Revenant Guide Nightreign: Incantations, FP & Passives

The No Bullshit yet Exhaustive Guide to Revenant

Introduction
How Revenant Works - A Summary
Claws
FP Management
Passives, Skill and Ultimate
Incantations
Item Passives
Dormant Power and Passives aka Boss Drops
Talismans
Relic Choices
Conclusion

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Introduction

The No Bullshit yet Exhaustive Guide to Revenant. The No Bullshit Yet Somewhat Exhaustive Guide To Revenant. By Calmdown.

Inspired by /u/RightEntertainer324's No Bullshit Guardian guide, I thought I'd write something similar for Revenant. Mine's a lot more wordy though, so I apologise in advance :).

Super quick about me: I didn't play Elden Ring or any souls games, I started with Nightreign (I now play Elden Ring!). I mained Recluse for about 200 hours and switched to Revenant because I wanted to try incantations and Recluse doesn't get enough drops, and I found Revenant to be a superior (or at least on-par) class that was more fun to play. I have about 100 hours on Revenant, I've killed every ED boss both duo with my brother and trio with randoms. I'm a good player, but I am not an uber pro let-me-solo-her guy; I get hit and die sometimes like everybody else. But my success rate on EDs in random trios is about 75% so I think I'm doing something right.

I see tons of terrible advice and assumptions on this sub and elsewhere about Revenant, and even more terrible Revenant play in-game. I'm sure a lot of it is inspired by watching clueless Youtubers or looking at ill-thought out tier lists, but I'm here to tell you how to make Revenant work.

Before we get into the guide, let's start with dispelling some myths about Revenant.

Revenant's kit is bad so Revenant is bad. Yes, there are parts of Revenant that could use some love. Her passive is mostly dogshit. Her pets should scale better. There's no reason for her to be quite as squishy as she's been made. Despite that, she has S tier scaling so she does great damage and she's the only class in the game that gets extra seal drops to maximise that scaling. She comes with an excellent Ultimate ability that is probably the third best Ult in the game, after Wylder and Ironeye.

Revenant has FP problems. Revenant does not have FP problems, you're playing her badly.

Playing Revenant made me a better Recluse player to the point where when I play Recluse I barely need to use my mana regain ability. Read on for more on why.

Revenant is a support class. This is probably the single most key thing that you need to understand to be a good Revenant player. There is no such thing as a support class in Nightreign (sorry Guardians, I love you); your job is to do damage to a boss. Don't be fooled by the fact you have 'share items with friends' and 'party gains more runes' on preset relics or claws that are great for rezzing; they're a trap.

How Revenant Works - A Summary

I'm not going to explain the basics of stat scaling, faith, hitpoints, or anything like that. If you don’t know the fundamentals of the game, there's plenty of great posts written on the topic and I'd suggest you find one and read it first.

Revenant is a Faith-based DPS class that relies on Incantations to do damage. She has a great ultimate.

Revenant has a 'loot preference' for Incantations. If you don't know what this is, it means that you are more likely when you kill a boss to be offered a reward that's an Incantation. This is why you should focus on using Incantations to deal damage; because if you are killing enough bosses on day 1 and 2, you will almost certainly get a seal that gives you an effective build.

In simple terms, your goals for Revenant are the same as the goals for most characters in Nightreign. Get this embedded into your brain; you are not a Support Class. Your goals are not different to any other class in Nightreign:

Maximise your DPS
Get enough survivability to survive Nightlord mechanics
Use your summons to help do stuff, whether that be killing or utility.
Use your Ult liberally during daytimes to speed up the run, and use your Ult during the boss fight for clutch rezzes or damage.

Claws

Lets get this out of the way early.

Claws are a great weapon and one of the few faith-scaling melee weapons in the game. They are excellent at reviving people and you get them for free at the start of the game, which means that you have a way to kill things whilst waiting to find a good incantation and/or whilst you don't have a lot of mana (more on that later). They do a bizarrely good amount of stance damage.

They deal mostly Magic damage, and some physical.

Claws are NOT what you should build your character around. This is a common mistake I see in other Revenant guides and discussions, usually by people who are trying to find the positives in Revenant's kit, and with the best of intentions. But it's terrible advice.

You absolutely CAN make a claw-revenant if you want to, and I'm sure many people can tell you all of the reasons that can work. I'm telling you it's suboptimal, and you should consider claws a nice starting gift to tide you over until you transition to "full caster" mode, which you should be aiming to do by around level 5 but I often do as early as level 3. I usually throw my claws away completely somewhere around the midgame once I find a good 6th item passive and I want the slot, but I wouldn't say you'd be totally wrong for keeping them for the Nightlord for their great rezzing potential. It is an option and you can make up your own mind on that.

One thing to be aware of is that claws can be two handed and the animation set changes to do extra swipes with a higher effective DPS. I recommend two-handing them at all times when you're using them unless your objective is to chain-stagger something, in which case two-handing is slightly worse (it has a longer time between individual attacks).

FP Management

A significant amount of the negativity around Revenant revolves around 'poor FP management'. I too was very guilty of saying this when I started playing Revenant, and coming from Recluse it certainly felt like a problem.

It's also completely incorrect.

Playing Revenant made me realise that FP management in Nightreign is actually incredibly easy once you learn how to build your character and how to play; easy to the point that when I play Recluse, I use my character skill to generate mana probably 5x less than I used to.

