Seeking Revenge is a Quest in Divinity: Original Sin II. You find Gareth and Bishop Alexandar at the top of the Elven Temple ready to fight. Which side will you choose?
Important NPCs
Seeking Revenge Objectives
- Find Bishop Alexandar and Gareth at the top of the Elven Temple.
- Pick a side.
Seeking Revenge Walkthrough
At the top of Elven Temple, Gareth is in a standoff with Bishop Alexandar. Depending on your choice, several scenarios can happen.
However, know now that if you did not convince Gareth to abandon his quest of revenge during Burying the Past quest, you will not be able to succeed any Persuasion checks (47 in stat + 7 persuasion failure, tagged as impossible in system). It's also worth noting that Ifan will not engage in his conversation with the Bishop until after the encounter with Gareth (and if you intend to kill him, you can always do it now).
If you successfully persuade Gareth to stand down, he will return to the Lady Vengeance and wait for you there. You will gain 70,225 XP (50,150 XP in DE Edition) for successfully persuading him and the quest will end. Depending on the dialogue choices made previously with Gareth, certain speech checks may not be available (for example, only Strength and Memory speech checks may be available, if you stopped Gareth from taking revenge in Burying the Past). It should be noted that this path, while satisfying, does not give the most XP or rewards.
If you decide to defend Alexandar against Gareth, or decide to simply walk away and do nothing, Gareth will attack you. Kill him for 40,125XP and the quest ends (20,225 XP in DE Edition).
If you decide to attack Alexandar with Gareth, Delorus (if he survived back at Fort Joy and you led him here earlier), will try to persuade you not to attack Alexandar. Ultimately though, if you want to attack Alexandar, there is only one choice here: you will have to fight Alexandar and his bunch of cronies, along with Delorus. Slaughter them all; a well-placed thunderstorm spell here will instantly kill your enemies here if your critical chance and intelligence is high enough. Delorus gives only 100 XP (50 XP DE Edition), Alexandar gives no XP, while the 5 magisters/paladins are worth 40,125 XP each (22,075 XP in DE Edition), making it a total of 200,725 XP (110,425 XP DE Edition). Once they are all dirt in the ground, Gareth will talk to you and reward you with a choice of Divine-quality loot. The quest is complete at this point. Remember not to eat Alexandar's head as an elf if you want to complete "The Sallow Man" quest (by eating the head, you can learn how to enter the council, but there is a better way to do so, listed below)!
If you killed Alexandar, before you leave, you can also cast spirit vision and speak to the spirit of Alexandar, and as long as you have a persuasion skill of 5 (lower skill levels may require more investment in the specific stat), you can simply pass any of the speech check options and learn how to enter the council from him, without having to do his quest of killing the Sallow Man. You will earn experience based on the number of Altars to the 7 that you have prayed at. The more Altars you have already learned from, the less experience you get).
Notes:
- If you are planning to side with the Black Ring, you will have to kill Alexandar either way, so simply finishing them off here with the help of Gareth nets you the most rewards. You can then loot his body and give his head to the Sallow Man to learn how to get into the Academy (or you can just get in there through the southern entrance).
- If you are planning to side with the Magisters, you can let Alexandar live and fulfill his request of killing the Sallow Man. However, note that he will turn against you later on in the Arena of One.
Rewards:
- 70,225XP for persuading Gareth not to attack Bishop Alexandar (50,150 XP DE Edition ) You can kill Alexandar and his group after if you are going to do the Sallow Man questline.
- A total of 200,625XP (+100XP if Delorus is there) and a choice of Divine-quality loot for killing Bishop Alexandar and his group with or without Gareth (110,375 XP + 50 XP if Delorus is there DE Edition ) OR
- 40,125XP for defending Alexandar against Gareth, resulting in you having to kill Gareth (20,225 XP in DE Edition).
