletter

Myrmidon

Warrior

Gladiator

Hero

Champion

Grand Champion

The Arena is in the Imperial City, where people of Cyrodiil watch brave warriors fight to the death for fame and gold. It was built by the first Blademaster Gaiden Shinji of the Order of Diagna to be a place where warriors could prove their worth. Though he died before its completion, the Arena owes its existence to him.

Contents 1 Betting 1.1 Bugs 2 Joining 3 Advantages 4 Expulsion 5 Arena Rules 6 Tips 7 Three Especially Difficult Fights 8 Matches 9 Titles 10 Notes 11 Bugs 12 Journal Entries

[edit] Betting

One option available to all players (joining the Arena faction is not necessary) is to bet on a match. Talk to Hundolin, who stands out in front of the Arena every day from 9am to 9pm. He will allow you to place a bet (25, 50, or 100 gold) on either the Blue Team or the Yellow Team. You cannot place a bet on your own match.

The odds of either gladiator winning are basically 50/50: the two gladiators have the same level, and are randomly equipped from the same equipment lists. Invisible walls around the spectator area prevent you from influencing the battle in any way (forget ranged fortify/heal spells).

There is one way in which the chances are skewed: your luck determines the health of the two gladiators. If your luck is 49 or less, the two gladiators will have equal health. Otherwise, the health of whichever combatant you bet upon will be increased according to the following table. The calculation is based upon your modified luck, taking into account any fortify, damage, or drain effects. Note that there are a couple of coding glitches: there is no health bonus if your luck is exactly 99; nor is there any health bonus if your luck is greater than 100.

Player Luck	Health Modifier
50-59	+5
60-69	+10
70-79	+15
80-89	+20
90-98	+25
100	+30

[edit] Bugs

• If you can fortify your acrobatics to 700 it is possible to jump over the invisible walls surrounding the spectator area. You can then kill the combatant that you did not bet on. Feel free to loot the bodies of the arena combatants after they are dead. When trying to exit the arena, you cannot exit through the normal doors. You have to jump back up to the spectator area and exit through the doors you came in through.
• If you bet on the yellow team, you will be in the yellow team box. When the combatant from yellow wins and is facing you, kill someone. An Imperial Legion soldier will come. If you then kill him while the combatant is facing you, they will run towards the wall under you (this may take a few tries to work). Run outside, and in about 10 seconds, the combatant will appear outside. You can then kill them and obtain the yellow team's raiment. This technique also works with the blue team, but bet on the blue team instead then.

[edit] Joining

To join the gladiatorial ranks, speak to Owyn the Blademaster in the bloodworks. You will always become a member of the Blue Team.

[edit] Advantages

The arena payment increases 50 gold per rank, starting at 50. The last match in each rank (the advancement match) pays equal to the rank you advance to. The end pay is 500 gold. There are 3 matches per rank, between which you can use the Basin of renewal in the "Red Room" (so named because that's where people leave to fight, and the corpses are dragged back through) to heal yourself, restore Magicka, and restore Fatigue.

When you become an Arena Champion, you can pick a nickname, which people will remember and cheer, for you. After slaying the Gray Prince and becoming the Grand Champion, you will be approached by an Adoring Fan who will want to be your "groupie". This guy's enthusiasm is almost scary! You have a choice of allowing him to follow or telling him to "beat it". If you allow him, he will follow you everywhere. You can give him the order to wait though, or tell him to leave you alone at anytime. For all his annoyances, he does make a good torchbearer at night! You can also use your groupie for Stealth Practice by telling him to wait and then walking around behind him and picking his pocket. You can also kill him to begin the Dark Brotherhood quest-line.

When you become the Grand Champion you will also get a Raiment of Valor. Be sure to take Agronak's Raiment from the Gray Prince when you beat him. Once you give it to Ysabel, she will give you your own in return - Heavy or Light. Alternatively, if you decide not to finish the quest, you will get to keep Agronak's Raiment, which (unlike your own raiment) is a quest item and therefore effectively has no weight.

