How the frick do you play revanent?

[Velaethia.6820]

I am so incredibly confused. I boosted a rev to 80 and I just don't know what I am doing at all. I'm constantly energy starved. EVERYTHING costs energy except auto attack. Both utility and abilities at least with thief only weapon skills use initiative. I use a few of my abilities and then I just sit there looking pretty waiting for my energy to regen.

[Linken.6345]

14 minutes ago, Velaethia.6820 said:

I am so incredibly confused. I boosted a rev to 80 and I just don't know what I am doing at all. I'm constantly energy starved. EVERYTHING costs energy except auto attack. Both utility and abilities at least with thief only weapon skills use initiative. I use a few of my abilities and then I just sit there looking pretty waiting for my energy to regen.

You are supposed to swap bettwen the legends as that regain your energy.

[Velaethia.6820]

10 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

You are supposed to swap bettwen the legends as that regain your energy.

Can't even do a full rotation and 10 second cooldown on swap means I can't do that frequently. 

[Beleron.9347]

The trick is to unlock at least one of the elite specs asap. Core revenant is quite weak but the elites are amazing.

[Velaethia.6820]

2 minutes ago, Beleron.9347 said:

The trick is to unlock at least one of the elite specs asap. Core revenant is quite weak but the elites are amazing.

I've fully unlocked renegade, still have issues.

 

[Warscythes.9307]

1 minute ago, Velaethia.6820 said:

I've fully unlocked renegade, still have issues.

 

What build are you playing? Your rotation could be adjusted too.

[Beleron.9347]

Try this: 

 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Alright, the short and easy version.

 

Step #1: Equip Sword + Sword.  The weapon swap is usually staff or hammer, but that's not important right now.

Step #2: Equip Assassin Stance and Dwarf Stance.

 

Step #3:  For maximum damage, you'll want to use the toggle skills in each stance.  Impossible Odds in assassin stance, and Vengeful Hammers in Dwarf.  Avoid using any other utility skills until you know what they do.  In combat you'll want to sit in Assassin Stance with Impossible Odds on while fighting, and once you run out of energy you swap legends to Dwarf Stance and turn on vengeful hammers.   Repeat this process.

 

Step #4: With swords, you'll want to use Chilling Isolation, Shackling Wave, and Deathstrike for damage.  That's weapon skills 2, 4, and 5.  Avoid Unrelenting Assault unless you need to dodge an attack.  If you aren't comfortable with this yet, it is perfectly fine to just auto attack with the toggle skills on from step 3.  That still does a surprisingly high amount of damage.

 

Step #5: For traits, pick the Devastation Line.  Choose the traits of Unsuspecting Strikes, Thrill of Combat, and Dance of Death.  This will give you ridiculous self sustain that will let you power through most content in the game, even in full glass berserker gear.  The other trait lines don't matter as much, but I recommend Retribution and Invocation until you get elite specs.  Choose the highest damaging traits when possible.  

[Telgum.6071]

You can't use all your skills with 50 energy only, so you are supposed to drop a nice amount of damage and then switch legends to gain 50-75 energy.

 

For example, on renegade is really common to use Kalla and Shiro and dual swords. So you drop Icerazor + sword 4# and 5#. That costs you 40 energy, leaving you with a bit above 10. Now, if you have the Invocation trait that recharges 75 energy if you switch legends with less than 10 energy, you can drop 2# sword to make it below 10 energy and then switch to Shiro. This way you just have to use Against the Odds and spam 1# and 2# (after 1# third attack) for a great DPS. Also use Orders from Above for a nice burst and condition damage, since you have enough energy for that.

 

That's a simple and imperfect rotation but it gives you some insight about how to actually deal damage and manage energy on Revenant.

Edited August 29, 2021 by Telgum.6071

[b k.1648]

The Revenant's energy pool is also used in place of what more restrictive cooldowns would do on other classes. It's a bit like initiative on a Thief's weapon skills in that regard.

 

So you can use the same skill more frequently, but it comes at the expense of being able to use anything else. You'll want to pace your energy consumption, so it doesn't run out before your legend swap comes off cooldown.

[mikko.4013]

3 hours ago, Velaethia.6820 said:

I am so incredibly confused. I boosted a rev to 80 and I just don't know what I am doing at all.

This.

 

Read your tooltips, try understanding your traits, your build, your gear.

Even Core Revenant is good enough to complete all HoT OW PvE, though Elite specs being much better.

 

Learn which skills use more energy, learn which skills do CC, etc...

[Cyprien.4208]

That's one of the main problems with boosting characters you don't get the time to learn as you go along. It doesn't mean you can't learn now it just means you'll have to learn everything at once. You can setup two heroes for your swaps each have their own skills.

