Guild Wars 2 Revenant Guide, Build - Channel The True Legends Of Tyria!

Guild Wars 2 Revenant Guide

Revenant is the ninth Guild Wars 2 profession and the only one that got added to the game in the expansions. To access this class, players need to have either the Path of Fire or Heart of Thorns expansion. Revenants can use their spiritual powers to channel legendary figures of Tyria. Being one of the soldier professions, they wear heavy armor.

Revenants are an extremely versatile class that, with a proper setup, can play basically every role in the game. The downside to that is one of the highest difficulty levels in terms of execution. If you’re a new player that's trying to learn Guild Wars 2, you probably should consider playing one of the other GW2 Professions. Revenant's gameplay is really engaging and makes the whole GW2 experience more intensive.

Check also:

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Unique Mechanics

Legendary Stances, or simply Legends are the main Revenant profession mechanic. People who played the first Guild Wars, or are generally interested in lore, will definitely know at least some of the characters that can be invoked by Revenants.

Legendary Dwarf Stance channels the powers of king Jalis Ironhammer. Legendary Demon Stance refers to Mallyx the Unyielding. Legendary Centaur Stance channels the spirit Ventari. Legendary Assassin Stance invokes powers of Shiro Tagachi. Legendary Dragon Stance refers to Glint, the daughter of Kralkatorrik. Finally, the Legendary Renegade Stance channels the Charr leader – Kalla Scorchrazor.

Invoking a legend gives Revenant access to a new resource – Energy. It’s spent to use legendary skills. Out of combat, you can only regenerate up to half of your Energy bar, while you’re fighting, it can go all the way to 100%. Players often switch to a different legend when they run out of Energy, because after swapping they’ll have a 50% of the bar.

Unlike any other similar mechanic, channeling a legend doesn’t replace your weapon skills. Instead, it switches the rest of your skill bar, giving you access to new healing, utility, and elite abilities. That results in Revenants not having access to any common or racial abilities since all their non-weapon skill slots are defined by their current stance.

Revenant Weapons

Revenants have access to quite a few weapons. Some of the weapon types synergize really well with invoking certain legends. The situation is similar when it comes to specialization trees, six of them are focused on empowering a single legendary stance.

Main-hand: Sword, Mace

Off-hand: Axe, Sword, Shield (Herald only)

Two-handed: Hammer, Staff, Short Bow (Renegade only)

Specializations and Traits

As we already mentioned, almost all the Revenant specializations rely on enhancing the invocation of a certain legend. When constructing a build for this profession, you have to know ahead of time, which legends you’re going to be using. Of course, each of the stances elevates different parts of the Revenant’s kit and synergizes with another playstyle.  

Devastation – this specialization is connected to the Legendary Assassin Stance. It works well with swords in both the main and the off-hand. Devastation improves direct damage and vulnerability. It can also enhance your mobility.

This tree is used very often in various DPS builds and for the open world setups. It can sometimes fit inside a support build too. Minor traits in this tree let you inflict vulnerability and deal extra damage as well as life steal off the enemies who are under the effect of that condition.

Major traits offer quite a few viable options. In the first slot, most players go for Vicious Lacerations that can give you up to 9% extra damage. Ferocious Strikes are also decent since they increase your critical chance, but it’s rarely the better option.

The second position also offers some powerful options. Assassin’s Presence increases both yours and your nearby teammates’ critical damage. Notoriety makes might grant you more power instead of the condition damage. At the same time, it makes you generate might really quickly, especially in the Legendary Assassin Stance.

As the final trait, Swift Termination is great for pure DPS setups, since it gives you an extra 20% damage against enemies below half HP. Assassin’s Annihilation might be better for open world adventures because it grants some additional sustain.

Corruption – this tree together with the Legendary Demon Stance is necessary for the condition DPS setups. In terms of sheer numbers, they can be the most efficient Revenant damage builds. While traits in this tree don’t empower any specific type of weapon, they can synergize really well with axes and maces, since these weapons are the best at inflicting conditions.

The minor traits of this specialization correspond really well with Mallyx the Unyielding since they focus on inflicting and empowering torment. Furthermore, the right choice of major traits can allow you to deliver plenty of different conditions.

Most players believe that the optimal setup is Venom Enhancement, Abyssal Chill and Diabolic Inferno. They give you extra poison, burning and even more torment. The remaining options are mostly defensive – they can provide extra survivability, self-healing or transferring conditions.

Retribution – one of the most defensive specializations. It improves the general durability and survivability of the character, as well as using the Legendary Dwarf Stance. It’s focused around dodging and reducing received damage. This tree is used in raid builds designed for tanking. It can also be valuable in the open world.

Minor Retribution traits provide extra endurance, stability and damage reduction after dodging. In the first major slot, Planar Protection and Close Quarters help to survive against ranged damage, while Spiritual Reckoning provides retaliation*. Retaliatory Evasion provides even more of it after dodging – it’s a good option for the second position.