AnonymousI just straight up ported every single one of them to a killzone but eventually the dialogue bugged out so after i killed every single one of his slaves. I literally surrounded the guy and went to town on him. i was going to try and bring him to the shrieker outside i save one specifically just for him XD but i got lazy and it was too far.
So it sounds like most xp comes from convincing Gareth to stand down, then killing Alexander et al.
FYI once Alex and his party are dead, speak to his spirit and convince him that you are a worthy Godwoken. He will then tell you all the altar signs which nets another 20k xp
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
To cheese the combat just let one of you characters start the talking and while he is doing that, damage any of the secondary characters (I just went to one of the elevated positions and teleported the magister standing there to the ground). That will trigger a combat where Alexander, Gareth and the strongest magister, Roe, won't participate so you can first clean the easy ones and then just end the chat and focus Alexander. Tried in DE 28/1/2022
- Anonymous
FWIW, I (Sebille, 16) stopped Gareth with a borderline persuasion. BUT, I also had Ifan in my party. And he rightfully wanted some serious blood.
So I let him do his thang and make easy, bloody work of Alexander. The remaining party was simple to CC. It was fun, 10/10, would recommend.
- Anonymous
Don't know if I took too long to get there or if entering the elven temple from the side bugged it, but when I got there, Gareth was already dead and Alexandar was nowhere to be found.
- Anonymous
used [hero] trait to stop gareth from seeking revenge(which is listed in the quest log) after his parents died(mostly due to me wanting to explore stuff and trigerring the quest) seems like the skillcheck is still impossible this way despite him being convinced
either way both choices suck
help shitty alex ->kill poor gareth and then get this dumbster turning on you later
help gareth->the man will turn in to a monk later
- Anonymous
The quest won't complete after I've killed both Alex and Gareth..
- Anonymous
DE on PC. Helping Gareth to defeat Alexander is one of the worst choice you can ever make in this game.
1. Gareth does not reward you a Divine-quality item but Legendary-quality one. They're useless other than selling for some cash.
2. The quest itself gives you only 20,225XP (excluding XP from fighting Alexander gang), even less than killing Gareth instead. Since you're going to kill both Sallow man and Alexander for XP, this choice actually grants you least XP.
3. Gareth will leave after Alexander dropping dead. And the next time you meet him in Act 4, he already becomes a Silent Monk in Lucian's gang. Poor man.
It is not possible to talk Gareth down if Gareth's parents are killed in Act 3 and you helped him revenge. So if you want to get most XP while keeping Gareth alive, you must persuade Gareth to kill Johansen in Driftwood Meadows in Act 3, then defending Gareth's parent from Voidwokens in Paradise Down. Then in Act 4, persuade Gareth to forgive Alexander.
If you already helped Gareth revenge in Act 3, then you'd better kill him gracefully in this quest. This will net you +20,000XP more, and saved him from the misery worse than death.
- Anonymous
First run, the first thing I do was discover the hidden enter to the academy, then I back and what I find after do the 7 altars? Gareth dead...sorry for bad english
- Anonymous
Persuaded Gareth to not fight him, then Ifan decided to speak to Alexandar when I walked up to him, ended up choosing the option where Ifan stabs Alexandar and instantly killed him and took him out from the fight that follows up. Killed all his cronies but Delorus, put him to sleep and TP-ed everyone out. Talked to Alexandar's spirit and Delorus after the fight and they weren't even mad.
This part of the game is just straight up jank.
- Anonymous
Alexandar resurrected my teammates. Has this happened to anyone? I’m using a summoner elf along with Fane, Sebille, and Lohse. After a while, his cronies kill Fane and Lohse but I simply refused to give up even though I haven’t killed a single one of them yet.
A few turns later, Alexandar resurrects Lohse and puts her in a spot where nobody could reach her except she could keep buffing me along with Sebille. After that, he wastes his next turn to resurrect Fane and teleports him on the same spot he put Lohse in so basically my Fane and Lohse just kept buffing my Sebille and my Summoner until they all died. Pretty weird.
