An entire unit of men, all slain by one creature. I didn't believe it at first, your Perfection, but it appears that this is so. We have a survivor, and while at first I thought his rantings pure exaggeration... it appears to be no simple skeleton. The descriptions of the creature's abilities were eerily similar to those our brothers at Marnas Pell encountered almost a century ago: men pulled through the air to skewer themselves on the creature's blade, and attacks so quick that it was able to assault multiple opponents at once. No, your Perfection, what we have here is indeed a revenant and nothing less. —From a letter to Divine Amara III, 5:71 Exalted.
A revenant is a corpse possessed by a demon of pride or of desire... making it amongst the most powerful possessed opponents that one can face. Many possess spells, but most are armed and armored and prefer the use of their martial talents. They are weak against physical attacks but regenerate quickly, and commonly use telekinesis to pull opponents into melee range should they try to flee. Revenants also have the ability to strike multiple opponents surrounding them. Stay at range if possible and strike quickly—that is the only way to take such a creature down.
Researched: Damage Against Undead Increased
—From Codex entry: RevenantRevenants are powerful demons inhabiting the corpses of the fallen, and as such, share the same strengths and weaknesses as creatures like Devouring Corpses, and Fanged Skeletons.
Involvement
Ten Revenants can be found during the campaign, as part of three separate quests:
- The Black Vials: Six boss-level Revenants are trapped in glass phylacteries:
- Caridin's Cross, Denerim, Circle Tower, Orzammar Royal Palace, the Lower Ruins, and the Werewolf Lair
- The Mage's Treasure: Three boss-level Revenants in the Brecilian Forest, one in the west & two in the east. These are summoned by triggering gravestones.
- Arl of Redcliffe: A lieutenant-level Revenant is found in the Redcliffe Castle courtyard when The Warden breaks in to investigate.
- In addition, in Awakening it is possible to encounter Revenants in the Blackmarsh after escaping the Fade. The various Fade Portals spawn various undead and demonic enemies, including Revenants, though at this point in the game they are only Elite level and far easier to dispatch of than their boss-level, Origins counterparts.
Builds
Skills
Revenants have five different skills, and like party members, have conditions for their Combat Tactics:
| Skill Used | Condition | Use Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Aura of Weakness (Monster) | Any | 100% |
| Double Strike (Monster) | Surrounded by at least 2 enemies | 50% |
| Surrounded by at least 3 enemies | 75% | |
| Surrounded by at least 4 enemies | 100% | |
| Mass Pull (Monster) | Most enemies using ranged attacks | 100% |
| Most enemies using magic | 100% | |
| Combat start | 100% | |
| Pull (Monster) | Short–medium range | 100% |
| Medium–long range | 100% | |
Shield Wall may refer to:
|
Other statistics
Revenants have the following characteristics:
- High Armor, Health, and Regeneration.
- Immunity to Stunning and knockdowns.
- Immunity to Cold and Nature damage, although they can be frozen.
- Vulnerability to Fire damage; normal reaction to Spirit, Lightning, and (despite the Codex text) Physical damage.
- Highly resistant or immune to flanking and backstabbing.
Some of their basic strategies involve:
- Pulling or Mass Pulling ranged attackers and healers.
- Damaging multiple opponents in melee.
- Killing weaker party members in one blow (spiking).
- Wearing down the party with their allies (skeletons or lesser darkspawn).
Strategy
Basics
Killing a Revenant takes careful planning and a well balanced group. Be sure to have plenty of healing (both from spells and items), at least one Tank, and at least one party member that can disable opponents. As always, a tanking Warrior should bring Weapon and Shield Talents to help keep aggro off the other party members.
Effective tactics
- Use snares to stop the the Revenant and/or slow it down:
- Snares include: Glyph of Paralysis,
- You can set traps ahead of time (although the demon will often resist weaker ones).
- Slow down their regeneration: Curse of Mortality
- Make them miss: Misdirection Hex or Death Hex.
- Increase their vulnerability: Vulnerability and Affliction Hexes and Mark of Death.
- Have a mage activate Telekinetic Weapons to increase armor penetration. Sunder Armor, Shattering Blows, and Shattering Shot are also highly effective, espescially if you face a Revenant early in the game where they tend to have extremely high armor versus your physical damage output.
- Some Revenants spawn with undead allies. It might be best to cast Force Field/Paralyze the Revenant at this point and flee the battle area, aggroing its undead allies and dealing with them in a separate location. The party can then return at leisure and deal with the Revenant alone.
- A tank maintains aggro while the other party members whittle down the Revenant's health.
