Guild Wars 2

I really love my revenant. Leveled him to 80 and have been having a blast. Maxed out herald and I play sword/axe (with hammer on swap for ranged stuff) with a pretty standard invocation/devastation/herald build. Currently using a full set of level 78 berserker exotics (with a few 80s) that I’ll fully upgrade to 80s soon.

I feel kinda squishy – primarily in HoT – but I am always reading that Revenants have great sustain or good defense and great sustain. From where?

Facet of light is pretty weak and I generally never run it for the regen. I just hit it twice for the heal sometimes.

Enchanted daggers seems ok but doesn’t blow me away with its healing.

I typically run Strength + Darkness + Elements. Should I be running Facet of Chaos more consistently?

I’ve even tried swapping hammer and using the 4 ability to lifesteal through it, but that seems to do virtually nothing.

I’m sure I am missing something. Where does the revenant defense/sustain come from?

I’m still figuring out the class as I only started playing it recently but from my experience so far and reading about it I believe this defence comes from CC and blocks (staff + sword/shield) plus mobility e.g. from Shiro.

There’s probably a lot more to it, but in general sustain in this game is dependent on avoids and damage mitigation rather than flat out standing in one spot and soaking up damage and I doubt rev is any different

Hope someone with a lot more experience with rev can chime in.

Blocks? Every guide I read suggests sword/axe as the “best” weapon combo for revenant. What blocks do we have? And mobility is all fine and good but it doesn’t stop most damage from pouring in- especially in HoT.

Also, I don’t consider avoids/damage mitigation to be “sustain.” Sustain means you are getting health back somehow. Mitigation is mitigation and avoidance is avoidance. Those are all fine and good.

But in my opinion and experience, sustain has to mean some kind of healing, regen, life steal, etc. otherwise it isn’t sustain.

Heres some good healing ways ive discovered. Pop hammer #4 +daggers, weapon swap and melee with quickness. Should top u up in few moments. Also if u are using staff, remember staff #4 heals also a bit. Saved my life quite many times. I had the same issue with being squishy. Went allright, just needed some exp on hot mobs. Gear upgrades help a lot.

When it comes to healing, I just put Glint’s Light facet on active for regen after using Elemental Blast. Keep it on till I either run out of energy or need to toss out Infused light when the damage starts piling on. You should be using Facet of Chaos active to quickly drain Glint and pulse protection, but it wont save you from conditions.

Shiro Daggers+UA is still easy heals despite the loss of two bounces since you evade during. If I think I may be in trouble before swapping back to Glint, I’d activate the daggers first since they carry over. (just be wary of their lengthy cooldown)

If you -really- need more defense, carrying a shield (4 has protection+healing and 5 is a rooted shield stance with a minor heal) or investing in Retribution over Invocation for more damage mitigaiton are options. So is Hardening Persistence, if youre playing solo and don’t need to revive anyone.

Staff also has a heal on it. If you’re really squishy, falling back and ranging with hammer4+1 offers an easy lifesteal projectile finisher+ projectile defense (which iirc can be used with Impossible Odds+Daggers if you’re using Shiro and desperately need more healing and have energy to burn).

Most guides offer builds and setups that focus on providing the highest damage alternatives, but if you really need that extra survival, there’s no shame in making changes till you can do without.

Cambios.7451:

I really love my revenant. Leveled him to 80 and have been having a blast. Maxed out herald and I play sword/axe (with hammer on swap for ranged stuff) with a pretty standard invocation/devastation/herald build. Currently using a full set of level 78 berserker exotics (with a few 80s) that I’ll fully upgrade to 80s soon.

I feel kinda squishy – primarily in HoT – but I am always reading that Revenants have great sustain or good defense and great sustain. From where?

Facet of light is pretty weak and I generally never run it for the regen. I just hit it twice for the heal sometimes.

Enchanted daggers seems ok but doesn’t blow me away with its healing.

I typically run Strength + Darkness + Elements. Should I be running Facet of Chaos more consistently?

I’ve even tried swapping hammer and using the 4 ability to lifesteal through it, but that seems to do virtually nothing.

I’m sure I am missing something. Where does the revenant defense/sustain come from?

Apparently, running around HoT in Zerk wont get you far, and you are using full zerk with no blocks. This is your problem.

Cambios.7451:

Blocks? Every guide I read suggests sword/axe as the “best” weapon combo for revenant. What blocks do we have? And mobility is all fine and good but it doesn’t stop most damage from pouring in- especially in HoT.

Also, I don’t consider avoids/damage mitigation to be “sustain.” Sustain means you are getting health back somehow. Mitigation is mitigation and avoidance is avoidance. Those are all fine and good.

But in my opinion and experience, sustain has to mean some kind of healing, regen, life steal, etc. otherwise it isn’t sustain.

The sustain that is being referred to comes from blocks and evades. Revenants have in general poor self-healing capabilities to compensate the sustain from active defenses (+damage reductions).

Varezenem.2813:

The sustain that is being referred to comes from blocks and evades. Revenants have in general poor self-healing capabilities to compensate the sustain from active defenses (+damage reductions).

Would you mind being specific what blocks and evades I should be using?

For reference, right now I am:

sword/axe (with hammer on swap for range)
full berserker gear

assassin/herald legends

Surviving as a rev boils down to buying time with other skills for your Glint heal to come back from cooldown. You do it with:

- Two dodges
- Two Shiro dodges
- Two extra dodges from endurance recovery from Shiro dodge
- Heal from legend swap below 50% with Invocation trait
- Shield 4
- Shield 5
- Shiro heal
- Sword 3
- Staff 3
- Staff 4
- Staff 5

And that’s it, basically. There’s more traits and such, but the idea is to dodge, evade, block and blind while buying time for your main heal (Glint heal) come out of cooldown. If you’re looking for passive sustain or damage mitigation, this isn’t the best class for it at all.