Afterwards, when you manage to make it to the "show" matches, you can start looting. This is mainly important once you start fighting Minotaurs, who carry some decent weapons (normally hammers) that you can pick up when you kill them, as well as Minotaur horns, which are useful in Alchemy. Your reward after each fight is a level-dependent amount of gold (40-1490 gold), multiplied by the number of creatures you fought. (NOTE: There is a glitch that may prevent one of the ogres from entering the arena, during the matches involving ogres, which can be used to your advantage.)

Beyond the gold, you will gain 31 fame points for completing the entire Arena quest. You get 10 fame points for defeating The Gray Prince alone.

[edit] Expulsion

The first time you are disqualified in a match (for not wearing your battle raiment) Owyn will just shout at you and after that everything will be fine again. If you get disqualified a second time however, you are kicked out of the Arena guild and there is no way you can get back in.

[edit] Arena Rules

• First, you are issued armor for a reason. If you do not wear it, you do not get in. You have a choice between light and heavy. The choice does not matter, due to the (unsafe) cupboard at the back that has five raiments of each. Note: If you change to a different armor mid-battle, you are disqualified and sent back inside. This is the ONLY way to get out of the Arena without killing or being killed.
  • There is one exception to this rule: you are free to summon bound armor if you wish, but only if you are wearing the raiment when you cast.

• Second, you cannot scavenge the corpses of your foes.
  • This prohibition extends to weapons that been knocked out of an opponents' hands. The sole exception to the rule are arrows which have missed: they can be recovered during or after a match.

When you fight the Gray Prince, and in all subsequent matches, you are free to use whatever armor you desire, with whatever enchantments, and take anything from your fallen opponents.

[edit] Tips

• After every fight, make sure you use the basin, since it heals you as well as restores all your magicka and fatigue. You can only use it after a fight.
• Drop your excess stuff on the ground or in a safe place.
• Summon something to distract/hurt the enemy.
• Pay attention to the advice Owyn gives you. The race of the person can help you plan out your battle.
• Use poisons/enchantments to your advantage.

• If you are playing a sneaky sort, then here is a great option to complete the whole Arena section in less than a day. Leave the Arena completely alone until you have raised your Sneak and Marksman skills to expert level, then every match should proceed like this: Walk up to the bars and listen to the announcer, but before he finishes talking enter sneak mode. Back down the stairs whilst pulling your bow and holding an arrow on nock. Now zoom in. Position yourself so you can just see your opponent over the top step and wait. The opponent will come out looking for you, but unable to see you, will stop in the center of the arena. You can then snipe the opponent from your hiding spot until victory.

• If you have access to the Arcane University, your mage's staff can be very effective here.

• Here is a nice way to push through a tough fight. When you enter the arena to fight, run to a wall close to a gate and jump up on to the wall. Keep jumping until your reach the top. The only way you will be injured will be from magic and arrows. This is a great place to restore yourself and fight. Many attackers will not know what to do.

• If you are playing as a mage, summon a creature then cast invisibility on yourself, this way you can win any match effortlessly.

• As you enter the Arena, while the announcement is being shouted, move to the right corner of the small room with the gate as you go in. Jump onto the small ledge while facing away from it, and then turn. You should be in the wall, protecting you from the opponent while still being able to attack it. You can also fall off, and then go forward so that you are below the arena. You will be teleported into the Arena while the announcements are still being read out.

• The flaming pedestals in the center of each wall on the arena make a nice entry point to climb the walls if you have reasonably good acrobatic skill. Jump to the top of the flaming pedestal and then jump again to the wall above and walk to the end of the wall and turn around to face the arena. This makes a nice inaccessible position from which you can:
  

1. summon the creature of your choice to fight the battle for you
2. practice your marksmanship with your bow (most effective at night using sneak mode)
3. practice ranged destruction spells
4. any combination of the previous suggestions
   

Note : Unless combined with sneak mode and the darkness of night, this position is not very effective against archers.