Revenant is a energy management class like Thief and swapping powers like Elementalist. In order to get the most out of the class you should be swapping every time your energy is drain with F1 however core classs of Revenant does allow some bonus of using F2 to regain back energy without the need to fully swap when low.
 

[Antycypator.9874]

In Open World, I play revenant just like enginner, but with 4 weapon kits (2 legends and 2 weapon sets). I mostly sit on 1 legend until I need different utility skills, heal or just refresh my energy.

[Naxos.2503]

I stick to Legendary Renegade and dont switch my legends at all. I use Hammer and Staff for a Power build, making use of Maximum Kalla's favor to unleash Citadel Bombardment at maximum power, with as much Might as possible (given by f1, my Runes and Sigils) at as large a cluster of enemies as possible, or as a finisher against a single, stronger mob. I use the ghost on a Need basis. Darkrazor for CC supplement after staff 5/Hammer5, Icerazor's when the breakbar is gone, or the enemy is rendered static with hammer 5. When low on energy, I stick to hammer, it's Hammer 1 packs a very strong punch when you got a lot of might and fury, and pierces.  It's traited for full power damage, and does wonders in WvW and PvE. I dont do PvP though.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Naxos.2503

[cloudsareyum.8120]

I'm not a super revenant senpai but I do play low pvp revenant. 

to survive in pvp and against scary mons, need way to deal with conditions and stunbreaks, and damage is nice too.

Way to deal with conditions: Legendary Demon stance, under Corruption trait line there is a trait that gives you resistance on all of the skills. So anytime you have condition that will help.  also dwarfbro's heal, but demon more useful for pvp for me.

Way to deal with stunbreaks- all the legends have stunbreaks.

Damage wise, I used to like Shiro.  The ult is a CC, and you gain double strike which helps you kill faster (and generate energy faster happily.)  Usually when I wander the world I go Shiro (legenday assassinjerk)/Mallyx (legendary demon), or legendary/demon something else because I need the condi cleanse XD.

Dwarfbro is favored by my friend, as a defensive thing.  I'm not as familiar with Glint. I like Kalla Scorchrazor for the damagies (and i like shortbow better as long range than hammer xd, but i haven't it in pve yet)

 

Weapon wise, it was hard to get used to, but basically, the 2-5 skills I use sparingly and usually some form of CC or invuln.  In PvE for example, sword main hand 3 is handy because you are invuln, staff is handy coz it has a blind and a block.  The auto attack 1 is actually not just a typical autoattack 1, there's 3 different things it does repeated and  there's enough of it so that you use the other skills occasionally, you'll be generating energy fine.  It takes some getting used to.  Usually I'm autoattacking (1111) and using some of the other skills strategically.  Often the skills I use strategically are things like demon stance ult (more damage), demon stance heal (resist conditions) or other skills if im in trouble, defensive stuff (sword 3, you can't get hit during and you do damage),  or cc type stuff (staff 5, axe 5 which is a nice pull). and usually I do use one of those toggle-able ones depending

Hammer is your long long range weapon but I use it rarely.   There's also a traitline that gives you energy when you swap legends and other things but I don't use those

 

i like sword/sword and mace/axe and sometimes situationally hammer and all the things.  Usually when i go for one of the toggleable skills i can only use the rest sparingly if at all, energy refresh helps too

 

 

 

If you want to support, Ventari's spirit is pretty awesome, you can givea ton of alacrity and healing. However for me it's pretty challenging to play out in the world like that, and the cc vanishes the tablet, so I personally only use it for edge cases coz I'm not a senpai yet.  GL

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by cloudsareyum.8120

[jcm.8921]

Rev takes a bit of time to get used to the energy mechanic, because of the exact thing you've ran into: you don't have enough energy to go full throttle all the time. You need to conserve your energy and, assuming you have Charged Mists selected from the Invocation trait line, swap legends at or below 10% to gain more energy in your swapped-to legend (specifically, you'll have 75% energy when you swap into your other legend), so you have more energy to go full throttle in your swapped-to legend for longer.

Rev used to be a class I sucked on, because I wasn't used to the energy mechanic and wasn't used to knowing when to conserve vs when to go all out, but as I played it more (specifically, as I leveled it naturally, in general I feel leveling naturally eases you into each class's mechanics very well) I became more comfortable with it, and got the hang of the ebb and flow of the class.

In general, condi Rev has a harder time managing its energy well due to how reliant you are on legend swapping and your weapon skills, but power Rev is pretty easy provided you're running sword/x, as the sword auto chain deals pretty good damage and consumes no energy, so if you're energy starved and your legend swap is on cooldown, then you can just spam autos and cast your other skills whenever you have the energy, then shortly before your legend swap comes off cooldown, dump all your excess energy, swap, and repeat.

[The Boz.2038]

Boosting it to 80 was a mistake. What level were you when you did so? 

