Guild Wars 2

Well guys, when HoT came out I used the Mad King Labyrinth to level my revenant up to 62; however I noticed maybe the class is not for me, or MAYBE I’m just building/playing it wrong.

I have as much resilence as my elementalist, meaning I can hardly take on something without being blown up on tiny, mega small bits. I quit playing Revenant after the Personal Story Vigil Mission where you have to fend off undead from Claw Island.

I swear, I was shot down about 12 times during that mission; I’ve died less on open world PVE and Dungeons with my Elementalist than what I could stand with my Revenant (wearing Zerker of course, but so does my Ranger and he usually has no problems…)

Using S/A and Mace for AoE, since I feel that Hammer is sluggish and doesn’t deals as much damage, and has me running in circles for cooldowns to get down. Axe, I don’t see how it’s good… Also using Shiro and the dwarf.

I’ll be honest, maybe I don’t feel the aftermentioned weapons are good because I don’t understand them, maybe I’m building wrong, but I’m about to flush a level 62 character down the toilet just because I feel better with Guardian and Ranger, I’m about to flush a character I might be good with but I haven’t found out how to.

So here I am, requesting your aid

Revenant starts being better as Herald.
Unfortunately that means you have to push to 80 and earn 250 hero points after that

Mmm you clearly are doing somthing wrong. Yes, revenant IS squishy, especially if you push out for the damage in shiro/glint, but even there I can solo champions with shiro because you can basically evade everything is the enemy doesn’t attack too fastly (doge, dodge, shiro dodge gives 50% endu + endu you already recovered, dodge, shiro dodge, repeat…if you do it right you never run out of ergy or endurance )

To general play yes Jalis+Shiro is a good choice, and I’d suggest to stay in jalis and use the hammers (#9): they make some damage, heal a bit and protect you against 20% of the damage.

Also do NOT spam skills off CD, you them ONLY when needed. If used correctly revenant is a killing machine, he just needs a good touch

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAsXmnvNWNS6JrJRZlBlsryfSYV5QJYscrElNlQduuvN4YB

Get all Power/Precision/Ferocity gear and basically switch between the two stances. With Dwarf you can pull 5-10 mobs, aoe them down and if your health starts getting low just switch to staff.

Axe is for mobility, feel free to use a sword as well for more survivability if you wish.

Condition damage on a Revenant is not very good in PvE as it requires the NPCs to be moving to do full damage, which they just don’t seem to want to do when they need to!

Edit: If you pop the heal in Shiro, then switch to dwarf it will still heal you. You can also use the Dwarf heal to remove conditions but the hammers should always be on when fighting even one NPC.

Jalis/Mallyx

Staff Mace/Axe
Jallis/Staff for sustain, then swap to Mallyx/Mace, get to 70 energy and drop 3 Unyielding Anguish, Loot, Repeat.

1. Get a sword
2. Spec devastation
3. Select Shiro
4. Turn on impossible odds
5. Watch everything die.

Zerikin.1593:

1. Get a sword
2. Spec devastation
3. Select Shiro
4. Turn on impossible odds
5. Watch everything die.

That’s the problem… Impossible Odds finishes before anything I touch is dead, and in case it’s dead, my attunement bar is empty because it drains it fast, and now I have another 2 enemies closing in which will take 1/3 of my HP bar.

That’s the reason the Claw Island mission was riddiculous. As a Guardian and Ranger I had no problem dealing and kiting enemies, Revenant was a whole diferent story since Attunement bar management is stoff from a different planet.

wat, u joking right?
revenant is my 1st character in gw2 (i started when hot released) and everything was EZ AF (execpt 1 of the parts in last normal story missing [champion dragons, but its not about the class i guess]). i lvled shiro/mallyx all the time. for solo mobs use
shiro->heal(+dps)->odds->autos=gg. for aoe- jump in and try to stun as much as possible enemies with shiros ult->mallyx-> 1st utility skill (i have changed binds, dont remember default bind), then elite mallyx + autos and watch everything burn.
i used berserkers/assasin runes all the time i could.
PS. sorry for bad english

Aldath.1275:

That’s the reason the Claw Island mission was riddiculous.

u said dat u lvled in mad king labirynth, maybe u had low lvl gear and u went to high lvl zones?

Aldath.1275:

Zerikin.1593:

1. Get a sword
2. Spec devastation
3. Select Shiro
4. Turn on impossible odds
5. Watch everything die.

That’s the problem… Impossible Odds finishes before anything I touch is dead, and in case it’s dead, my attunement bar is empty because it drains it fast, and now I have another 2 enemies closing in which will take 1/3 of my HP bar.

That’s the reason the Claw Island mission was riddiculous. As a Guardian and Ranger I had no problem dealing and kiting enemies, Revenant was a whole diferent story since Attunement bar management is stoff from a different planet.