• If you are well trained in the marksman and athletic skills, you can run backwards while shooting your opponent. If performed effectively, this will allow you to escape most matches without taking too much damage.

• You do not need to carry around your heavy or light raiment. You do not even need to repair it. The cupboard next to Owyn respawns 5 light and 5 heavy raiments, regularly.

• The four pillars in the arena make a small, but effective way to guard from arrows, just make sure you know where the enemy is at all times and hide behind the pillar to heal or pop out and shoot magic.

[edit] Three Especially Difficult Fights

1. In one battle, you are pitted against three Argonian prisoners, two of which are unarmed. The best strategy to use is to jump on one of the pillars to the outside of the arena. From there you can use magic or bows. Take out the swordsman and the rest will be easy. Try to have some potions of Restore Fatigue to replenish your fatigue if you are becoming tired. You could try to engage in a one on one fight, although this might be hard because the three opponents tend to swarm around you. Ranged attacks and Conjuration magic are valuable tactics. Another useful method is to use Demoralize effects on the prisoners to allow you to pick them off one at a time.

2. Owyn says it is unfair, and it is. You are pitted against the Yellow Team Champion, one Pitdog, and one Bloodletter: a ranger and a spellsword. Luckily, you have a boar called Porkchop. Use whatever strategy you want, but it is recommended that you take down the two lower-level enemies first, mainly so you can concentrate on the real fight. Another strategy is for you to take on the Champion while Porkchop easily takes down the archer and the mage. After Porkchop easily kills the mage and archer he will help you kill the Champion, which will be no problem. Again, Conjuration might be a good idea, making it 3 vs. 3 in the beginning. You can make this really easy if you have some invisibility potions or spells, just use them when the gate opens, let Porkchop do the dirty work and watch the show (Do not attack any of them or they will see you).

3. Grand Championship. There is a good chance you will not agree that it is a tough fight. This is mainly due to the fact that if you have done the quest Agronak gives you (Origin of the Gray Prince), he will refuse to fight you as he no longer wishes to live. If you kill him, outright it will be considered a murder and the Dark Brotherhood and all of Cyrodiil will notice you. A way around this is to kill him with a poisoned weapon. Use a damage health potion on your weapon and make sure the poison gives the final blow. He is a level 10 Orc, so, if you are above that level, you will have an easy fight. However, with the difficulty of the Arena on the default, you will probably be able to get to this point by level 5 or so. He has a really annoying attack where he spins around, and most of the time if it hits you it sends you flying into the air. He will usually attack you while you are lying on the ground. Just pay attention to your blocks, and keep the potions handy.

[edit] Matches

Note that the armor and weapons of your opponents in the Arena are leveled, i.e. at high levels you will be facing opponents with glass or daedric weapons and armor, rather than those described here, which are low level. A detailed description of the gear used by Arena opponents can be found at Arena Combatants.

Pit Dog Matches

1. Woman with a sword and light shield. No problems.
2. Man with a heavy shield and a mace/sword.
3. Argonian with bow and arrows. Not really any harder than the others. For ranged characters (particularly ranged spellcasters), this is the easiest fight in the arena because you can simply dodge his attacks while blasting him apart.

Brawler Matches

1. Your first real fight is against a battlemage. He uses frost magic, and can heal himself.
2. Two Bosmer: One is an archer with an elven bow and the other is a warrior with a dwarven claymore. The warrior will do a good job of positioning herself behind you so that your back is exposed to the archer. Try back-pedaling into the tunnel from which you enter the Arena; the decreased angle of elevation inside the tunnel will prevent the archer from hitting you. It is possible to keep possitioning yourself behind the warrior, which will result in her sister to shoot her down, both fun and very effective. Watch out for the archer though, she has a Strong Potion of Chameleon.
3. A crazy Khajiit with a big axe. He has a lot of health, and can heal himself. Not a problem if you are prepared. If you do not have a lot of HP, bringing a shield and some health potions is recommended.