For starters, using all skills as a "full rotation" is not what you should be doing. Try the suggestion of Kalla/Jalis/Shiro sustained skills, plus using sword 1 and 2. Then expand into some other things.

Core isn't weak at all, but it is somewhat weaker than the especs. Still, it has a unique +energy F2, so yay.

[nosleepdemon.1368]

Depending on your build OP, you will not be able to burn every cooldown you have without becoming energy starved. Certain skills on Legends are not designed to be a part of your regular rotation. With each Legend swap you need to pick and choose what skills you want to use. You'll be weaving in auto attack chains to pad out your energy usage such that you're close to, or completely out of energy by the time your Legend swap is off cooldown. The Revenant gimmick is the management of your energy, Legend and weapon swap cooldowns. In other words, you have encountered the "hard to master" part of the profession. Don't worry, you're not necessarily doing anything wrong and you're probably not "missing" something, it's just that you need to work out a combination of skills, auto attack chains and weapon swaps to fill in the time it takes for your Legend swap to cooldown with useful attacks.

[Xanadrine.4352]

You need to read this and scroll down to usage and comabt play.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Renegade_-_Power_Bombardment

 

There is no set rotation but a priority really.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Zuldari.3940

[GrayHawk.7560]

There is some really excellent advice above so I won't regurgitate it unnecessarily.

 

Rev is one of the worse choices as far as boosting goes because there is quite a lot to get familiar with energy management, legend swapping, F2-F4 abilities (where applicable), weapon swaps etc and there is quite a lot of nuance -

 

- one example is with on swap sigils, they proc on both legend swap and weapon swap (subject to their cooldowns) this can have many applications;

 

- another consideration is your goal.  Rev more than most locks itself into a defined roll because you have to choose the appropriate legend for said roll.  They all play a little differently;

 

- Rev has some interesting advantages/synergies, one eg is the on swap sigils, another is that you have 2 heal skills, 2 elites etc.  They are generally balanced around this though.

 

In general there are a few commonalities with each legend that will help broadly simplify them.  Each legend has at least - 

 

-1 upkeep skill (unless it's Herald, then you have 6).  These upkeep skills have varying upkeep requirements of between 1 and 6 energy 'pips';

 

- 1 PB AoE/AoE skill which has varying effects;

 

- 1 stun break;

 

- 1 hard or soft (or both) CC skill;

 

- 1 movement skill or skill that affects movement;

 

Sometimes these overlap so it's very important to read tooltips.  Due to Rev not being able to switch utilities, very often its utilities are overloaded or have multiple applications.

 

Traits and their interactions with energy are very important to understand.  For eg there are traits where you heal for each pip of energy being upkept, gain extra energy for swapping under certain thresholds etc.

 

On core Rev your F2 gives you 25 energy in addition it its other benefit 

 

Rev auto attacks a lot.... get used to auto attacking.  Because of the limited energy pool Rev doesn't spam its skills unless it's for short bursts.  More often than not energy will be used either on utilities, to set up a burst, for CC or for the burst itself.  Rev works more on a skill priority system than on a rotation.  Get used to auto attacking in conjunction with an upkeep skill at first. 

 

Eg  for open world to practice -

 

on core Rev in Shiro/Jallis, if using sword just to get used to what you are doing at first, turn on impossible odds, auto attack till energy drained then swap to Jallis, turn on hammers auto till drained swap back etc.  Get used to the pace and kill speed and you will get used to when you can and can't use a skill.

 

Rev hits kitten hard when built properly.  Often on trash mobs you can blink in and burst with eg Sword 5-2 or 5-4 or 5-4-2 and the mob will die.  If its a longer fight then you would start with a burst CC combo the  move to your upkeep/auto chain rinse and repeat.

 

On Renegade you can do well enough in open world running around pressing 3-2-1 on shortbow  then auto until your energy refills unless you need CC.  Your energy is also spent on Ice Razor+Dark Razor then autos with F2 thrown in for might when solo / F4 when properly geared and in a group.

 

For condi - Mace 2,3 Axe 5,4 to blink turn on Demon Stance elite and auto.

 

Underwater Trident's effects change depending on your legend so pay attention there.  Kala can't be used underwater, Glint can.  Mallyx, Shiro and Glint are all very strong and trident's 2 and 5 do insane damage.

 

Just some basic beginner tips, hope they make sense and help a bit.

 

(Typed this on my phone so excuse weird spelling or formatting) 

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by GrayHawk.7560

[Buran.3796]

On 8/29/2021 at 7:17 AM, Velaethia.6820 said:

I am so incredibly confused. I boosted a rev to 80 and I just don't know what I am doing at all. I'm constantly energy starved. EVERYTHING costs energy except auto attack. Both utility and abilities at least with thief only weapon skills use initiative. I use a few of my abilities and then I just sit there looking pretty waiting for my energy to regen.

