GW2. How To Fight Revenant. How To Beat Revenant. Class Mechanics. Matchup Guide. Revenant Herald Renegade Vindicator. Guild Wars 2 PvP 2023.

Your ability to adapt to situations in PvP is not only tied to your knowledge of your class, but also of the classes you will be facing. This is a basic guide to understanding Revenants in PvP so that you can figure out how to fight them without having to learn to play the class entirely.

Table of Contents

Mechanics

Revenants do not have the option to choose which individual utility skills they have, only the legend stances which determine a set of utility skills. They can choose between two legend stances, so if you can find out which two legend stances they are using then you know all of the utility skills they have.

Revenant Legends

Shiro	Mallyx

Jalis	Ventari

Learning to play around the legend stances is often learning to play around revenants because otherwise there are the weapons and traits to handle which can differ between builds. However, the one thing that all revenants must deal with is the energy mechanic. So if you are ever fighting a revenant, this is the most important thing to play around.

All revenant skills have cooldowns like other classes, but they also cost energy. Energy recharges over time and will reset to half of a full bar when revenants swap between their two legend stances. Generally this is something that the revenants must manage themselves, but knowing how it works can help you to manipulate a revenant. Knowing that all their skills cost energy and they will recharge their energy after swapping allows you to do a few things against it:

Stun breaks and condition cleanses cost energy so the best time to stun them is after they used a big combo, and the worst time to stun them is after they swapped legend
Revenants are never out of cooldowns, only out of energy. Playing aggressively can force them to use their energy defensively which will prevent them from using their more powerful offensive abilities.
Right after they swap legend stance, they are their most powerful because of the ability to reset their energy. Since the legend swap is a 9 second cooldown, you know that a big combo of skills is coming around that time, and you can prepare to react as soon as they swap.

Understanding when revenants are low on energy can also be tied to learning what legend stances and the associated skills they are using listed above. For example, if you see a revenant use Jade Winds in Shiro, Inspiring Reinforcement in Jalis, Call to Anguish in Mallyx, or Energy Expulsion in Ventari, you know that they just used a lot of energy; and depending on how much energy they have been saving up you can decide whether or not they are a threat. In general, the longer a fight goes on with a revenant freely casting, the closer they will be to winning it. Keep pressuring them with conditions and CC because they will need to sacrifice their energy to handle them and may not have time to use all their skills before their legend stance cooldown. If you stall them and waste their time, they may end up swapping legends before using up all their energy which means they wasted that energy.

Downed State

If you manage to get an enemy revenant into the downed state, disposing of them involves handling a few skills:

Slow – Using a stomp to finish is the preferred method of dealing with revenants because their downed state auto attack slows targets which can make it hard to deal damage, but stomps are unaffected by slow.

Single Targeted Knock Back – Stealth, Blind, Stability, Invulnerability, and Ports will allow you to secure your finishing stomp on a revenant. Getting knocked back can be detrimental because you aren’t in a position to prevent a revive, so always try to dodge when they raise their hand. Know that there is the potential to be knocked into a wall, and with the high velocity you may get stuck in the wall. Try to stomp from a safe angle to avoid this.

Traits

While you can learn how to play against meta builds, not everyone plays the same builds and there are some variations of revenants that may differ from one another. Understanding their traits and how they synergize with their class can help you to fight them.

The most common traitline that revenants run is Invocation.

The elite specializations revenants can play offer some new legend stances for them to use, though they are not necessarily going to use them.

Herald

Heralds can channel the Dragon Legend Glint to use Facets which pulse buffs to nearby allies until they choose to consume them for a powerful effect. While in Glint stance, they won’t ever run out of energy because their skills only cost energy to maintain and are free to activate. Pressure them when they are in their other stances. Try not to blow all of your damage when they use their Facet of Light because it will return that damage as healing instead.

Renegade

Renegades can channel the Charr Legend Kalla to summon spirits and provide various buffs. The spirits can be disabled to stop them from channeling their effects, or just move away from them. Shortbow skills provide a deadly ranged weapon, and while they can be used from the safety of range, they provide little defense. Force them to swap out of shortbow by getting in their face and pressuring them, then you can decide if they are still a threat while they have their weapon swap on cooldown.

Vindicator

Vindicators can channel the Legendary Alliance Stance of Canthan Legends Archemorus and Saint Viktor. The alliance stance has the offensive Luxon skills or the defensive Kurzick skills, They can swap between three legend stances when using the alliance, so know that the Luxon (Orange stance) is mostly damage and the Kurzick (Blue stance) is mostly healing and cleansing.

Vindicators also use their dodge to leap into the air before crashing down on their foes. First figure out whether they are using the damaging dodge, the boon/chill dodge, or the heal dodge. Play more aggressively against the heal dodge, but avoid being hit by the damaging or chill dodge. Save a dodge for their greatsword burst, but otherwise try to land your skills by casting them into the end of their dodge animation.

Matchups

There is always a potential to beat an enemy either by rotating into better fights or outplaying their mechanics, but these are the main dynamics of how specific classes interact with revenants:

Revenants Counter

Guardian

Revenants can remove the Aegis applied by guardians with how many multi-hitting attacks they have
Guardians run out of cooldowns while Revenants do not
Revenants can remove boons and have unblockable damage

Elementalist

Elementalists are countered by chill which revenants have plenty of
Revenants have enough sustained pressure that can eventually overwhelm the squishy elementalists
Elementalists prefer more controlled fights which revenants avoid by creating momentum map plays

Situational Dangers

Warrior

Warriors are slower than revenants and will often be outplayed because of it
Tons of CC will help warriors lock down a revenant if they can land it
Warriors are durable enough to survive and stall a revenant

Necromancer

Necromancers will put out conditions and CC to debilitate revenants
Revenants rely on boons which necromancers can corrupt
Necromancers are often the easiest target to focus

Ranger

Collateral damage that revenants dish out can often kill pets
CC and conditions that rangers can put out are effective at debilitating revenants
Rangers often like to be in small fights while revenants in larger fights

Counters Revenants

Thief