Bloodletter Matches

1. Your first opponent as a Bloodletter is a male Redguard who can use either a sword or a mace, along with a shield. Your standard match. (He tends to run back and forth though, sometimes making it difficult to hit him)
2. This opponent is decked out in heavy armor, including a shield. She uses a short sword, though. She is rather fast, but if you are a mage, the tactic is still the same: run, fireball, run, fireball…
3. This Dunmer is a bit annoying. He has fire resistance, so fireballs do not work, can hit ranged with his bow or melee with a longsword. He does not have much health, though—rush him and he will die to either touch spells or your weapon.

Myrmidon Matches

1. The Blademaster will warn you about this Bosmer's dagger. In addition, it is not bad, really, but he has low health. The Bosmer is fast, though.
2. Not much of a challenge. An Altmer with a light shield, light raiment, cap and a longsword, with little health.
3. A fast Orc with a silver battleaxe. And a heavy raiment. A lot of health.

Warrior Matches

1. A fast, heavily armored Nord female with a silver longsword and a mithril shield. It is as easy/difficult as the last Orc - just do not use cold spells.
2. And now for something completely different: a spellcasting Altmer female with a silver longsword. Close up is the easiest way to go, although she does have nasty touch spells. She also has one spell that will break your wielded weapon.
3. Here is a tougher one. A very fast female Orc in a heavy raiment with a two-handed glass warhammer. She knows how to dish out damage and stun; she also has a ridiculous amount of health, so stay out of reach. When she goes in for those power attacks just avoid them and attack in between her attacks. It is a good idea to use a longsword in order to keep your distance. Do not even try to block; she will just stagger you. If you manage to disarm her, she is then relativly easy. (if you keep her from picking her weapon back up)

Gladiator Matches

1. Three Argonians: Two unarmed and one with a shortsword. In melee, the unarmed ones will eat up your fatigue and you will barely be able to get a hit in. In addition, if you want to go ranged be warned that the three are very fast. Take out the unarmed ones first. Even if you are a melee character, do not stand still or you will be killed. Be careful on these three- one of them will attempt to flank you. See the above "Three toughest" for more.
2. This Khajiit uses an Elven longsword. It hurts. In addition, she is fast. She is quite good at blocking too. Apart from that, not much different from any other sword-and-shield opponent.
3. A Breton with tons and tons of health, very fast and even though he has no shield, his damage factor really makes up for that with his Elven Longsword. If you can stay ahead of him while running, use hit-and-run, otherwise, learn to block.

Hero Matches

1. You are getting close to the title now. The first opponent is a former Blade with an Akaviri Katana and standard heavy Blades armor with a shield. Not as tough as the last fight, but dangerous for the unprepared.
2. The most annoying match for mages. A breeze for everyone else. A Master of Destruction with The Gray Aegis, a shield with 100% Resist Magic that makes him immune to magic. His weakness? He deals very little damage.
3. The final match against the Yellow Team! You fight against the Yellow Team Champion, an archer and a mage (the latter two are low level). See above "Three toughest". You also get to fight alongside the Porkchop, the blue team boar. Be careful, Porkchop might just attack you if you hit him. In addition, if you use invisibility right before the match starts, Porkchop will kill all of the fighters for you, or end up living up to his name if you are a high level.

Champion Match

Become the Grand Champion!!! You have to fight the Gray Prince. See Three Especially Difficult Fights.