- For Mages: the Revenant is totally immune to cold damage from both staves and spells like Winter's Grasp, but Cone of Cold will serve to freeze it in place. The Revenant cannot be shattered.
- Another possibility, much easier but slower is to wait for the revenant to attack the most threatening member of your party and just make this character run, possibly around a pillar or some obstacles. Other members are free to hit the revenant with archery or mage sticks while he is running to catch your lure character. The obstacle is very important because when the revenant is trying to pull your character you just fall down and he always has to catch you. Sometimes, you have to flee to another part of the map to find suitable ground for the fight. This strategy is very efficient, if you can manage to first kill the less dangerous skeletons.
- Any characters at long range will not be pulled in. Rangers and healers can all work like this.
Alternative tanking
- Force Field: the tank use Threat and Taunt to maintain aggro until Force Field is reapplied. The remaining party members keep their distance, using ranged weapons, spells, and fire bombs to deal with the demon. Ironically, bows work just fine, as dealing too much damage causes the Revenant to switch its attention from the tank to other party members.
- Arcane Warrior: Attract aggro by casting offensive spells and hexes on the Revenant; spend as much mana as possible.Switch on Rock Armor, Arcane Shield, Shimmering Shield and Aura of Might and switch to heavy armor and weaponry. Thus you can easily obtain 50+ armor and survive heavy attack while dealing some damage. Flank with the rest.
- Mage Tank: One unconventional method is to have a mage aggro the demon then run in circles around an obstacle. The other party members should be using ranged attacks to kill the demon. The mage can cast any heavy damage spell to attract attention; afterward, good spells to use include Vulnerability Hex, Drain Life, and any method of healing.
Suggested groups
With the right tactics, a group of any composition can defeat Revenants.
Mages please note that Revenants are completely immune to cold damage, so staves like Winter's Breath are useless against this foe and avoid wasting precious mana on spells like Winter's Grasp. Cone of Cold can be used as 'crowd-control' to immobilize the Revenant briefly, but the spell will inflict no damage. Revenants are also immune to Shatter spell combinations, so don't waste your time trying.
The following are suggested teams that have proven successful to others.
| Team | Basic strategy |
|---|---|
| 2 Warriors, Rogue, Mage |
For single Revenants (the ones from Phylacteries), it is a straight tank and spank. This method worked for both single and revenants plus adds, have 1 warrior use shield wall + taunt the whole group and kite them around objects or in a big circle, have the other warrior equip a bow and move the warrior,rogue (also with bow) + mage to 1 position and pick off the adds 1 by 1 leaving the revenant till last then have them hold position and move them into a Tri formation around your kiteing area so someone is always hitting the revenant (as long as you manage to get in range to taunt the revenant the kiter will not loose the hate the whole fight). this method takes about 5 min+ per fight but only consumes 2-3 lesser potions per fight (depending on how much get Pulled back) |
| Warrior, 2 Mages, optional |
For single Revenants, again it is a straight tank and spank. |
Notes
- Revenants can attack several party members in melee simultaneously, so using only one melee fighter and keeping the rest of your party at range will limit the Revenant's total damage output, letting you heal more efficiently.
- Party members can use obstacles to prevent being pulled: when you see the spell cast, move them behind pillars or walls; characters will fall when they hit the obstacle and remain at a decent distance.
- In Redcliffe Castle, you can get help by opening the gate by pulling the lever (assuming anyone survived the Redcliffe battle).
- Because of the Revenant's ability to spike, it is worthwhile to adjust the teams self-healing tactics; the main tank should heal when at 75% health and other damage dealers at 50% health. If using Mages to snare and debuff, they should cast heal and self-heal more rarely, perhaps at the 25% mark instead of 50%. The spike damage comes mainly on his AoE melee ranged attack, so trying to move your party members accordingly will reduce it greatly.
- Early in the game, the Revenant is much less likely to use Mass Pull and almost only uses Pull against its main target, which should be your tank. Indomitable or Shield Wall will help protect the tank if pulled (even better if they also have Shield Expertise). Use Mark of Death or Vulnerability Hex plus frost/fire weapons.
- All Revenants, with the exception of the one found in Redcliffe Castle, are Boss-level characters in Origins. However, in Awakening, they are Elite rank.
- There's a medium range where you can stay safely and neither pull or mass pull will not be used even when most of your members are ranged, close enough to consider melee, but not far to be ranged. It works even on Nightmare and makes the whole fight really easy
- The Revenant you encounter in Redcliffe can be petrified and shattered.
- In addition to their constant drop, Revenants will also drop up to 3 random valuable items ranging from tier 3 and 4 health and lyrium potions to flawless grade crystals, heavy plate armor, or simply gold (varies with level).