Solving FP Management in the Daytime

Using only claws until about level 3 (you're probably still looking for a good Incantation at this point anyway), and keep claws as a backup in case you run out of mana until around level 5-6; white claws are still fine DPS at this point
Choose the correct incantations - don't use things that are highly mana inefficient, or things that burn your mana for a single big effect, like the Dragon Breaths
Focus on FP reduction passives and powers until you are comfortable with your mana consumption relative to your chosen Incantation
Use a relic with extra FP from Sorcerer's Rises (more on this later)
In the early-midgame whilst your mana fixing is developing, use Starlight Shards, either from Sorcerer's Rises (they drop 3+ from boxes per rise) or from a relic that grants you starting Starlight Shards

But the main, most important way we solve FP as a Revenant is:

DON'T FORGET TO REFRESH AT SITES OF GRACE

This does not mean going out of your way to get sites of grace, but it does mean getting them as you run past them. I swear the number of Revenants I see run past a site of grace that they could have easily ran over, and then end up having to use claws, is huge.

If you are killing plenty of bosses - and you should be - you get all of your mana back after every boss on the site. I see lots of people of all classes panic and run away from a boss because they're terrifed to lose 3 seconds searching for a site of grace they can't instantly see. This is probably the number one cause of people claiming that Revenant has FP issues.

If you follow these tips and still run out of mana, you need to review what you're doing critically as I promise you you're doing something wrong. I can confidently tell you that I've never once ran out of mana in a fight without an option to regain it since I got disciplined with my grace pickups and focused on the FP management tips.

Solving FP Management for Nightlords

This is really simple; buy Starlight Shards. You'll probably have some left over from the day, and your teammates (if they're any good) should be able to drop you some too. Try to go into every boss fight with 4, and then just spam whatever spell you want and munch your shards until the boss is dead. I can't honestly remember the last time that I used more than 3, and most of the time if my teammates are half decent I only need 2.

That's how easy FP management is for Nightlords, and it's the reason that you can use some horribly FP inefficient Incantations (Like Triple Discs of Light) with impunity once you're fighting a Nightlord.

Passives, Skill and Ultimate

Necromancy

Your passive triggers whenever something that you have hit dies. It has a chance to summon that thing as a ghost.

I'm not going to spend any time discussing this, because frankly it's shit. No Nightlords have things for you to summon. It has limited utility during the day, and whilst sometimes you'll reanimate something cool like a Pumpkin Head or one of the tough adds during a Night 1/2 boss fight, the net effect of this passive is very small (it helps more in solo play, but I'm not interested in solo play). The only time I like to actively use this is vs Duke's Dear Freja, where I kill all of the spiders to keep them from stunning/damaging my party and summon a huge spider army who either tank more spiders in turn or do the job of hitting the boss so that I don't have to deal with that frustrating bullshit myself.

Spirit Summons

Our character skill is pretty good, and is largely characterised by how divisive the community find it. It's major drawback is that the Summons die too quickly on Nightlords, which is very annoying and hopefully at some point gets fixed. Still, it is wildly overexaggerated HOW quickly they die on Nightlords - Reddit and Youtube would have you think they instantly evaporate the second that you summon them.

Here's some knowledge about summons:

When you summon a spirit, it will appear next to whatever you have targeted and try to attack that target. But this has quite a short limited range, so if you're not near your target, your summon might change target before it does what you wanted it to do.
Spirits have their own AI, similar to monsters. You can partially direct them by summoning or resummoning them with a particular thing targeted, but you can't control them.
Summons scale with your level, but not by much, approximately 10% hp and damage per level. They drop off noticeably as you level up.
When your summons die, they regenerate health until you can summon them again. This shows as a regenerating blue bar on their UI panel. They need to be at 50% hp before they can be summoned again if they die.
You can unsummon a summon, and it happens automatically if you summon a new one. They are unsummoned with their current health pool, and regenerate when not active. You can summon them again at any amount of health if they didn't die. Their health bar will be grey.
Regeneration happens slightly faster as you level. Picking up a site of grace fully regenerates your summons (this means you can let them die with no issue in field boss fights, usually)
Skill cooldown time and similar do NOT make your Summons regenerate faster
Summons are affected by things that make your allies affected by items. I don't aim for this and I wouldn't recommend such, but it can be useful to heal your summons with flasks. [note: I've not tested them being affected by things like aromatics or items, this is from other peoples' information. Largely I don't care as the effect on your gameplay is minimal]
Summons can get aggro the same way a player can
Summons can be chosen as a target for things like Adel's ability where he repeatedly charges the same player.
One of your key relic passive gives you a different buff depending on which summon you have out (more on this later)
When you use your ultimate, your currently active summon will also do a mini-ultimate. However, this is often delayed - sometimes by 5+ seconds - which makes it very clunky and unreliable to use.
Summons can rez! If you target a body and summon, the summon will help rez that person - most of the time. The bigger summons will also often rez people accidentally with their sweep attacks.
When you have your Lyre out to summon, you walk, which triggers walking effects.

There are 3 summon options, which I refuse to refer to by their names. Don't @ me, roleplaying nerds.

The Page is a melee DPS character. She is useful but still the worst of the three summons as she just does some damage (and stagger). She spends a lot of her time dodging away from enemies (and therefore not hitting them) and her AI is pretty poor (though still better than many Raiders I get grouped with) so she often swings and misses. She has low HP and dies fastest of all of your summons. When you have your relic passive, having her out causes you to regenerate a small amount of health. When you use your ultimate, she will do a pretty good damage flurry. She's the summon I use least, but she is still free damage. Use her when:
Your other summons are down or you want to save them for a more opportune time
You are in a tight space and don't want the other two fatties to bodyblock (eg some of Noklateo)
Raw damage is the best option at the time

