Revenant: the one class you cannot roll for free

The revenant wears heavy armour and runs on a mechanic that resembles nothing else in the game. Start with the hard limit: you cannot create one on a free account. It needs an expansion, either Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire or End of Dragons (what each contains).

The legends choose your skills for you.

Every other class lets you assemble a bar from dozens of skills. The revenant does not.

You pick two legends, figures drawn from the Mists. Each supplies a fixed set of skills that you cannot alter. One legend is active at a time, and you swap between them in combat.

So instead of “five slots, choose freely” you get “two sets, choose which”.

That is a restriction, plainly. In exchange you always know what is on your bar, and building a character costs no hour of reading.

The ten-second metronome

Invoking a legend always carries a 10-second recharge. Out of combat it is free, so the number only exists when it matters.

Read what that does to a fight. Your swap is not a button you press when you feel like it: it is the beat the whole class runs on. Half your skills are behind it, your energy refills through it, and once you have used it you are committed to one legend for ten full seconds.

Every other class in the game asks you to manage cooldowns on individual skills. The revenant asks you to manage access to half your bar, on a timer you cannot shorten by playing better.

Energy and upkeep

The class resource is energy. It regenerates on its own and refills when you swap legends.

The detail that matters: every legend has at least one upkeep skill, one that drains energy continuously while it is on. You switch it on and hold it for as long as you need the effect.

Playing a revenant therefore means watching two things at once: how much energy you have, and what is leaking out of it right now.

Energy is a budget, not a timer.

This is the part that catches people coming from any other profession.

A cooldown asks you to wait. Energy asks you to choose. Two skills may both be lit up and you can only afford one, which is a completely different kind of decision and takes a while to stop feeling wrong.

Then the upkeep skills make it stranger still. Turn one on and your bar stops refilling at the old rate, because something is draining it the whole time it is active. The classic newcomer trap is switching on an upkeep effect, forgetting about it, and spending the next minute wondering why nothing else is affordable.

The fix is a habit rather than a build: look at what is on before you ask why you are empty. Once that becomes automatic, the class stops fighting you, and what is left is one of the most physically satisfying professions in the game to press buttons on.

The core legends

Legendary Assassin (Shiro Tagachi) gives speed and damage. Legendary Centaur (Ventari) gives healing and support. Legendary Demon (Mallyx) works with conditions, yours and the enemy’s. Legendary Dwarf (Jalis Ironhammer) gives defence and survival.

The classic newcomer pairing is Shiro with Jalis: attack, and when things get warm switch to defence and refill your energy on the way.

Some things it does not have at all.

The revenant has no racial skills and no access to the common skills available to everyone else. Your choice of race changes nothing about it (about races).

Weapons

Main-hand: mace, scepter, sword. Off-hand: axe, shield, sword. Two-handed: greatsword, hammer, short bow, spear, staff.

The elite specialisations

Herald (Heart of Thorns) adds the legend of Glint and support through facets that hand out boons. The easiest entry and still one of the most useful in groups.

Renegade (Path of Fire) adds Kalla Scorchrazor and summoned warband members that attack and empower.

Vindicator (End of Dragons) adds the Alliance legend, two figures at once, and rewrites your dodge into a single large leap instead of two short ones.

Conduit (Visions of Eternity) adds Razah and deeper work with your second legend through Cosmic Wisdom.

Advice for a newcomer

The revenant makes a good second class. It needs an expansion, and it drops you straight into constraints that only make sense once you have seen how free the other classes are.

If you already own an expansion, take Herald with the Shiro and Glint pairing.

The comparison against the other eight sits in the overview.