Cambios.7451:

Varezenem.2813:

The sustain that is being referred to comes from blocks and evades. Revenants have in general poor self-healing capabilities to compensate the sustain from active defenses (+damage reductions).

Would you mind being specific what blocks and evades I should be using?

For reference, right now I am:

sword/axe (with hammer on swap for range)
full berserker gear

assassin/herald legends

fwiw when people talk about “revenant sustain”, they’re talking about in spvp, they’re not talking about in PvE where you might accidentally take too large of a hit from a veteran arrowhead.

Ok, so there’s not really any sustain. People are just using the term super wrong.

There are blocks and evades, which are MITIGATION/avoidance.

And in order to have this, you need to micromanage 2 weapons and 2 stances, swapping every few seconds.

Do I understand that correctly?

You may have read old content. Before the Cristal Hibernation nerf, revenant indeed had a good sustain with Shield 5 healing for around 4k and the trait proc for another 4k, plus the Glint heal and traits like lifesteal on Devastation.

But yeah, now revenant is about dodges/evades/blinds/blocks. It’s a thief in a heavy armor. If you’re looking for passive defenses, it’s the wrong class for you. Also because if you wanna be a good revenant, you will need to micromanage two weapons and two stances in every single build.

For maximum efficiency, use the active part of Glint Heal when you are the target of a heavy hit such as a Mordrem Snipers fireline-type attack or a Veteran Arrowheads frontal cone-shaped bash. It will revert condi dmg to healing as well so fe. burning will heal you very fast. Frogs also hit hard. The Glint active part is potentially the best self-heal in the game.

Secondly, full berserker gear in the jungle is generally a bad idea. Only thieves can usually get away with it. (Infiltraitors Arrow + Unhindered Combatant) Invest in some Marauder pieces to beef up your Vitality.

Thirdly, mace+axe is a condi set whereas you are running power gear. Hammer works good but you should probably go Sword+Shield and/or Staff. Sword+axe will work too, but axe is a bit redundant with Shiro. If you want to run mace+axe, you should get some condi gear to go with it, and swap Shiro for Mallyx.

PS. After reviewing my revs PVE-build, I should take my own advice regarding the third point..

Yannir.4132:

Secondly, full berserker gear in the jungle is generally a bad idea. Only thieves can usually get away with it. (Infiltraitors Arrow + Unhindered Combatant) Invest in some Marauder pieces to beef up your Vitality.

My ranger, warrior, and guardian all do fine in full berserker.

Yannir.4132:

Thirdly, mace+axe is a condi set whereas you are running power gear. Hammer works good but you should probably go Sword+Shield and/or Staff. Sword+axe will work too, but axe is a bit redundant with Shiro. If you want to run mace+axe, you should get some condi gear to go with it, and swap Shiro for Mallyx.

I’ve never used mace+axe.

I use sword+axe with hammer on swap right now.

I gotta say that I find the stance swapping to be probably the thing that hurts the fun of playing the class, and it actually got worse once I got herald.

When I ran shiro + mallyx, at least both utility bars had a leap/teleport/mobility skill on the same slot (so I could bind it to a mouse key). Now running herald, I have to rely on Axe 4 which is not only shorter range, but if I switched to sword/shield I’d lose it entirely.

I have to roam in herald for the speed buff, which cuts off my access to the mobility teleport of Shiro.

It seems like you basically have to swap stances/legends every few seconds. That strikes me as an enormous amount of painful micromanagement that feels like bad, unfun design.

Am I missing something?

Not really! The design of the class indeed asks for swapping the legend every few seconds. Sitting in one legend during the entire fight is a no no. What sounds a problem to you, it’s fun to others. I love playing revenant, elementalist and engineer. A lot of buttons to press and skills to manage, giving me a lot of options. Playing a warrior, for example, is super boring to me.

The idea is to go into a legend, burn everything using all the energy on it until it reaches zero and swap. You will get 50% energy back. And then you burn it too and swap back after the cooldown is over and the energy is depleted.

Sitting in one legend is counter productive. You’re not getting the maximum amount of energy possible. Of course, if the enemy is super weak and dies in a few hits, there’s no need to swap because you gonna kill him in a few instants. But if the fight takes a bit more, you’re indeed supposed to stance dance. Is the most optimal way to have the higher amount of energy available (swapping and getting 50% back), meaning that you will be using skills way more, and it also will keep proccing your on swap weapon sigils and traits. So with more energy and swaps you will have more damage, more healing, more mobility, more defense and so go on.

PS: You can notice that Jarlis, Mallyx, Glint and Shiro have ways to burn the energy that might be left on your bar before swapping. Jarlis hammers, Mallyx ult, Glint upkeeps and Shiro quickness. If the swap cooldown is coming closer to be ready and you have nothing to spend the energy that you already have, use these skills to not waste them by swapping with energy left in your bar (if you don’t think you might need a stunbreak, for example). Revenant is all about burning the most energy possible in the most effective way.

Cambios.7451:

My ranger, warrior, and guardian all do fine in full berserker.

So do mine actually But I find it a lot more comfortable to have some bulk with tough/vita.

Cambios.7451:

I’ve never used mace+axe.

I use sword+axe with hammer on swap right now.

Sorry about that, I must have misread.

lmperdigao.2567:

Not really! The design of the class indeed asks for swapping the legend every few seconds.

I guess that is what, sadly, ruins the class for me. Such an insane amount of click management that I just don’t dig it. And I feel like I’m always in the “wrong legend” when I want to use an ability from the other one, which is super obnoxious.

I guess this class just isn’t for me. A shame because leveling up it was a ton of fun.