The Pumpkin Head is a melee 'brawler' character. He has high stagger, decent damage and a big sweep with his weapon (meaning that despite his poor AI, he hits more reliably than the Page), and is relatively tanky. When you have your relic passive, having him out gives you +10% attack power. When you use your ultimate, he will do a series of big hammer sweeps that does decent damage and even more stagger. You'll have him out almost all of the time for most of your run due to that passive and due to stagger being more powerful than a bit of extra damage from Page. Use him when:
You're playing Revenant and you're in combat
No but really, keep him out at all times for his damage buff (try to keep him alive by micro'ing him in and out for damage windows on Nightlords, if you want to put in that extra effort)

The Big Skeleton is a tank character. he has high hitpoints, is able to survive several direct attacks from Nightlords, and he does almost no damage. He is immobile when summoned. He spams a bellow attack that does low damage. This attack or he has some form of taunt or higher chance to be targeted - I'm not sure anyone knows how it works, but he certainly gets aggro more often than your average character if he is in range to hit things. He also occasionally does a big slam that does great stagger. When you ult, he will do a high damage eye beam similar to Comet Azur which does a ton of damage if an enemy takes the full brunt of it (which they never do, although doing it vs a staggered boss is pretty tasty). Use him when:
Pumpkin Head is down and you would prefer taunt/stagger over the Page's damage
Taunting is particularly useful, such as when fighting bosses with multiple enemies. For example, he's particularly great vs Tricephalos multi-dogs, able to take multiple hits from them, and remove a whole dog (or even multiple - one time I had him taunt all three) from the equation.
You can take full advantage of his Ult's damage, probably the most powerful Ult of the three.
You need to revive - because his roar is an area effect, you can drop him on top of friends to rez them, and because he’s immobile he won’t get distracted and run off to fight something else (thanks jofr03!)

With all of this knowledge about summons combined, there's lots of advantage to your summons both during the days and vs the Nightlord. Whilst DPS should be your primary focus - you aren't a pet and support class - summons are a key part of your kit and can do lots of really useful things. Every time a Nightlord swings at your pet is a time somebody can spend doing DPS, which is more key than people give it credit for.

Immortal March - Revenant Ultimate

Here's what you need to know about Revenant's Ultimate:

It rezzes all friendlies in the area, even from 3 bars.
If a friendly is not rezzed, i.e. they are alive when you use your ult, they instead get a buff for 15 seconds that stops them dying. Note it doesn't stop you from losing health when you are hit (or from being staggered etc), but you won't die, instead stopping on 1hp.
It makes your summons do a mini-ultimate, as mentioned above
Many of your class specific Relic stats modify your Ultimate

The fact that Revenant's ultimate is a support ability has contributed to many peoples' incorrect assessment that Revenant is a support character. Ultimates are a key part of playing Nightreign, but ultimately (heh) you only use them a few times per game and they do not define the character significantly outside of those windows. As a Revenant player, your ultimate is very powerful and you need to learn to use it well; it can be one of the more clutch Ultimates in the game when used correctly. I'll repeat again though, don't let your excellent supportive ultimate distract you from the fact that your main role is to deal damage. During the daytimes, you mostly shouldn't be dying and neither should your teammates, so don't save your ult too often thinking you're going to use it for a super clutch rez. Use it offensively, for damage (with Relics) or to make your team immortal so that they can ignore mechanics, both of which contribute to speeding up your run - the same way other characters should be using their ults.

Here's the main ways in which you should use your Ult:

For DPS, when you have the right relics. This combos well with...
When a boss is low, you can use it to allow your friends to wail away on a boss without fear of being hit, which often lets you finish off the last 20%~ of a boss much quicker than if you had to dodge. This is, in my opinion, one of the most overpowered things you can do in Nightreign, especially on Nightlords.
When a situation is dangerous, use it to remove the chance that things might go wrong and ruin your otherwise good run. A good example of this is you're about to kill a key field boss but the night has closed in and you're fighting in the fire.
Rezzing. This should be obvious. You need to use your judgement, but try not to blow your ult on rezzing a single friendly on one bar of rez vs a Nightlord (doing it purely for speed in the daytime is fine). That can be done by attacking, and most other ults (Recluse, Raider, Ironeye) can rez one or two bars with their Ults.

I'll repeat again; DON'T SPEND ALL OF THE DAYTIME SAVING YOUR ULT. I see people do this on all classes and it's a huge waste of clear speed. Just make sure your ult is up at the start (or near) of the Nightlord fight - which you should mostly achieve by killing the Night 2 boss anyway, if you used it late in Night 2 - outside of that, use that ult to kill more stuff!

Incantations

The Basics

Incantations for Revenant come in two flavours: the early incantation you get that will carry you through day 1+2, and the incantation that you will eventually use on the Nightlord. Your goal is to get the first as early as possible and ensure that you end day 2 with the second. Often they are different incantations.

Incantations are spells. Anything that affects an Incantation or a Spell, affects your Incantation. Anything that affects skills does not. Anything that affects attack power generically, such as attack power at full hp or low hp, also affects incantations. Incantations that deal fire or lightning damage are affected by things like Fire Attack Power +2 or Lightning Attack Power +2. And for clarity because it isn't necessarily obvious to everyone, Magic Attack Power +2 only affects Magic damage not all spells!

Many of the best incantations require you to be in melee range or at least up close to use them, and on top of that need you to charge them to be really great. More still throw some kind of ball (mostly fire spells) with limited tracking. If you're not comfortable with these limitations and playstyle, you can still play Revenant, but your pool of usable incantations will be cut down significantly and you may be better off playing Recluse.