- Anonymous
This is my second playthrough, and I'm just as confused lore-wise as I was my first playthrough here. I haven't been shrugging off story information- I take in as much as I can, but for some reason, when I get to this fight.. I'm totally confused by the reactions to the conversation paths I take.
In the argument between Gareth and Alexander, how do you know "Alexander is not the same person anymore" to even justify choosing that option?
Why would you seriously persuade Gareth to stand down (not for exp reasons)? ... And why the ever living hell does Gareth storm off, mad at you, if you let him fight?
I'm probably missing info / confused, but I thought I'd understand this interaction by now. Both times I'm faced with the very first question in the confrontation dialogue, I have to come to the wiki to figure out wtf is even going on with Alexander to understand what I'm saying.. And then choosing the option I think is most siding with Gareth leaves him mad at me. So, like a good little boy, I reload my save, choose the option to have Gareth stand down, which doesn't make sense to me, just so I can have him go back to the ship and then carry on with killing Alexander, irked by the need to choose what I did.
What gives? Am I the only one? Do others naturally understand this confrontation when they get here?
- Anonymous
Another option. Persuade Gareth not to attack (+exp). And then you talk to alexander and attack him (+exp)
- Anonymous
Here's a pro tip: Alex can revive his allies. Beat him down first, and his minions are a lot easier to kill because he also stops buffing them. Gareth is also really squishy and draws lots of aggro so be sure to keep an eye of him. As always, corpse explosion is your friend. You can do lots of damage by beating down one of his rangers, then teleport-bombing alex (and hopefully a few allies) with it.
- Anonymous
You can kill Alexander and after the fight you (and Ifan) can speak with him through spirit vision.
You can let him talk and then you can let him absorb his spirit or you dont allow him and talk with alexander further (similiar like if you would kill Gareth and talk to him then).
- Anonymous
This is so stupid. I had no clue that alexander was having a standoff with garen in the temple, I just went to the academy, and now alexander is there, the mission is bricked and he won't give me the hood to the sallow man's cave for the swornbreaker part.
- Anonymous
"However, note that he will turn against you later on in the Arena of One."
Not necessarily true. If you kill the Shallow Man and bring him his head, you can persuade Alexander to fight for you in the Arena. He will join your team in the Arena, but he will be killed by Dallis upon reaching the Wellspring
Seeking Revenge - Killing Alexander - Maximum XP and a fun surprise!
I am just in love with how much freedom this game gives you!
So I reach the top of the Elven Temple. Red Prince in conversation with Gareth, while I place Fane and Lohse on high ground and Sebille right next to Gareth. Agree to side with Gareth and kill Alexander, fight begins, with Sebille doing fair amount of damage to Alexander's magic and physical armour. Both Fane and Lohse in my party have the teleportation skill, so I teleport the shield lady as far as possible from the fight. Lohse then has a field day taking down all magic armours.
One of Alexander's talent is faith, which means his party sides with him no matter what. At some point in the fight, I want to use Fane's Charm skill, which lets you charm an enemy into joining your side. I really like this skill. I look around to see who has no magic armour left and since I have been consistently targeting Alexander, it is just him with zero magic armour. So Fane charms him. And lo and behold! Combined with his Faith talent, what happens next is so unexpected and so much fun!
All of Alexander's minions and the shield lady turn start attacking him! They finished off Alexander for me. This was immensely fun to watch and gave me plenty of time of heal my other characters and Gareth. Finishing off the rest once Alexander was dead was easy.
- Anonymous
For some reason, if I choose to defend Alexander against Gareth, the Bishop and his goons turn hostile on me but only when I have the rest of the party with me. They only let me team up with them against Gareth if I'm just by myself.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
I fought and killed Alexander in the elven temple and got the Cowl of True Sight and a staff from him. The staff looked just like the one he always has and it seemed to be a unique weapon, though looking back it was probably a divine item (?) Does he always drop this or was this just what I got?