• Note - When you beat The Gray Prince and talk to his coach, you will gain 10 fame points!
• Remember that this match can be won without taking any damage by completing the Origin of the Gray Prince quest, and also if you do not let him talk to you when entering the arena you will also not gain infamy points (this can be done by long range attacks while going further down your own tunnel.
• There is a glitch that sometimes will not let you leave the Arena after killing The Gray Prince and looting his body.
• Instead of the long range/tunnel method, those with a high/maxed Destruction skill and access to a spellmaking altar can kill the Gray Prince in one hit to avoid infamy- his HP is not very high. Include in your spell a 1 sec Paralyze to knock him down and allow the spell's damage to occur over 3-4 seconds.

Your Retirement

After you kill The Gray Prince, go talk to the battle matron. She will start talking about arranging weekly fights against varying creatures, and you may choose between 1-3 to fight, once per week. You of course get more money for more critters killed (Note that the time you take killing the creatures also matters to how much you will get paid. For example if you kill one lion fast enough it can earn you more money than killing 2 lions slower.), but try not to die because you were overconfident. In these matches, you can fight with whatever weapons/armor you feel like. It is unknown whether these fights are randomized, but since this is a recurring event even if they are not, we likely will not be making strategies for them.

At level 5 or lower, you choose between 1 boar, 1 boar + 1 wolf, or 2 wolves + 1 goblin skirmisher.

At levels 6-8, you can fight 1 goblin berserker, 2 trolls or 2 goblin berserkers + 1 troll.

At levels 9-11, you fight either 1 lion, 2 lions, or 2 lions + 1 spriggan.

At levels 12-14, you fight 1 bear, 2 minotaurs, or 1 bear + 2 minotaurs.

At levels 15-17, you fight 1 ogre, 2 ogres or 2 ogres + 1 land dreugh.

At level 18 and higher, you fight 1-3 minotaur lords. The minotaur lords can be killed with ranged weapons from the tunnel because they are too large to go through the gate^(?). If you don't kill the minotaur lords fast enough using this method, then one or all of them might be transported into the tunnel with you. This is assumed to be a glitch; however, it is consistent in the game.

[edit] Titles

Once you challenge Agronak for the title of Grand Champion, Ysabel will tell you that you need an Arena name; something that, as she puts it, "the people of Cyrodiil will remember when they tell stories about your inglorious defeat!" She gives you twelve options; two specific to your character's gender and ten usable by anybody.

All Characters The Black Arrow The Messenger of Death The Butcher Shadowstep The Crimson Blade Skullcrusher The Divine Avenger The Spellslinger Dragonheart The Tamriel Terror

Females Only The Iron Maiden Lady Luck

Males Only Man o' War Sir Slaughter

[edit] Notes

• Killing your arena opponents can potentially count as murder. This happens if the opponent is killed without him/her ever turning hostile, for example because you immediately cast a Demoralize spell. Although you will not gain a bounty for the murder, it will appear in your statistics and will initiate the Dark Brotherhood questline.

• When you become the Grand Champion of the arena, Owyn tells you that "you killed every last one of the Yellow Team" and that "it will take them weeks to recover". However, seconds later, you can talk to Hundolin, bet on a match, and watch a Yellow Team fighter brawl.

• If you are new to the game and need arrows, a great way to get some is to go to the Bloodworks. There, a Blue Gladiator will either be shooting a target with arrows, or punching a punching bag. If he is shooting arrows, stand back. Let him fire off about 6 or 7. He will start walking to the target, presumably to get his arrows. Quickly grab them before he can. If you walk too close to the target or in his line of fire while he is shooting, he will stop.

• If you have the coordination and patience, you can obtain a decent supply of leveled arrows by simply dodging attacks from archer type opponents.

• There are a couple of free weapons around the Bloodworks. It will not be stealing if you take them once you're a combatant, but they are not particularly good or valuable.

• The word "Myrmidon" derives from the Greek for "ant-warrior", making the dog-like thing depicted on the icon somewhat incongruous. In the Iliad, the soldiers ruled by Achilles and who followed him to Troy were called myrmidons because they were fabled to have been transformed from ants into men.