Obtaining Incantations

It's really important that you learn where to get incantations from, because there are not a ton of them that drop. They come from multiple sources which may or may not be available on a given map seed:

Starting Camps. If you get lucky, you will get the starting camp with 3 incants in a wooden shack. These are usually white, but are sometimes blue.
Shacks. You will find these randomly across the map and sometimes even right next to a starting camp. The shack is identical to the one in the starting camp. I've read that it always spawns in the top left of the map but I've not verified that myself.
Great Churches aka Cathedrals. If you don't get a starting camp or shack I highly recommend watching this Youtube video and learning the layouts of each cathedral, where the Incants are, and as a bonus you will learn where the stonesword keys are too. Ignore the assorted chests and corpses he recommends, though. They very rarely drop anything.
Boss drops, which Revenant has an affinity for, meaning you're more likely to see them drop.
Random drops from chests, corpses etc. You'll almost never see this, and you should not target it, but it can happen so keep an eye out if it does.

Best Daytime Incantations

Any of the following Incantations will get you through Day 1+2. In Blue, they can get you to the end of Day 1+2 if they have to. Ideally you still want to upgrade them to Purple for more dps and a faster run, but sometimes that just doesn't work out; they either don't drop like that, you don't go to a mine or fine a purple stone, etc. I've highlighted the spells that you are very likely to find early that are excellent picks to get you to the end of Day 2. Some of these spells can be pretty heavy on your mana and I'm not going to list out the FP efficiency of each one, you'll have to use your judgement as to whether you can afford them when you find them; read more about FP later for tips.

Elden Stars
Black Blade (make sure to cast two in a row to use the benefits of the chaincast reduced cast time on the second use)
Discus of Light (super mana efficient, long range, only OK damage limited by your stamina)
Radagon's Rings of Light
Lightning Spear (the best most frustrating spell in Nightreign. Does great DPS, but due to camera lock locations, some bosses are very annoying to hit. I often use this as an early, very low level pickup but change it out ASAP for something more reliable when I find it)
Lightning Strike
Honed Bolt
Death Lightning (useless vs trash or small mobs so you'll need a second spell, but incredible vs large bosses)
Lansseax's Glaive
Giantsflame Take Thee
Burn o Flame
Catch Flame (if you're comfortable playing in very close range, skip if not)
Flame Sling
Black Flame
Bestial Sling (if you're comfortable playing in very close range, skip if not. This thing does INSANE dps and good stagger for an incredibly low mana cost. I use it every time it drops unless I also find Stone of Gurranq)
Stone of Gurranq (this is the secret best incantation for day 1 and 2. It has crazy dps and stance damage and has very low mana use)
Pest Threads
Scarlet Aeonia
Flame of Frenzy
Unendurable Frenzy

Best Nightlord Incantations

I'm not going to tell you how to beat every Nightlord, but suffice to say not every incantation on the daytime list is great for Nightlords (unless you are an uber sweatlord). Try to align your damage type to the Nightlord - this is one of the key reasons to play Revenant over Recluse as a caster!

Elden Stars
Discus of Light (comes fixed on the Golden Order seal, so is easy enough to find. Although the DPS isn't huge on non-holy-weak bosses, you can spam it all day long, has a long range, and it is easy to hit with, so its effective DPS is good in practice)
Triple Rings of Light (a technically bad spell since an enemy can only be hit by one ring and a lot less mana efficient than Discus, but mana shouldnt be a problem on the Nightlord and this significantly increases your chances of hitting twice per throw)
Radagon's Rings of Light (vs Heolstor only)
Lightning Spear (vs Fulghor only. You will miss a lot, but its worth it for the damage type. Don't charge it)
Lightning Strike (vs Fulghor only, DPS is weak otherwise)
Honed Bolt
Death Lightning
Lansseax's Glaive
Giantsflame Take Thee
Burn o Flame
Black Flame
Stone of Gurranq
Scarlet Aeonia
Flame of Frenzy (comes fixed on the Frenzied Flame Seal, shockingly, so is easy to get. Melts bosses. You'll use this a lot)
Unendurable Frenzy
Frenzied Burst (long cast time but basically doesn't miss, so does consistent DPS)

Note that neither of these lists are a tier list, and some incants are better than others. I consider these lists to be Incants that are effective. Your personal list may vary and I encourage you to experiment. If you want to see a Tier list, SYROBE's list is the one I'm most aligned to. The start of this video also explains how fixed vs random incantations work on seal drops, which I'd encourage you to watch if you don’t know how that works.

I've skipped over buffs here, some of them are OK and some aren't, and many teammates just won't stand still for them. I might add more info here on buffs later. Basically, Golden Vow and Blessing of the Erdtree are great, everything else is missable.

Item Passives

Basics

If you don't know - and I didn't when I started - all 6 items you have equipped contribute their passive to your character. Along with your level and your choice of Incantation, this is the single biggest source of character power in the game. Make it a habit to do what you need to do to get 6 (5 if you keep your claws, more on that later) good passives ASAP and definitely before the Nightlord. Those corpses, bow racks, wooden treasure chests etc that everyone runs past? Keep opening them until you have good passives, and then continue to optimise your passives as you progress the run. Don't let weak players make you feel like you need to ignore chests and weapon racks until you have 6 good passives; "wasting" a bit of time to get passives is more optimal than speedrunning everywhere, and you will get better at this as you learn the game. There is also a skill in getting very fast with passive decisions (ie not wasting time comparing loot every time an item drops!) that will develop over time, but it is worth "wasting" that time too until it becomes second nature.

FYI: the values on passives are higher for blue and purple and gold loot, but importantly, those values are fixed when the item drops and do not increase if you increase the rarity of the item.

