Core Revenant

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The Revenant Profession is unlocked with the purchase of one of Guild Wars 2’s Expansions (Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire, or End of Dragons). Although the Revenant’s Elite Specializations are superior to this Core build, the last Trait Line is only unlocked at Level 71. As such, this build is designed to help you level during your first playthrough.

Become a speedy assassin when invoking the legend of Shiro (Legendary Assassin Stance), or a tough brawler after calling Jalis for help (Legendary Dwarf Stance).

This Revenant build provides very solid damage, Crowd Control, self-sustain from Battle Scarred, and access to decent Might, permanent Fury, and on-demand Stability. It leads perfectly into playing the end-game build Power Quickness Herald.

Power Quickness Herald

• Recommended

Offensive Support

Select difficulty

Sword & Sword
Staff

Build Fundamentals

Legendary Assassin Stance gives you an incredible amount of damage and mobility via Impossible Odds and Phase Traversal.

Legendary Dwarf Stance turns you into a tanky brawler, dealing consistent damage with bonus damage reduction with Vengeful Hammers, crowd controlling enemies with Forced Engagement, supporting allies with Inspiring Reinforcement, and finally offering team-wide damage reduction with Rite of the Great Dwarf.

Weapon Skills

In this build, your primary weapon set will be Sword/Sword, which are melee weapons focused around blinking to and assassinating targets with incredible burst damage. The Staff is an incredibly useful utility weapon offering some healing, evades, blocks, and most importantly an immense amount of Crowd Control with one of the most powerful CC skills in the game: Surge of the Mists.

On Swords, your biggest damage skills are Chilling Isolation, Shackling Wave, and Deathstrike.

Chilling Isolation is an Area of Effect skill that does increased damage if used against an isolated foe.  Shackling Wave causes your character to slice in a large arc in front of you dealing incredible damage, especially when used against a single enemy in close proximity.

Both those skills offer defensive components in form of Chilled and Immobilize that can be used when you need to disengage the enemy.

Deathstrike shadowsteps you to your target dealing damage and giving yourself Fury. If the first attack hits, a second strike will deal additional damage.

Incensed Response gives you Might every time you gain Fury with a 1-second cooldown. Spread out the usage of Deathstrike and Legend swapping (due to Invoker's Rage synergy) to provide yourself with as much Might as possible.

Unrelenting Assault is a very acrobatic ability and you might be tempted to prioritize it over other weapon skills, but the damage it provides is rather subpar. It should either be used as an evade or damage increase in form of  Might if you think evade won’t be needed.

Your Staff skills offer immense utility at the expense of damage. Mender's Rebuke deals damage, inflicts  Weakness to enemies hit, and applies a small heal to you and your team after a delay. Warding Rift blocks all incoming attacks for 2 seconds while dealing a small amount of damage. Renewing Wave cleanses conditions and heals your party members.

If that wasn’t enough, we saved the best utility for last. Surge of the Mists deals damage, evades, provides immense breakbar damage, and grants yourself Vigor, Fury, and Might

Utility Skills

Legendary Assassin Stance (Shiro) is your bread and butter for dealing damage with this build. Simply activate Impossible Odds and enjoy slicing your opponents to pieces at extreme speed.

Legendary Assassin Stance also has a great stun-break that cleanses movement-impairing conditions with Riposting Shadows. Enchanted Daggers provides great sustain, and Jade Winds can be used in a pinch to turn nearby enemies to jade for 3 seconds, allowing you to disengage or resustain.

Legendary Dwarf Stance (Jalis) is absolutely not a worse legend than Shiro, it offers great damage reduction and consistent damage from Vengeful Hammers, a skill in which hammers circle your character dealing damage and healing you when they hit targets and reducing incoming damage by -20%.

Inspiring Reinforcement lays down a road in the targeted direction dealing damage, inflicting enemies with Weakness, and supplying you and your allies copious amounts of Stability perfect for when you’re facing foes that have Crowd Controlling abilities.

Forced Engagement inflicts enemies with Taunt and Slow and buffs yourself with Fury (and Might via Incensed Response) while reducing damage you take. While it can be used defensively, it’s also a great initial engagement ability, reducing initial pressure and increasing your damage.

In a sticky situation, you can use Rite of the Great Dwarf to stun-break and reduce incoming damage by 50% for you and your team.

Alternatives

If you need ranged option, you can swap Staff for Hammer. While Hammer skills hit hard, they don’t synergize well with this build’s Legends or Traits.

Crowd Control

• Shackling Wave
• Warding Rift
• Surge of the Mists
• Forced Engagement
• Jade Winds

Gearing tips

Since this build is designed to be your entry point to Guild Wars 2 world, let’s start with the basics, if you haven’t checked the guides below, give them a read to make yourself familiar with game basics.

Game basics – first steps in Tyria

This short guide contains answers to the questions you might have on the first days of your adventure, such as where to look for tips, how to look for a group (LFG), what are the most important parts of the interface, and more!

Game systems and mechanics

Downstate, dodging, skills tied to weapon types, heart quests, and meta events, it all can be overwhelming for the new player. This guide attempts to answer all your questions, even those you don't yet know you have.

Gearing guide for PvE

This guide aims to teach you about the easiest, fastest, and most importantly, cheapest methods of acquiring your first entry-level equipment for instanced PvE content.

Introduction to the Revenant

Rip through the Mists to assassinate your target, tear the fabric of reality to deliver powerful attacks, or become a tanky brawler or skilled healer with unique gameplay. Learn how to master invoking legends of powerful villains from Guild Wars history with this guide.

Don’t try to invest in Runes and Sigils before you acquire proper level-80 Exotic gear with Berserker’s stats as transferring upgrades is not possible without destroying the item, and retrieving them during the process has a small chance with most salvage kits.

From drops, crafting and level-up rewards pick items with Power, and on later levels supplemented by Precision and Ferocity.

Unlocking skills

If you’re looking up this build as you’re leveling through the wide world of Tyria we recommend quickly unlocking Vengeful Hammers and then building your way to Impossible Odds.

The first specialization you unlock at level 21 should be Invocation as it offers the most useful traits in early levels. At level 45 get Devastation and finally at level 71 unlock Retribution.