   Contrary to the extended belief, I don't think that using a booster is a bad idea: I think that for the first run of a character in the game leveling it just playing is fun and provides feedback about the general tools of the class, but I did it with my first characters (Warrior, Guardian, Ranger,. Thief... ) and I can assure you that I learned almost nothing about builds or how to efficiently play those characters in the leveling. Is the experimentation with fully leveled characters, the traits and skills, the gameplay in WvW, PvP or demanding PvE scenarios which provides the most valuable lessons, not doing jumping puzzles in open world or beating creeps in public events.

 

   Now on the topic:

1) Revenant enters in the game with a 50 energy units cap which is temporaly raised to 100 when you're in combat.

2) You regenerate 5 energy units x second until you reach your cap. Swapping legends RESETS your energy bar to 50 (so you can lose energy if you have more than 50 units stacked) and swapping at the rigth time is important.

3) The exception to rule 2 is Invocation's trait "Charged Mist" which resets your energy to 75 if your current level is at 10 or less. This trait is important with some builds that don't use Glint as a legend, but much less effective with Glint variants.

4) Weapon skills (outside #1), heals, utilities and elite skills cost energy (and oftenly have cooldowns). The exception is Glint, which skills works a bit like Guardian's signets (they have a passive effect which has a upkeep energy cost and an active effect much more stronger but with shorter duration and which has no energy cost).

5) When you spent energy (in the form of fixed cost or upkeeps) you should ALWAYS AVOID TO BE FULLY DEPLETED TO 0. Being depleted to 1 is fine, because if you stop spending energy you gain inmediatly 5 energy points x second. But when the Rev reaches 0 energy enters in a cooldown of ~4 seconds untill you start to regen energy at 5 units x second again. THE EXCEPTION to this rule is legend swapping, so if you are going to swap legend and therefore reset your energy is good to fully exhaust yourself before the change.

 

   Legends have a huge impact in how you play and maneage your energy with the Revenant. Glint builds usually are less energy sensitive since the active effect of Glint's skills have no energy cost. Builds than doesn't run Glint but have Charge of the Mist usually abuse high upkeeps (Shiro's Impossible Odds, Jalis Vengeful Hammers, Mallyx's Embrace the Darkness, Kalla's Soulcleave's Summit... ) to deplete the energy bar below 10 just before a legend swap. In PvE, despite the high energy cost of a lot of skills is easy to stack 40+ torment and/or bleed stacks, so the damage is plentyfull with condition builds.

 

   At the moment the power builds do less damage and have worse cleave and AoE damage, which make them weaker in PvE, but doesn't damage their sustain, specailly when you combine Jalis, Retribution 1,3,3 and Devastation 3,3,3. In PvP/WvW the lower dps of power builds  is irrelevant, since most of the time you aren't trying to  maximize damege per second but put pressure on targets while saving some cards for survability if the things go wrong. 

   So: condi damage from both mele and ranged Rev specs in PvE is really strong despite the energy management; power is less effective due the lack of good AoE cleave damage, but still decent at single targets.  Energy works very well in PvP/WvW because you don't need to maximize damage, but to keep yourself alive while waiting chances for either a burst or a sustained stream of damage.

[Virdo.1540]

Thats why you shouldnt use lv80 boosts.  See the path from 1-80 as an Tutorial to an Profession. Rev requires a lot of experience to be handled (cooldowns + energy management)

 

Core rev has the ability to restore energy with f2.   Otherwise you have to delay skills or toggle off Upkeep Skills to save energy. 

 

But one thing that almost no rev comes around is swapping legends to restore energy directly to 50% again (or 75 with Trait)

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

You need to use the skills you want to use and plan ahead based on energy costs.  Revenant is NOT about “spamming everything off CD.”  You will never be able to just mindlessly spam with rev, so if that’s the type of gameplay you’re looking for go with guardian or something else with regular CDs. I’m combat, Rev is about making choices for both the present moment and the near future 

[Moradorin.6217]

Lots of good info in many responses.

 

One simple and handy thing about energy it will fill up to 100% while in combat. Some times it beneficial to let it fill up before blowing it all.

 

Traits can give you extra energy on swap too, but then you have be under I think 10% to get the on swap energy bonus. This requires some practice with timing due to energy regeneration rates.

 

Some times you are fine to sit on one legend and use legends skills sparingly allowing the bar to refill some.

 

Use your skills only when they are needed and learn the rotations for DPS so you can learn which skills take priority for when you cannot follow a normal rotation.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Moradorin.6217

[Dahkeus.8243]

Rev is a weird class to get used to.  It took me a long time to get to a point where I actually enjoyed playing the class, even though it's really my favorite now.