Passives to Aim For by Nightlord Time

Revenant is squishier than every other class, so maximising survivability is even more key than for anyone else. In priority order, you should aim for these passives:

1. Damage Reduction on Full HP

2. Damage Reduction if Damaged Recently

3. Damage Reduction of damage type (specific to the Nightlord)

4. Improved Spellcasting Speed (this caps out at +2; this is high priority because it helps with survivability AND dps)

5. Periodic Glintblades of any kind - put this in your offhand and keep it equipped, you'll get the bonus

6. Improved Incantations and/or Improved Charged Incantations (depending on what Incant you're using and whether the Nightlord is one where you can consistently charge)

7. Improved damage of the type you're intending to do (but be careful of prioritising this passive in case you suddenly find a better Incant late in the game and suddenly have a useless passive)

Passives that are also decent

1. Damage Reduction Whilst Casting Spells (arguably higher priority if you're taking a point blank spell that you want to charge, like Burn O Flame or Death Lightning; also if you're not confident being up close, move this up the priority list)

2. Improved Attack Power at Full HP (move this higher in the priority list if you think you are a god of staying on full hp all the time)

3. Reduced Spell FP Cost (you should try to be in a position not to need this but sometimes the RNG necessitates using this)

Passives that are decent during the day, but get rid of them before the Nightlord

Improved Item Rarity (try to beat your party to open chests as this only affects you and if they open a chest, it won't apply)
FP Restoration on Successive Hits (you shouldn't need this but if you have a good, FP-hungry spell early or aren't confident in your FP management, it can be useful)

Other notable passives

Less Likely to be Targeted (useful if you're newer or less confident, but someone in your party has to be targeted, and I'd rather it be me because I think I can dodge better than your average random. If you have a Guardian in your party, this goes up in value a lot)

Dormant Power and Passives aka Boss Drops ("character" passives, not the passives on weapons)

Basics

Stuff you do in Nightreign awards you a choice of loot and, most of the time depending on what you kill, a single passive character buff. These buffs vary in power and type and sometimes you will get runs where absolutely everything you get offered is useless for you, but usually you'll get some good stuff. Don't forget when considering what to take from Dormant Power than you should also look at the passives on the items you're being offered as per section 3 above - when you're getting purple drops, some of those item passives can be pretty tasty.

One mistake I see people make is skipping good passives early to pick up an item. You'll get many items over the course of a game of Nightreign, and usually you'll find something good before the end of the run. Often when you complete that early Gaol or field boss, taking an item that is an upgrade now but you will end up throwing away later, when you could have taken a passive buff instead, is the wrong choice. Do I think I'll keep that item for the Nightlord? Do I think that item will speed up my run enough that when I fight the Nightlord, it's OK that I wasted a potential passive? I'm not going to tell you exactly how to make that decision as there's lots of variables; just bear it in mind.

Another mistake I see people making - if there is nothing of use to you OR you get a drop that you know to be amazing for someone else in the party (legendaries are a safe bet to just drop, but if you have good knowledge, you can get even better with recognising great blue/purple drops for other classes, and good passives) take something that might be of use to a teammate and drop it on the floor, then ping it! This is a party game and sometimes the best way to win is to take something for someone else.

When completing Gaols, never take the runes unless the passive is completely useless to you or you are a super advanced god gamer that knows they are going to miss level 15 by exactly 10k runes.

Passives to Prioritise

I usually take these regardless of what item I'm offered unless it's very late in the game and I don't yet have an appropriate Incantation for the Nightlord or there's a significant Item Passive on offer.

Any HP buff
Any Physical Damage Negation
Any Affinity Damage Negation relevant to the Nightlord
Any incantation or affinity damage buff
FP increase or Reduced FP Consumption
Improved Flask Restoration percentage
Periodical Glintblades of any type
Stars/Ice Storm/Frenzy Flame/etc whilst walking/sprinting/dodging/etc
Improved Dodging

Passives to Strongly Consider

You should probably also take these the majority of the time, but they're less critical and if you're being offered a good Incantation upgrade or a strong item passive you should weigh the options more closely

Stamina Regen or Increases
Resistances Up (if relevant to the Nightlord)
Incantation Duration (if you've got a buff to use)
Increased Rune Acquisition (if it's earlyish in the run and you're with randoms and you aren't on a good shifting earth, this can mitigate a bit of "teammate RNG" and make sure you get to 15 and have spare runes for purchases)

Anything I haven't mentioned is skippable. A special mention to NOT take under any circumstances is 'Flasks Restore HP Gradually' which is Revenant code for 'if you take this, you're going to die whilst waiting for the regen and realise you made poor life choices'

Talismans

Talismans follow the same logic as item passives, in that you want to focus primarily on survivability and secondarily on damage. Remember that, as well as from Dung Beetles, Talismans can also be found in the Castle (after entering from the bottom), in Sorcerer's Towers, and in the place most people miss - the township (which notably sells the 15% physical talisman all or almost all of the time).

In no particular order, you should prioritise:

Any Damage Mitigation relevant to your Nightlord
Damage Mitigation at Low HP (Blue-Feathered Branchsword) - this is notable because the buff is huge (50%) so can actually keep you alive if you get hit.
Increased Maximum HP (Crimson Amber Medallion)
Increased Maximum HP/Stamina (Erdtree's Favour)
Spellcasting Speed +2 (Radagon Icon) - This is notable because +2 spellcasting speed relics are pretty rare as passive drops, so this talisman can free up 2 passive item slots
Improved Incantations (Godfrey Icon / Faithful Canvas Talisman)
25% Reduced Spell FP Cost and and 15% HP down (Primal Glintstone Blade) - This is pretty good for the daytime if you need it, as it can help with FP management. Throw it away as soon as you don't need the FP and definitely before the Nightlord.