- Anonymous
Weird, i arrived at the elven temple and Alexander and his goons were not there, and Gareth was already dead ^^
In DE ... persuading Alexander's spirit to teach you how to enter the Lunar palace ... is only 20k xp now
- Anonymous
Persuaded Gareth to not fight. Let Ifan talk and free kill Alexandar (no XP anyway). Talked to Alexandar's spirit afterwards to learn how to enter council (more XP). Gareth remains on Lady Vengeance.
- Anonymous
where did gareth bust off after i killed alexander i cant see him
- Anonymous
I feel dirty. Best way to cheese this fight. Start the conversation, in the mean time, as some may mention, set up the fight with your other characters not in dialogue (meaning put them in high ground, place them etc). Then, if you have a pickpocket character, try steal and get caught by one of the guards not in conversation dialogue. This will trigger a fight with the remaining NPCS. only challenge is to kill them with three of your characters (as one will still be in dialogue). You'll basically have cleared everyone except for the bishop and magister roe. Bishop will most likely try to resurrect characters but i noticed he doesnt after the first one. Perhaps the timer is a lot longer. Fight at this point is trivial.
- Anonymous
If you help Gareth kill Alexander, he becomes 'free' and decides to blow you off. He "disavows you and parts ways." That's it for Gareth then, but I'd rather have him around for later, though he was some small help killing Alexander, though not much. Followed ice with fire spells which negated each other, and had no protection spells so we had to buff/save him. So he could flip us off? Nah, I'm going back to sending him to ship like a good little soldier, since I have high persuasion. Which skill is used is irrelevant if your PER is high enough.
- Anonymous
How to cheese out the Alexander fight: Make one of your teammate start the talking sequence, then start planning for attack, most likely get a ranged unit on top of the other side of the battlefield on a platform to do great overlook job Alexander, that lady with the shield, Delorus and your teammate will remain untargetable during the conversation. Now start the fight by hitting enemies that can be targeted There are 3 of them, because only Alexander and the shield lady is boss grade enemies, the encounter become much more easier. Replenish your health, source point, resummon your pets you can even save your progress and then you can finish the conversation and only fight 3 remaining enemies with all your skill and full HP. The range character on the platform is actually too far away, if enemies come that close they will count as leaving the battle, so no one can touch him/her, only you can shoot them but no one can get near you. You can also pop in and out stealth for Assassination in Huntsman skill as you will be counted as out of the battle once you are not shooting. Greatly increase your damage.
- Anonymous
Tried 2 different things in the Definitive Edition in order to max EXP: 1.) Most XP for me so far i) Started talking and persuaded Gareth, didnt finish the talking so (Gareth was convinced on leaving but i had to finish dialog to let him do so) ii) Started a fight against one of the Magisters on the elevated platforms. Resulted in a 4? man fight without Alex, Gareth, Delorus and Magister Roe. (4x20k xp) iii) Won that fight. Switched back into the char who did the talking and let him finish. No aggro for me but the 50k xp for the "not-fighting-Alex" solution iv) After Gareth left i started fight (via dialogue) with Alex resulting in another smaller fight (the rest of the guys + Alex resurrects one but u dont get xp of it v) After 2nd fight was won i used shadow vision and persuaded Alex to help me. Another juicy 140k xp Sum up 1 Version: 120k (6x20k xp, yes Delorus gives 20k) + 50k for "pieceful solution" + 140k via ghost of Alex for a total of: 310k xp (I guess u can just fight them after Gareth left for the same result on xp) 2.) Attack Alex together with ur buddy Gareth i) Results in 120k + 20k for violent quest solution (+a prolly useless item reward of legendary!! (not divine) tier) + 140k from ghost alex Sums up to a total of 280k. Never tried to kill Gareth instead nor letting Alex alive. Baseline: Do plan 1.) cause almost none random legendary is worth 30k.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
1st playthrough, I accidentally found the academy secret entrance before doing anything else on the island. I found Alexander there. After back tracking to the elf camp, the door elf tells me Alexander is chilling there but he wasn't, just a dead Gareth. :(
- Anonymous
so i have a question does anyone know why i alexander left and gareth is dead when i went to the tempel?