Don’t spam skills.
While using IO avoid using anything else unless you really need it.
Use staff/sword/hammer 3 for defense.
Hammer pierces and Hammer 2 at max range does a lot of damage.

That means your gear is bad

Aldath.1275:

Zerikin.1593:

1. Get a sword
2. Spec devastation
3. Select Shiro
4. Turn on impossible odds
5. Watch everything die.

That’s the problem… Impossible Odds finishes before anything I touch is dead, and in case it’s dead, my attunement bar is empty because it drains it fast, and now I have another 2 enemies closing in which will take 1/3 of my HP bar.

That’s the reason the Claw Island mission was riddiculous. As a Guardian and Ranger I had no problem dealing and kiting enemies, Revenant was a whole diferent story since Attunement bar management is stoff from a different planet.

Just use auto attacks while IO is active and switch legends as soon as energy is depleted. Switching legends resets your energy back to 50%. You can basically have IO or Jalis Hammers permanent active.

Well, I know you said you felt it was slow, but your best bet is to have a hammer close by for a mission like that. Every hammer attack hits multiple enemies, so you can thin the crowd before they get to you.

When dealing with a smaller number of tougher enemies switch to sword/x

The key with Revenant is to use abilities like Sword 3 or Hammer 3 to avoid taking damage.

I would definitely equip Jalis as one of your legends. If you have to melee in a crowd, the hammers can help keep you alive (with damage reduction and life steal) while doing some damage.

The retribution line can help quite a bit in dealing with tougher content.

Here some hints for pre and post Herald:

Pre

- shiro/dwarf, aoe stuf down with your hammers
- try out mallyx, in old tyria even without condition damage, stuff dies to you and you have again a bit aoe
- remember your evade and immunity skills (shiro utility 1, sword 3, hammer 3, etc.)
- sword/axe+hammer are your go-to pve weapons.
- if in doubt, retreat and pummel with hammer

Post

- shiro/glint – for others read up, but these will do for normal pve
- you will be sitting in Glint legend most of the time. No reason to switch to shiro unless wanting to be fancy (or higher level fractals) or needing the survival
- get Rolling Mists (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Roiling_Mists)
- while in Glint, your priority is as follows: Ferocity on always, Swiftness if needed out of combat and on cooldown use in combat for damage, Face of Nature when possible but resolve in combat to buff yourself and your group
- again remember your survival. switching from Glint to shiro, hitting your shiro heal and sword 3 = 2- second immunity and good healing
- same goes other way around, switching to glint and double tapping your heal → 3 seconds of all damage becomming healing. good for escapes or burst heals
- Glint 5 resolved (Facet of Chaos → Chaotic Release) and Hammer 5 both do a lot of breakbar damage. Top off with sword 2 (chill)

Main hint: revenant is an autoattack class. You want to manage your energy so you are at 0-2 pips of regeneration in combat as needed.

I pretty much circle strafe constantly while using the auto attack with rev. Using sword 3, hammer 3, and hammer 5 to evade/stun enemies is good way to avoid damage. Sword 2 and axe 4 also chill which helps keep the enemies away.

Yeah you can only auto-attack most of the time or you will run out of energy in no time…

I went Sword/Axe Shiro/Mallyx while leveling.

Spam Unyielding Anguish in Mallyx to clear groups of mobs.
Use Impossible Odds in Shiro to kill single mobs.

For any mob that lasts longer than your energy bar, rotate between Shiro and Mallyx:

Shiro -> Impossible Odds until out of energy -> Mallyx -> Embrace the Darkness -> Unrelenting Assault -> Shiro on CD

Most of your DPS comes from Sword 1 Auto with Impossible Odds or Embrace the Darkness up. Generally only use abilities in Mallyx as Embrace the Darkness doesn’t have as large an upkeep as Impossible Odds.

Soften enemies up with the hammer, then finish them with Sword auto + Impossible Odds + Healing Dagger(?) thingys.

You can open with Hammer 5 plus immediate Hammer 3, which takes a good chunk of health off an unsuspecting mob. Otherwise spam Hammer 2.

Cyninja.2954:

…
Main hint: revenant is an autoattack class. You want to manage your energy so you are at 0-2 pips of regeneration in combat as needed.

It’s actually better to have as much degen as possible (and even waste energy with sword 2 etc). You want to have your energy depleted as soon as legend swap is up again. You can even use the elite facet to deplete energy.

Never use F2 a second time, let it run out because of energy depletion. That way cooldown is shorter and you have it up again when in glint.

When in Shiro just cast 6, impossible odds and autoattack. The energy will run out shortly before Glint is up again.