You don't always have full control over what talismans you find so often you'll just end up with something like Additional Resistances, Extra Stamina, Improved Item Discovery etc too, and these are all useful - but try to focus on the above if you get the option.

Relic Choices

You'd think I'd have done this first, but I saved it until last purposefully so that you could read and understand the guide before you start thinking about what relics to use.

These are my "Tier 1" Relics buffs - aim for these as much as you can. If you can get all 6 of these on Relics, you'll be in a pretty good spot.

[Revenant] Strengthen Family and Allies When Ultimate is activated - This gives a massive 25% damage to your allies for a very long 30 seconds. Note it doesn't affect you, but the effect on the party is dramatic. Taking the duration and buff into account, this is roughly twice the damage increase of the unbuffed Recluse Ult.
[Revenant] Power Up When Fighting Alongside Family - This gives you a 10% damage buff with Pumpkin Head, 20% Affinity Resist with tank skeleton, and largely irrelevant HP regen with the Page. 10% damage is a lot over the course of the day and during damage windows on a Nightlord, and the 20% affinity resist is more stacking survivability reduction that can be very powerful on some Nightlords such as Augur's Sleep and Caligo's Frost. Tip for high level play - the range of this buff is either infinite or gigantic, so you can sit Tank Skelly off to one side of the arena (remember he's immobile) and benefit from 20% affinity damage reduction for a lot of most fights.
[Revenant] Ghostflame Explosion When Activating Ultimate Art - Free damage is free damage. This is a relevant extra free chunk of damage even vs a Nightlord. In the daytime, it means that you get a powerful AoE which can shave good time off your run over the course of 2 days, especially if you fight things like Beastmen or other multiple-boss bosses. And if you clear a bunch of adds with it, Necromancy actually can do something relevant for a change. All in all - free damage is free damage, and free damage is good.
Attack Power Increase for Each Evergaol Prisoner Defeated - everyone's favourite OP buff (5% per prisoner defeated if you're unaware). It's the best damage buff on a relic and for a Revenant where it isn't always certain what damage type we'll end up with, the only one that consistently applies to our attacks. Even if this is nerfed to some smaller value in future, we'll likely still want it.
Max FP Increase for each Sorcerer's Rise - 18% max FP for each Sorcerer's Rise. Even if you only do one, that's a huge buff that really fixes your mana. Given we also want rises for Shards and Talismans, we're always going to try to path by them, so this relic buff is high value
Increased Vigor - Stat buffs are generally frowned upon in Nightreign, rightly so because most damage scaling stats are pretty bad past the first few levels and flat damage etc is just so much more powerful. But for non-scaling stats like Vigor, especially for a squishy class like Revenant, flat Vigor is actually pretty nice; 3 Vigor is 60hp, which is a 30% base hp increase at level 1 and an 8%~ base HP increase at level 15. This is multiplied out by +hp effects, too, so is a high value slot for Revenant. Having it in multiple slots if that's how your relics fall is also pretty good.

Here are my tier 2 relic buffs - use these to "tiebreak" if you have a relic with some of the Tier 1s and assorted other buffs, or if you cant find enough of the tier 1s.

Start with a Stonesword Key - this really reduces the RNG of your map seeds and drops, and adds a bit of speed to your runs. Some people think it's superfluous and I don't care. Until I have godlike relics, I'll take this whenever I can reasonably get it and I'd recommend you do the same!
Increased FP/Increased Mind - much like Vigor but less good, nontheless extra FP is helpful if you can get it on an otherwise good relic. Increased FP is equivalent to approximately 5 Mind.
Flask Also Heals Allies - I think this relic buff is actually underused by any class, but the fact it comes on a Revenant remembrance relic brainwashing the community into thinking Revenant is a support class has a lot to answer for! Anyway, it's a good buff if you can find it, and it does double duty for Revenant by healing her pets. This honestly isn't incredible and I challenge anyone to use it on purpose in a way that generates huge value, but if you have pets out anyway, they might as well have some free hp on occasion.
HP Regen on Post Damage Attacks - this is a generally nice relic for free HP and it can really add up over the course of a fight. You'll see people talk about how amazing this is because it's so broken with Elden Stars, and they're right, so enjoy how broken it is the 1/100 runs you see Elden Stars.
Improved Resistance - +75 resistance is a really big number, and if you're fighting an appropriate Nightlord and have this on a relic with T1/T2 stats, it's worth taking. These relics are very slept on, I feel, although I can't say I've ever seen a good relic with Revenant stats that also had good resistances.
Max FP up with 3+ Staves/Seals Equipped - this looks good on paper but in practice can be a bit iffy. Very often you will end a run with all sorts of random items equipped in order to get your 6 passives, which in practice means triggering this might be the wrong thing to do. It's even harder if you want to keep your claws. Still, if you get this on a relic that is otherwise good, it's a nice option to have and on the odd occasion you don't find 6 great passives it means you still have a way to generate value.

Damage Relic Buffs

This is where would get really interesting if good relics were easier to come by, and this is what I'm slowly grinding towards. If you look at my must have relic slots above, I've only listed 6 - that leaves 3 slots to play with. Ideally, I want to use these remaining slots for damage.

