This page contains strategies for defeating Revenant enemies. The strategy between games due to changes in gameplay as well as the enemy's overall strategy and stats relative to the game.
Dragon Age: Origins
Basics
Revenants are spirits of desire or pride that possess a warrior's remains, turning them into heavily armored undead knights. As such, they are very powerful and require careful planning to defeat. Most are Boss-ranked (see The Black Vials for more information), although it is possible to encounter Elite ranks, such as at Redcliffe Castle.
Aside from a high armor rating (directly mitigating players' physical damage), they are immune to cold damage and have high resistance thresholds for status effects, however it is possible to freeze them temporarily with Cone of Cold. Beyond that, they can be slowed or paralyzed (with Glyph of Paralysis), and the Hex spells are also effective at reducing accuracy and increasing player damage.
Effective tactics
-
- Glyph of Paralysis
- Traps set ahead of time, though revenants will often resist weaker traps.
- 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, especially 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 much easier but slower strategy, 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 bows or staves 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 uses 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 as fine, as taking 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 revenant. The mage can cast any heavy damage spell to attract attention; afterwards, 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.
The following are suggested teams that have been proven more successful than others.
| Team | Basic strategy |
|---|---|
| 2 warriors, rogue, mage | For single revenants (the ones from Phylacteries), it is a straight tank and spank.
For revenants plus adds (e.g. in the Brecilian Forest and Redcliffe Castle) either one of the warriors tanks the revenant while the other three take out the adds before piling damage onto the revenant, or one warrior tanks the revenant and the second warrior does the main damage to the revenant while the other two take out the adds. In either case, keep an eagle eye on the tank's health since revenants hit hard. This method worked for both single and revenants plus adds: have one 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) and mage to one position and pick off the adds one by one leaving the revenant till last then have them hold position and move them into a Tri formation around your kiting 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.
For revenants plus adds, the Warrior tanks, the mages and fourth member take out the adds first before turning their attention to the revenant, ensuring that the tank gets adequate healing at all times. |
| 3 mages, rogue | Move the rogue out of range of the Aura of Weakness and the mages in a semicircle around the revenant. Use stoppers like Cone of Cold (which is why the semicircle is best), Glyph of Paralysis and Petrify to pin the revenant down while everyone else shoots at him either with bows, staves, Arcane Bolt or Lightning. Note that unlike bows, the mage staves always hit, so the attack debuff from the aura doesn't bother the mages. |
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).