Revenant Build Guide

Table of Contents

1. TL;DR
2. Overview
   1. Strengths
   2. Weaknesses
3. Abilities Analysis
4. Deck Considerations
   1. Revenant Deck #1
5. Gameplay
   1. Early Game
   2. Mid Game
   3. Late Game
   4. Tips and Tricks
6. Heroes Synergy
7. Updates History

TL;DR on Revenant

Revenant is an unholy melding of malevolent spirit and vicious bounty hunter. An ability carry Revenant relies on isolating targets and collecting bounties in order to snowball past the enemy carry.

Focus on buying cards that increase your power so your abilities will deal more damage

Revenant carries a revolver with four rounds. Upon consuming these rounds you will automatically reload.

Hellfire rounds ability allows you to reload your weapon at any time and comes with a passive component: dealing bonus damage on your fourth shot.

Scar will infuse your target with dark energy allowing you to deal bonus damage to your enemy. Scar has great synergy not just with your basic attacks but also with Obliterate.

Obliterate will fire out of volley of projectiles that randomly target enemies in front of Revenant. When using Obliterate try to isolate your enemy so more of your projectiles hit a single target.

And finally your Ultimate is Reckoning. Revenant transports himself and a portion of a target essence into the Nether Realm where he and a target must duel. While in the Nether Realm no one can see Revenant except its prey and neither of them can damage or target anyone else except each other. If Revenant can kill his target before they leave the nether realm he will collect this bounty earning bonus card power. Revenant relies on Reckoning to collect bounties and come online sooner than other carries.

Building pure power will make your abilities deal more damage allowing you to nuke down high-value targets. When engaging enemies always be mindful of your cooldowns and how many rounds you have in the chamber. Even one small miscalculation could cost you your bounty.

Terrify your enemies, isolate your target and collect your bounty as Revenant.

Lore of Revenant

• Always finds what he is looking for, and then kills it.
• Born on Omeda, possessed on Letha.
• Carries a bullet engraved with a woman's name.
• See more lore for Revenant including video here.

Revenant Overview

Revenant's Strengths

1. High burst damage.
2. Ability to isolate any target and turn a team-fight into a duel.

Revenant's Weaknesses

1. Absolutely no escape abilities.
2. Basic attack require reload after every 4th shot.

Revenant's Abilities Analysis

- Hand Cannon (Basic Attack)

Ranged basic attack dealing Basic Damage.

Revenant's Hand Cannon only holds 4 bullets, after the fourth bullet is fired Revenant automatically reloads Hand Cannon. Bonus attack speed decreases reload speed but doesn't affect fire rate.

​Hand Cannon is a very specific basic attack. It has a pretty high fire rate (aka. attack speed) from the very beginning giving Revenant high DPS potential but over a short period of time.

- Hellfire Rounds (Alternate Ability)

Passive: Revenant's last round in the chamber deals critically strikes for an additional percent of Basic Damage damage.

Active: Revenant reloads 4 bullets into Hand Cannon.

Note that Revenant can still use any of his abilities while reloading his cannon. This is hot it looks like:

It is extremely important to control amount of rounds left in the chamber. It does not mean to reload after every single shot but you have to count the amount of shots and ensure that when you go in for an assassination you have your cannon fully loaded.

This is like playing Crunch when you have to count 1-2-3 (empowered). Here you are counting to four so that you are ready to execute an ability in parallel with reloading process.

Bonus damage of the last round is Ability Damage so it won't benefit from crit cards.

- Obliterate (Primary Ability)

Revenant unleashes ethereal missiles that home to random targets within a wide cone dealing Ability Damage. Total amount of damage is spread evenly across all the missiles.

Obliterate is a channel ability that lasts for about one second after a short wind up. It deals damage to all enemy targets not limited to Heroes. Minions are targets as well so Obliterate is not effective when your opponent is hiding inside their wave.

Positioning. To be used effectively Obliterate requires "position mastery". And not only because of the comment above. When Revenant is channeling Obliterate he's standing still and therefore he becomes a perfect target. So you have to pay special attention to positioning yourself prior to hitting that Q button. You should never do that when dueling an enemy carry especially in the late game. The only exception is you know for sure that Obliterate will kill him.

To add to that, while Obliterate is being executed Phase won't be able to pull you with her Telekinetic Link.

Locking the target. Keep in mind the following. All the targets for ethereal missiles are locked instantly upon the ability activation. It means that even if you are moving away from Revenant while he's executing Obliterate those missiles may still hit you. Even if you are out of range by the time the last missile was unleashed. Even if you are playing Aurora her Frozen Simulacrum will not help you to avoid damage.

Unblockable. Next important thing is that Obliterate ignores any force walls like Dekker's Containment Fence or Steel's Force Shield attached to his Bulwark. World geometry is ignored as well the only thing matters is line of sight. If you were locked in as a target and and right after that became out of sight around the corner a missile will still hit you.

Spacial case. Yin's Backlash can deflect ethereal missiles but they will not hit anyone since it is a targeted ability. They will just fly away like on this video.