Tldr.: The Revenant plays like an endless supply of half filled beer glasses. Do you empty them one after another or do you wait for it to be completely filled? Your choice. ;D

You’re using zerker so you’re going to be squishy . The build i personally use is

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAS5nnvNWNS6JrJRVl/ksrygSYW5QJYscrkFPlQddOvdIIJta7D-TBCBABbp8zQdH5o+TDPRAAuYA0sggkKBda/ASBonQL-e

it gives you good durability and you can still deal damage

Mace is garbage in a power build…. go to hammer, there are times where you need ranged, also, there is an evade on the hammer that can greatly help you survive, I would run Shiro+jalis until you can get Glint.

I run a condi rev with no Herald and I love it. im not squishy, i can go toe to toe with many things in HOT, and its fun.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Cyninja.2954:

…
Main hint: revenant is an autoattack class. You want to manage your energy so you are at 0-2 pips of regeneration in combat as needed.

It’s actually better to have as much degen as possible (and even waste energy with sword 2 etc). You want to have your energy depleted as soon as legend swap is up again. You can even use the elite facet to deplete energy.

Never use F2 a second time, let it run out because of energy depletion. That way cooldown is shorter and you have it up again when in glint.

When in Shiro just cast 6, impossible odds and autoattack. The energy will run out shortly before Glint is up again.

Tldr.: The Revenant plays like an endless supply of half filled beer glasses. Do you empty them one after another or do you wait for it to be completely filled? Your choice. ;D

Oh I absolutely agree. But please take into account who you are giving advice to.

The TC specifically said he had a hard time getting to understand revenant. My pointers were ment to make him get easy into the class and use it.

There is no reason to master a class from scratch when you are having problems with the basic concept. The pointers given will take him through all the pve open world content and the story without problems.

Once he has a feel for the class, he can start optimizing his gameplay.

The point of sword/axe is to have the power-based attack power and evade built into the sword mainland along with the the movement power of axe 4 and the crowd maneuvering power in axe 5. If you’re having trouble surviving, you may have and easier time going sword/sword.

For Claw Island, Shiro and Jalis are a good combination. Jalis has condition cleansing and the hammers to help keep you alive, and Shiro has added damage and maneuverability.

Shiro’s heal isn’t terribly amazing. It does increase damage, however. I typically use it either on cooldown or when my health is at 2/3. I never wait longer than that with the Shiro heal.

Don’t be afraid to dodge away and turn off Impossible Odds for a couple of seconds while you restore health.

If you get a lot of enemies bunched around you, there’s no shame in firing off Jade Wind. In some tough spots, relying on sword 3, Jade Wind, and evasion have let me live where spamming 1 and running down impossible odds hasn’t.

Remember that hammer’s skill there is an evade and its 4 is a directional ranged block. The 5 is tricky to land a lot of the time, so normally I reserve it for enemies aggroed to me or for opening attacks. Hammer 2 is a very short recharge, very long range line AoE. The auto attack isn’t bad, especially with Impossible Odds to help with kiting, but on the whole I tend to open and pull with the hammer and then swap to the sword/offhand to finish the job.

Always update your gear before Claw Island.

Don’t try to kill everything on Claw Island. They will spawn forever.

When your health gets low, use sword 3 and switch to Jalis, then use his heal and toggle on the hammers. Instant 20% damage reduction.

Only use Jalis’s skills when necessary other than the hammer toggle. His attacks don’t really do enough damage to warrant spamming indiscriminately, but they have situational uses.

The mace is a very good condition weapon, but I wouldn’t use it for AoE on a power build. You won’t get much use out of it that way.

Thanks for the replies guys, deffinitely I’m grabbing my Reve again
I’m leveling her up before continuing Chapter 6, however I do noticed many of you were right on my outdated gears. They weren’t THAT outdated since I got some nice drops from MKL, bt after spending some silver on the bazaar I deffinitely can manage the class better, as I substituted some weird gear that gave me stats like “Healing Power”, “Condition Damage” and “Toughness” by small ammounts, and actually got myself full Zerker. I also noticed I hadn’t bought new charms whatsoever and I was stuck with the one I got (Power +10) while exploring Kezzex.

I’m running S/S and Hammer as of now, and now I see why people likes Hammer! However I still have to understand what Axe 5 is supposed to be, since when I fight I never see the “pull” effect…

Claw island is a bad basis for comparison. I ran multiple toons through there. some have it easy, others had their rears handed to them.

Aldath.1275:

…

Camp Jalis. If you are in Shiro, you are either not the focus of the mob’s attention (read, someone else is focused), kiting (see below), you are traveling between point A to B, or you are killing extremely weak/finishing off mobs.

Things get a lot better once you get Herald and get access to F2.

Also, Shiro + Hammer + autoattack + kite is so broken for 99% of “challenging” PvE content. Hammer autoattack is sometimes wonky in pathing and slow but so does the job.