Fire Damage - Fire Affects Black Flame damage (ie Black Flame, an incant you can use all the way to the Nightlord), the brilliant Giantsflame spells, AND Flames of Frenzy spells. I'd confidently say on almost every run, you can find one of these and get a lot of value from fire damage if you choose to build in that direction, and you can do this independent of the boss you're targeting. The value of this only goes up vs Caligo or Gnoster.
Holy Damage - It's a bit more of a gamble than fire, because you definitely won't get a good Holy spell every run even if you target it, but if you're chasing Holy damage for Tricephalos or Heolstor there's a good chance that you'll get it. Holy damage isn't a bad shout for a non-T1 relic slot vs these bosses.
Lightning Damage - If you're fighting Fulghor, it's very difficult NOT to find Lightning spear, so Lightning relics are good.
Godslayer Incantations - I would absolutely love to stack multiple of this and fire damage, and run a bunch of runs using nothing more than the common Black Flame. It is extremely rare not to find Black Flame on a run due to it being fixed on Godslayer Icons, and this would be a viable way to build and force Black Flame as your main attack.
Flame of Frenzy Incantations - Flame of Frenzy is easily found on most runs due to it being fixed on Frenzy Icons, so this is a good throw-in in a non-T1 relic slot, though I wouldn't try too hard to force it unless you like gambling.

Overhyped/Overused Relic Buffs

Ultimate Art +x / Defeating Enemeis Refills Ultimate Art - The numbers on these just aren't high enough to make a difference on a Nightlord. You're probably only getting one Ult off in a Nightlord fight anyway unless a) your team suck at DPS (in which case you have bigger problems) or b) you pop your ult as you enter and hope to refill it by the end of the fight. For the daytime, more ults is better, but since you don't use your Ult on cooldown there will always be some waste which means you probably wasted this relic. Some of the love for this buff comes from - you guessed it - people thinking Revenant is a support character and needs to ult more. Don't do it.
Start with Wraith-Calling Bell - the love of this buff comes from the myth of "Revenant has FP issues" and likely some peoples' lack of knowledge of where to find Incants early. It's a cool item and its FP efficiency is undeniable, but equally you can just use your claws and not waste a relic (and item) slot. Not a terrible buff if you find it on an otherwise good relic, but I've seen advice that you should always prioritise this buff, which you should not.
[Revenant] Expend Own HP to Fully Heal Allies on Ultimate Art - Man do I hate that this comes on a Remembrance relic with Ghostflame Explosion. This relic buff is a straight downgrade - there is no circumstance in which I want to lose hp. You're making your allies invincible when you ult, so they're probably going to lose all of their HP during the "wailing away phase" anyway, if they even had HP to heal. If I do manage to not get hit during the Ult, I've now guaranteed I need to drink a potion. Nothing about this is good and it needs to be buffed. I'd encourage you to avoid using this.

And that's the end! Hopefully this is helpful to some existing or would-be Revenants, and goes some way to dispelling some of the bad information that's out there about how to play Revenant. If there’s anything you disagree with in here or you’d like me to consider adding, please let me know in the Reddit thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Nightreign/comments/1ncknp3/the_no_bullshit_yet_somewhat_exhaust ive_guide_to/

The No Bullshit yet Exhaustive Guide to Revenant

Introduction
How Revenant Works - A Summary
Claws
FP Management
Passives, Skill and Ultimate
Incantations
Item Passives
Dormant Power and Passives aka Boss Drops
Talismans
Relic Choices
Conclusion

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Introduction

The No Bullshit yet Exhaustive Guide to Revenant. The No Bullshit Yet Somewhat Exhaustive Guide To Revenant. By Calmdown.

Inspired by /u/RightEntertainer324's No Bullshit Guardian guide, I thought I'd write something similar for Revenant. Mine's a lot more wordy though, so I apologise in advance :).

Before we get into the guide, let's start with dispelling some myths about Revenant.

Revenant has FP problems. Revenant does not have FP problems, you're playing her badly.

Playing Revenant made me a better Recluse player to the point where when I play Recluse I barely need to use my mana regain ability. Read on for more on why.

How Revenant Works - A Summary

Revenant is a Faith-based DPS class that relies on Incantations to do damage. She has a great ultimate.

Maximise your DPS
Get enough survivability to survive Nightlord mechanics
Use your summons to help do stuff, whether that be killing or utility.
Use your Ult liberally during daytimes to speed up the run, and use your Ult during the boss fight for clutch rezzes or damage.

Claws

Lets get this out of the way early.

They deal mostly Magic damage, and some physical.

FP Management

It's also completely incorrect.

Solving FP Management in the Daytime

Using only claws until about level 3 (you're probably still looking for a good Incantation at this point anyway), and keep claws as a backup in case you run out of mana until around level 5-6; white claws are still fine DPS at this point
Choose the correct incantations - don't use things that are highly mana inefficient, or things that burn your mana for a single big effect, like the Dragon Breaths
Focus on FP reduction passives and powers until you are comfortable with your mana consumption relative to your chosen Incantation
Use a relic with extra FP from Sorcerer's Rises (more on this later)
In the early-midgame whilst your mana fixing is developing, use Starlight Shards, either from Sorcerer's Rises (they drop 3+ from boxes per rise) or from a relic that grants you starting Starlight Shards

But the main, most important way we solve FP as a Revenant is:

DON'T FORGET TO REFRESH AT SITES OF GRACE

Solving FP Management for Nightlords

Passives, Skill and Ultimate

Necromancy

Your passive triggers whenever something that you have hit dies. It has a chance to summon that thing as a ghost.