As the final trait, you can either choose Vicious Reprisal or Steadfast Rejuvenation. The first one is the more offensive option - it provides extra power when you’re under the effect of retaliation. The latter improves your health regeneration.

*retaliation – a boon that deals a percentage of taken damage to the attacker  

Salvation – the tree focused on healing and support. It synergizes with the Legendary Centaur Stance and using a staff. Revenants can be played as supports really efficiently and Salvation is a must-have for those builds.

Your healing and utility are greatly amplified by the minor traits. They give you extra healing power, boon duration, and alacrity. One of them introduces an interesting mechanic called healing orbs. You leave them on the ground after a dodge roll. Then, your allies can pick them up when necessary to restore some health.

As far as major traits go, Generous Abundance is the most important one, as it allows you to produce much more healing orbs. Invoking Harmony and Tranquil Balance is also great for stronger healing. Vital Blessing and Resilient Spirit provide some more durability and other utility options, like restoring your allies’ endurance.

Invocation – the only specialization that’s not connected to any specific stance. It empowers invoking every one of them, but the bonuses it provides are mostly useful for damage dealers. This specialization allows for stacking fury and increasing the critical chance very quickly and efficiently. It’s used in different types of builds, but mostly for the open world and DPS.

The minor traits provide you with extra damage and critical chance. They also allow canceling crowd control by invoking a legend. For most DPS builds the first major trait will be Rising Tide since it provides extra damage when you’re above 90% health. The other options are condition removal or extra fury.

In the second position, Spirit Boon is a great supportive tool that allows for buffing multiple allies when channeling legends. If you’re more interested in amplifying only your own DPS, you can choose Incensed Response for additional direct damage instead.

For the final major trait, Charged Mists empowers efficient legend-swapping, by providing you extra energy. The other option – Roiling Mists, provides you a lot of additional critical chance when under the effect of fury. As you can see, there are two roles that this tree can play. You can use for legend-swapping and team-wide utility or to go all-in on crits and get plenty of extra damage output through them.

Herald – this elite specialization is mostly focused on survivability and supporting your party. It empowers the Legendary Dragon Stance and unlocks shields as an off-hand option. At the same time, it provides access to two new connected categories of skills – facet and consumes.

Minor traits in this tree increase your maximum HP and provide extra boon duration as well as additional damage when under the effect of boons. In the first major position, you can go for extra regeneration from Elder’s Respite or improving your specialization mechanic with Core Value.

Shared Empowerment, available in the second slot, is probably the single strongest Revenant support trait. It makes your boons apply to all the nearby allies, instead of being a single target. This allows you to buff your team really efficiently. The other options can provide some extra survivability or self-healing.

In the final slot, you can either double down on supporting, with Elevated Compassion that heals the allies that you apply boons too. If you’re more interested in DPS, Forceful Persistence is a really powerful trait, especially if you use a lot of upkeep skills.

Renegade – the Path of Fire elite specialization provides access to a new ranged weapon – short bow. The tree empowers using the Legendary Renegade Stance. It introduces a new stacking mechanic – Kalla’s Fervor that increases your critical hit power and condition damage. There’s also a set of new profession skills – Citadel Orders.

The minor Renegade traits bring a lot of critical chance and Kalla’s Fervor generation. As far as the major ones go, there two ways to choose from. The traits’ selection should always be based on the final purpose of the setup.

The condition DPS build is greatly amplified by Blood Fury, Heartpiercer and Vindication. They increase the damage you can deal with bleeding and help you generate Kalla’s Fervor. Furthermore, Heartpiercer makes your short bow skills pierce through enemies and Vindication empowers the Citadel Bombardment that you can summon.

The more supportive build will utilize Wrought-Iron Will, All For One and Lasting Legacy. This combination lets you provide various boons (most importantly plenty of might) to your allies and protect them from incoming damage.

GW2 Revenant Builds

Now we’re going to take a look at how these Specializations and Traits come together to create powerful builds. We will analyze a few different meta builds and maybe provide some tips to further emphasize how many different playstyles Revenant can offer. With this newly acquired knowledge, you might be able to create your personal best GW2 Revenant build. 

In this GW2 Revenant build guide, we're not going to talk about PvP. WvW and other modes have completely different builds with other ideas behind them. After all, facing AI enemies differs greatly from fighting other players, especially in the Guild Wars series. Some skills even have separate PvE and PvP versions. We're not going to dive too much into gear, since it may vary depending on the location. Another thing that we're not interested in is leveling, as most Revenant players have access to a Tome of Knowledge anyway.

Herald Dragon/Assassin Build

Similarly to most of the open world setups, this build is definitely well-rounded. It offers strong damage as well as a lot of survivability and sustains. As the name suggests, the legends used for this setup are Dragon and Assassin. If for some reason you need more tankiness you can switch Shiro Tagachi for Jalis Ironhammer and go with the Legendary Dwarf Stance instead.