Using Obliterate. There are three conditions to getting maximum of this ability:

1. Scar first.
2. Activate when there is nothing else the ability can target.
3. Do it while your Hand Cannon is reloading.

A special note about "targets". Towers, wards or let's say Flame Turrets placed by Iggy & Scorch are not considered as enemy targets and will be ignored.

- Scar (Secondary Ability)

Scar the target enemy for a short period of time. The next several instances of damage from Revenant trigger Bonus Ability Damage.

Scar has a range similar to your basic attacks. It is an ability with automatic target lock and not a skill-shot so you can't miss it once activated.

Similarly to Mark of Morigesh that empowers her Hive Scar empowers all the incoming damage from you to the target so it's a must to use it when you choose your target and ready to burst.

- Reckoning (Ultimate Ability)

Revenant pulls himself and his target into the Nether Realm for a short period of time dealing Ability Damage. Killing his opponent inside the Nether Realm grants bonus Gold.

While in Nether Realm you will receive no other damage except from the Hero you are dueling with. Meaning even towers will not hurt you even though they will still be targeting you. While ultimate is active you see no other heroes and minions other than your target. And vice versa nobody can see you. As for the target they still will receive damage from your allies and effects like knockup, slow, etc. will be applied to them.

The ability description is too short to clarify all the details of the complicated effect it creates. So once again one by one regarding the Nether Realm:

• to Revenant:
  • Damage from his target - YES
  • Damage from any other source - NO (e.g. enemy Towers does not do damage)
  • Negative effects to Rev from any other source - YES (e.g. Revenant can get caged inside Containment Fence of enemy Dekker)
  • Buffs from allies - YES (for allies Revenant remains visible and target-able)
• to the Rev's target:
  • Damage from Rev - YES
  • Damage from any other source - YES (all Revenant's allies will see the his target and will be able to do their part)
  • Negative effects from any other source - YES (see the above comment)
  • Buffs from target's allies - YES (allies will still see him and will be able to help)

One more thing. While in Nether Realm you can still use the mini-map. Revenant will see all the other enemy and ally heroes and vice versa they will see you.

To put it in other words:

• While Reckoning is active all team members can see each other. If Revenant used his ultimate on you all your allies will still see you. If you are the Revenant using the ultimate then all your allies will still see you.
• While Reckoning is active Revenant becomes invisible to the enemy team except of his target. But they will still see all the visuals Revenant "produces". E.g. they will see missiles of Obliterate. Another example: if Revenant gets a Gadget's Sticky Mine applied to him then opponents will see that mine traveling through the map on top of that-still-invisible Revenant.
• While Reckoning is active Revenant's target will remain visible to everyone.
• And finally while Reckoning is active Revenant will see only his target.

I hope this wall of text helps you understand how it works. If not... write a comment below.

Reckoning is a projectile

That's right. Once activated Reckoning is not applied instantly. There is projectile homing to the target and Yin is capable of slowing it down (but not cancel). See it in the video below:

Revenant's Deck Considerations

Revenant does not have any escape abilities. Though his ultimate might work like it you should consider having some Blink cards in your deck.

Remember that attack speed cards will not increase Revenant's fire rate but only decrease time to reload his Cannon.

Core Cards for Revenant

Revenant Deck Build #1

Explore deck

Gameplay with Revenant

Early Game

Obviously Revenant it to start on the Safe Lane. Do last-hitting taking down the Gold Buff and so on. Keep in mind though that need to track your Cannon rounds carefully to avoid situations of trying to land a last hot while you are out of ammo. Due to no escape abilities either you or your support has to have a Ward from the very beginning. Revenant's kit is all about his ultimate and a bonus CP related to it so your main goal is to get level 5 as soon as you can.

Mid Game

Bounty hunting. Now when you have your ult look for opportunities to kill opponents in Nether Realm. It does not mean you have to open with your Ult. During a team-fight you can wait until you see who has taken enough damage to be your target and then go for it. If you found yourself taking focused fire use Reckoning to "escape". It will not change the amount of enemies who can deal damage to you but it will make only one of them actually see you.

Late Game

If you are succeeded with all that bounty hunting stuff you have to reach 60 CP earlier than any of your opponents. You will still do the same job but more effectively. Have your blink card with you. With that goal of use-the-ultimate-and-kill you have to have a blink card with you that refreshes the cooldown upon getting a kill. This way you can go all-ins more safe and get away with more ease.

Tips and Tricks with Revenant

Revenant Counters and Synergies

Revenant has very limited escape and has no any re-position abilities at all. This makes him weak against Heroes with strong chasing potential or compositions with a lot of Crowd Control. He will also struggle against grouped enemies because his Obliterate will not able to focus damage to one single target.

See Revenant Counters

Revenant Updates

v41.0 (Jun-27 2017)

Obliterate

• Now requires line of sight to lock-on to a target
• Base damage reduced (120/200/280/360 → 115/190/265/340)
• Scaling reduced (1.4 → 1.25)
• Mana cost increased (70/75/80/85 → 90/105/120/135)

Scar

• Mana cost increased (40/45/50/55 → 50/60/70/80)