- Anonymous
I had persuasion 6 and I was able to persuade through all the dialogs, helped Gareth kill Alexander (epic fight) and he wasn't glitched. Remember to cast Spirit vision if you decide to kill Alexander to continue with the follow up quest.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Was able to convince Gareth to stand down... However, playing Fane as my MC, for some reason Alexander is stuck as "red" (instant aggro) to him. Even lowering my weapons (for Delorus) does nothing, it stops the fight for half a second before everyone reaggros again.
- Anonymous
I passed the Memory Check here with Sebille (I don't have Ifan in my party), with only 11 MEMORY but with 5 PERSUASION. Contrary to this article, I also persuaded him to stand down when he was burying his parents. Quoting Lucian with him seeks to work most of the time. I used my 18 memory Fane with 0 persuasion and I lost the check. In this quest, having a high persuasion matters most.
- Anonymous
If you talk to alexander's spirit with Ifan nearby, his quest will trigger and he will ask to speak to the spirit - This will let you side with Gareth for all of the XP and advance Ifan's quest.
- Anonymous
I didn't get a divine quality reward for killing Alexander with Gareth, only legendary :\ I'm disappointed
- Anonymous
I went to the temple to find Gareth dead and no sign of Alexander not sure what to do about this....
- Anonymous
"a well-placed thunderstorm spell here will instantly kill your enemies here if your critical chance and intelligence is high enough."
Information like this is useless if the difficulty level, critical chance and intelligence aren't specified.
I let alexander live because my main char Ifan wanted too hear why they decimated the elf forest and because maybe he was just a brainwashed moron, but it turned out he was a insane bastard who believed commiting genocide was justified.
So i ended up killing him.
- Anonymous
I also can't finish the quest. I killed alexandar, gareth ran away. Have no idea how to finish. Oh well just another bugged quest, you get used to it after going through 20 other bugged quests.
- Anonymous
I cant finish the quest. Cant talk to any NPC (Gareth or Alexander).
- Anonymous
I can talk Gareth out of it with the Red Price at like 50+ strength and 4 persuasion.
My concern is for Ifan's quest. if I fight with Gareth I get the most exp and a divine reward, but Ifan's quest doesn't update to reflect that. If I send Gareth away and then let Ifan do his thing, no exp for killing Alexander "myself".
- Anonymous
Tried it with about 13 str and 5 persuade and it worked. My guess is you have to persuade him to chill out during the previous act also?? Or my game is bugged lol
- Anonymous
Where does Gareth go after I killed Alexander?
I cannot find him at all.
I joined the battle straight away lol did not like the magisters one bit so I joined in on the revenge.
Did break a number of quests though because I did also kill Sallow Man but neither of these quests close now.
- Anonymous
I finaly made it work! seems the strenght one doesnt work no matter how high stat you have..
I used Ifan and the Memory one, 10 Memory and 5 persuade and told Gareth that he could still honor his fathers promise and it worked! Try it guys!
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
66 strenght, 100 attitude and 2 persuade did nothing either..
- Anonymous
Tried with 73str/46 memory + 7 persuade and it didnt work.... Mb it is bcz i comlete quest with his parenth by killing Magister and after that he became a bad guy... I wasted on that **** more than one hour and nothing workout
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
i use 7 persuade + 40 memory/67 str and its not enought to persuade
- Anonymous
How many Flaming Crescendos can one cast on an npc in dialog? Do tell!!
Bloom hahahaha they made that so game breaking
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