(Also, use this sigil (lesser versions as well) as sometimes people are so unaware how huge this really is)

Aldath.1275:

However I still have to understand what Axe 5 is supposed to be, since when I fight I never see the “pull” effect…

It pulls the mobs to the center of the line effect. It does not pull the mob to you. It’s best to use if you do not target the mob you are attacking and primarily for bunching up other mobs in a line (for a Mace 2/Hammer 2/Jalis road, etc.).

X —> |
.#.. --> | < — X
……… |
……… | < — X
……..

:) = you
X = mob
.#. = object

Yeah as stated by others, things get much better when you fully unlock Glint and your trait lines. As a Herald I can solo champions it should take 3+ players to kill. (As an example I can solo WvW Lords in EoTM). Not impossible for other classes per say, but revenants definitely are not something to be laughed at as weak in PvE.

Lot of good advice here. I will say that there is a really good power rev guide on these forums by obal, here.. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Guide-DPS-Revenant-for-PVE/first

This guide is what I use and it is phenomenal, though I alter it a wee bit just to suit my style. He also includes a pre-Glint build for people working up to it.

Using just the Shiro half of the rotation, which is available to you now, I was able to beat down 3 vet spiders in Verdant Brink simultaneously in less than 10 seconds, while still maintaining greater than 90% health. All I used was sword/axe, then Enchanted Daggers, Impossible Odds, and auto attack. Ensuring you put Enchanted Daggers into the mix is a further dps increase, plus the more you hit, the more you heal. So it keeps you alive, PLUS adds to your dps. Don’t underestimate it. It’ll allow you to face tank something that you otherwise might not be able to.

Also, my play style I use hammer a lot. If you have full zerker gear, it hits mobs for a decent amount. To soften up a group of mobs, I start with hammer #5 (Drop the Hammer), followed up immediately by hammer #3 (Phase Smash) while they’re still picking themselves up, then hammer #2, (Coalescence of Ruin). Those are all aoe attacks, and you can fire them off in very quick succession. They will usually bring the entire group of mobs to below 50%. By then, they’re on top of you and quite often just standing there and swapping to sword/axe and doing the Enchanted Daggers/Impossible Odds/auto attack is usually more than enough to finish them off. Sword auto attack hits 3 mobs at once. Test out the technique to become familiar with it, see how you like it.

The idea is to kill them off before they can damage you appreciably. If, for some reason, after the above rotation some mobs are still standing and beating on you, then you can incorporate all the dodge techniques and abilities that you have, such as sword #3 (Unrelenting Assault), and your regular dodges.

I wasn’t having the same difficulties as the original poster, but I still found a lot of the advise given here a boon to my Revenant’s playing style as I level her up. Thanks especially Cyninja, nice advise, and also Nautix, thanks for a look at your build

Before unlocking Herald, I was playing Shiro and Jalis. Jalis offers a lot of survivablity while still giving you some decent damage.

Also, while hammer may not be truly optimal, it’s still a great ranged weapon and allows you to play a lot more safely if you don’t feel like trying to take on an army of enemies in melee.

I finished HoT story without even using Herald. Malays and Jalis SW/SW hammer. The AoE and life steal combo are very good.

1. Get Glint.
2. Activate 7 and 9.
3. ???
4. Profit.

EsarioOne.9840:

1. Get Glint.
2. Activate 7 and 9.
3. ???
4. Profit.

And if things get ugly, Glint heal is your Oh-Snap-button.

Really don’t get the Hammer hate either. Hammer is amazing all things considered. The auto attacks at 80 with proper gear crit upwards for 4-5k and CORuin’s 3rd hit (means keep them at range if possible) can hit upwards of 10-11k every 2 seconds. That’s also all AOE as basic shot pierces and CORuin is 3 blasts hitting 5 targets for a max of 15 targets (5 per blast).

In addition to this Field of the Mists is one of the most consistent projectile shut downs in the game (50%) while also offering a DPS boost because our auto attacks are projectiles that always lifesteal. That means in addition to the auto attack, you also do a life steal attack which with Enchanted Daggers can add up quite a bit on just Auto Attacks.

Phase Smash is also great as a bit of a mob juke out in addition to large damage. You actually, physically travel with this skill even though it snaps you back. This means mobs will often times go chasing you where you were rather than where you are. Also mobs will charge up melee attacks cause you were physically in range. For example Brutes will start their charged up knock down attack when using it and waste it on something not even there.

While I was certainly a higher level coming down, I always found Hammer to be the best when doing lower level content simply because I could CORuin, Phase Smash, CORuin and literally piles of things would be dead.

Hammer is one of the best ranged weapons in the game, I don’t get the hammer hate either.

Make sure you read your skills very well and to use them to their full extent.

The best example is Shiro’s roll evade, it also restores 1 bar of endurance. Making use of this can literally double your survival capabilities by not using it at full endurance or not realizing you gain a dodge from it.