The standard version utilizes Invocation, Devastation, and Herald as the specialization trees. Traits like Rising Tide, Incensed Response, Roiling Mists, Vicious Lacerations, and Forceful Persistence provide extra damage through your critical hits. The remaining ones provide some additional regeneration and life steal.

Weapon-wise, your main weapon set should be dual swords. If you’re using the Devastation tree and the Legendary Assassin Stance, there’s no better weapon choice than sword/sword. At the same time, it’s one of the easiest Revenant builds in terms of execution. It's definitely one of our basic recommendations if you want to start learning this class. 

You deal most of your damage with auto attacks, all you have to do is keep your facets on, during Dragon and Impossible Odds during Assassin. Save Riposting Shadows for breaking stuns and only use your elite skills when it’s necessary. Of course, as a Revenant, you always have the additional problem of energy management, but it’s not that terrible with this build. You should swap legends on cooldown, to maximize your energy anyway.

Renegade Condi DPS

If executed correctly, this is one of the strongest DPS builds in the game. It’s believed to be the single strongest damage dealer against large hitbox bosses. That being said, it’s really difficult to master it, since the rotation requires multiple legend and weapon-swapping and basically perfect energy management. The difficulty level makes this setup viable almost only for GW2 veterans. At the same time, it's a really fun learning experience for someone who likes a challenge. 

The most important specializations are Renegade and Corruption. The last one can either be Devastation or Invocation. The legends that you’re going to channel as you’re running this build are Renegade and Demon. The Invocation variant utilizes Charged Mists for an additional supply of energy, but it gives you one more thing to care about since you only get extra energy if you have less than 10 when you swap legends. You might make some gold and get valuable loot with this build, but it's not going to be easy money. 

Your weapon sets should be mace/axe and a short bow. They provide the most conditions and it’s the main source of this build’s damage. All the corruption traits combined with weapon skills let you inflict burning, bleeding, torment, poison, chill, confusion, and vulnerability onto your enemies.

Furthermore, the elite specialization provides even more damage and burn with Citadel Bombardment and team-wide might with Heroic Command. The Renegade summons also empowers and protect your party.

We’re not going to go through each of the over 50 steps in the DPS rotation, but it’s incredibly important to prioritize burning, torment, and bleeding and use Citadel Bombardment in between other abilities, every time that it’s off cooldown. As far as runes and sigils go, you can go for Superior Rune of the Nightmare with Malign Agony infusion to get as much condi damage as possible. The superior sigil choice leaves some more room to experiment, but it's recommended to get some extra conditions from them.

Renegade Boon Support Healer

Revenant can also be played efficiently as support. With this setup, you can even fill the role of the main healer in dungeons and fractals (unfortunately it’s not going to cut it for raids). It provides a decent amount of healing and a lot of powerful boons, especially for a party that’s focused on power DPS. That’s what makes this setup good secondary support during raids.

Salvation and Renegade are necessary to provide healing, protection and a lot of boons to your party. Devastation is often used as the final specialization, even though you’re not going to use the Legendary Assassin Stance at all. Basically the only reason to take this tree is Assassin’s Presence – a powerful, permanent AoE buff that provides extra ferocity to all the nearby allies. If you can’t keep this boost on enough teammates or if your team is focused mostly on condition damage, you should replace Devastation with Invocation.

In the Salvation tree, you will definitely need Tranquil Balance and Generous Abundance for extra heal The second slot should be Words of Censure or Invoking Harmony. You want to get as many healing orbs as possible and make them really powerful. In the Renegade tree, go for Wrought-Iron Will, All For One and Lasting Legacy. It’s the optimal setup in terms of providing boons and utility.

Your most important job (besides keeping the party alive) is providing the permanent fully stacked might and alacrity. You can do a lot of that by using Heroic Command and Orders from Above on cooldown. If you have too much energy to spend, you can always spend it on weapon skills or, in Renegade stance, on the offensive summons. As every support/healer in GW2, prioritize healing and buffing your allies first and use spare time and resources to DPS if you have them. One of your weapon sets has to be a staff, the other one should offer more DPS - consider dual swords or a short bow. Your dodges are extremely important, as they not only let you avoid damage but also spawn the healing orbs.

Guild Wars 2

Revenant is probably the most difficult profession to play in Guild Wars 2. Moreover, you need to buy one of the expansions to get access to that profession. If you’re looking for something that’s easier to play, check out our Guild Wars 2 Classes Guide.

All the remaining classes are available in the free version of Guild Wars 2 (although you need the expansion to access the elite specializations. These professions are Elementalist, Mesmer, Necromancer, Thief, Ranger, Engineer, Guardian, and Warrior. The game created a friendly community of passionate players.

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