• It is possible that the Arena was originally intended to go in Chorrol, as the actual betting area is named in the editor "ChorrolArena" and nearly all of the parts to make the arena have the prefix Chorrol in them. There is also a cell named "AnvilArenaMain" in Anvil, it is centralized outside the walls, however no other traces of Arena can be found in Anvil. It is presumed that they decided to change this to the Imperial City because of size restrictions in Chorrol and Anvil or just because it would seem more fitting in the Imperial City.

• In random dialogue, some NPCs will claim that the Arena fights are faked:

You think those guys are getting killed? Really? It's just berry syrup and ham-acting.

• The chest next to Hundolin in the Arena entrance contains 500 gold and makes a good source of cash for enterprising thieves.

• After you defeat the Gray Prince, the commentator incorrectly states "See the Blademaster to collect your winnings..." when in fact you have to see the Battle Matron.

[edit] Bugs

• There is a commonly occurring bug that makes it impossible to become Grand Champion if you have completed the Origin of the Gray Prince sidequest.

On the PC this can be resolved through use of the console.

• Go into the arena to fight gro-Malog, do not attack him, let him run up to you and beg you to kill him. Then kill him. Take his Raiment of Valor and then run the following commands in the console...
• SetStage MS52 100
• SetStage ArenaDialogue 50
• Then go downstairs and speak with Ysabel and you should be able to complete the quest.

• This may be related to another reported bug in which the game will not allow the player to leave the Arena after killing gro-Malog - again, the Gray Prince sidequest seems to be at the root of everything. To get out of this problem you should be able to run the same console codes as stated earlier and continue.

• There is also a bug that occurs if you have the Thieves Den Official Mod installed. After you have beaten the Gray Prince and spoken with the battle matron, where the incomplete quest entry for 'Arena' in your journal says, "I've got everything" but can never be furthered or completed. This is because the plug-in overrides the standard quest with a set of stages of its own:

Stage	Journal Entry
10
20	Woot! I got the fletcher!
30	Stealth trainer for me!
40	Where my supplier at? Oh yeah, in my cave.
50	Security trainer and his box of locks are active!
60	Climb the fence! *groan*
100	I've got everything.

To remove this entry from your journal, run the following command in the console: CompleteQuest 0002991F or CompleteQuest Arena

• If you kill gro-Malog without ever actually talking to him, his corpse will ask you to kill him when you attempt to loot his body. This is because the match script will resurrect gro-Malog (only once) if you kill him before speaking to him, but the game registers him as dead. You will notice that even though it looks like you're going to loot a corpse, it still shows a life-gauge with a sliver of life. You can attack him again at that point and he will permanently die.

[edit] Journal Entries

Arena (ArenaDialogue)
Stage	Journal Entry
10	If I wish to join the Arena faction as a combatant, I must speak with Owyn the Blademaster in the Arena Bloodworks.
20	I am now a combatant in the Arena faction. To arrange for a match, I must speak with Owyn in the Arena Bloodworks, in the Imperial City. After every match, I must speak to Owyn again to close out the match and receive any rewards earned. While I'm involved in any active matches, I will be unable to bet on any fights.
40	I am now an Arena Champion. There are no more standard matches left to fight. Instead, I must challenge the Grand Champion, Agronak gro-Malog, for his title.
50	I have defeated the Gray Prince and have been named the new Arena Grand Champion! Ysabel Andronicus told me to return to her after I've gotten some rest, so we can discuss my future.
100	As Arena Grand Champion, I can fight in weekly matches against various creatures. All I need do is see Ysabel Andronicus in the Arena Bloodworks and tell her I'm ready for a match.

Notes

• 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 random order.
• 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 quest stage. Where quest is the internal name of the quest, and stage is the number of the stage you wish to complete. It is not possible to un-complete (i.e. go back) quest stages. See SetStage for more information.
• You can remove the last journal entry by using the following console command: completequest arenadialogue. Doing this will not prevent you from participating in Arena matches.