Spirit Summons

Here's some knowledge about summons:

When you summon a spirit, it will appear next to whatever you have targeted and try to attack that target. But this has quite a short limited range, so if you're not near your target, your summon might change target before it does what you wanted it to do.
Spirits have their own AI, similar to monsters. You can partially direct them by summoning or resummoning them with a particular thing targeted, but you can't control them.
Summons scale with your level, but not by much, approximately 10% hp and damage per level. They drop off noticeably as you level up.
When your summons die, they regenerate health until you can summon them again. This shows as a regenerating blue bar on their UI panel. They need to be at 50% hp before they can be summoned again if they die.
You can unsummon a summon, and it happens automatically if you summon a new one. They are unsummoned with their current health pool, and regenerate when not active. You can summon them again at any amount of health if they didn't die. Their health bar will be grey.
Regeneration happens slightly faster as you level. Picking up a site of grace fully regenerates your summons (this means you can let them die with no issue in field boss fights, usually)
Skill cooldown time and similar do NOT make your Summons regenerate faster
Summons are affected by things that make your allies affected by items. I don't aim for this and I wouldn't recommend such, but it can be useful to heal your summons with flasks. [note: I've not tested them being affected by things like aromatics or items, this is from other peoples' information. Largely I don't care as the effect on your gameplay is minimal]
Summons can get aggro the same way a player can
Summons can be chosen as a target for things like Adel's ability where he repeatedly charges the same player.
One of your key relic passive gives you a different buff depending on which summon you have out (more on this later)
When you use your ultimate, your currently active summon will also do a mini-ultimate. However, this is often delayed - sometimes by 5+ seconds - which makes it very clunky and unreliable to use.
Summons can rez! If you target a body and summon, the summon will help rez that person - most of the time. The bigger summons will also often rez people accidentally with their sweep attacks.
When you have your Lyre out to summon, you walk, which triggers walking effects.

There are 3 summon options, which I refuse to refer to by their names. Don't @ me, roleplaying nerds.

The Page is a melee DPS character. She is useful but still the worst of the three summons as she just does some damage (and stagger). She spends a lot of her time dodging away from enemies (and therefore not hitting them) and her AI is pretty poor (though still better than many Raiders I get grouped with) so she often swings and misses. She has low HP and dies fastest of all of your summons. When you have your relic passive, having her out causes you to regenerate a small amount of health. When you use your ultimate, she will do a pretty good damage flurry. She's the summon I use least, but she is still free damage. Use her when:
Your other summons are down or you want to save them for a more opportune time
You are in a tight space and don't want the other two fatties to bodyblock (eg some of Noklateo)
Raw damage is the best option at the time

The Pumpkin Head is a melee 'brawler' character. He has high stagger, decent damage and a big sweep with his weapon (meaning that despite his poor AI, he hits more reliably than the Page), and is relatively tanky. When you have your relic passive, having him out gives you +10% attack power. When you use your ultimate, he will do a series of big hammer sweeps that does decent damage and even more stagger. You'll have him out almost all of the time for most of your run due to that passive and due to stagger being more powerful than a bit of extra damage from Page. Use him when:
You're playing Revenant and you're in combat
No but really, keep him out at all times for his damage buff (try to keep him alive by micro'ing him in and out for damage windows on Nightlords, if you want to put in that extra effort)

The Big Skeleton is a tank character. he has high hitpoints, is able to survive several direct attacks from Nightlords, and he does almost no damage. He is immobile when summoned. He spams a bellow attack that does low damage. This attack or he has some form of taunt or higher chance to be targeted - I'm not sure anyone knows how it works, but he certainly gets aggro more often than your average character if he is in range to hit things. He also occasionally does a big slam that does great stagger. When you ult, he will do a high damage eye beam similar to Comet Azur which does a ton of damage if an enemy takes the full brunt of it (which they never do, although doing it vs a staggered boss is pretty tasty). Use him when:
Pumpkin Head is down and you would prefer taunt/stagger over the Page's damage
Taunting is particularly useful, such as when fighting bosses with multiple enemies. For example, he's particularly great vs Tricephalos multi-dogs, able to take multiple hits from them, and remove a whole dog (or even multiple - one time I had him taunt all three) from the equation.
You can take full advantage of his Ult's damage, probably the most powerful Ult of the three.
You need to revive - because his roar is an area effect, you can drop him on top of friends to rez them, and because he’s immobile he won’t get distracted and run off to fight something else (thanks jofr03!)

Immortal March - Revenant Ultimate

Here's what you need to know about Revenant's Ultimate:

It rezzes all friendlies in the area, even from 3 bars.
If a friendly is not rezzed, i.e. they are alive when you use your ult, they instead get a buff for 15 seconds that stops them dying. Note it doesn't stop you from losing health when you are hit (or from being staggered etc), but you won't die, instead stopping on 1hp.
It makes your summons do a mini-ultimate, as mentioned above
Many of your class specific Relic stats modify your Ultimate

Here's the main ways in which you should use your Ult:

For DPS, when you have the right relics. This combos well with...
When a boss is low, you can use it to allow your friends to wail away on a boss without fear of being hit, which often lets you finish off the last 20%~ of a boss much quicker than if you had to dodge. This is, in my opinion, one of the most overpowered things you can do in Nightreign, especially on Nightlords.
When a situation is dangerous, use it to remove the chance that things might go wrong and ruin your otherwise good run. A good example of this is you're about to kill a key field boss but the night has closed in and you're fighting in the fire.
Rezzing. This should be obvious. You need to use your judgement, but try not to blow your ult on rezzing a single friendly on one bar of rez vs a Nightlord (doing it purely for speed in the daytime is fine). That can be done by attacking, and most other ults (Recluse, Raider, Ironeye) can rez one or two bars with their Ults.

Incantations

The Basics

Obtaining Incantations

Starting Camps. If you get lucky, you will get the starting camp with 3 incants in a wooden shack. These are usually white, but are sometimes blue.
Shacks. You will find these randomly across the map and sometimes even right next to a starting camp. The shack is identical to the one in the starting camp. I've read that it always spawns in the top left of the map but I've not verified that myself.
Great Churches aka Cathedrals. If you don't get a starting camp or shack I highly recommend watching this Youtube video and learning the layouts of each cathedral, where the Incants are, and as a bonus you will learn where the stonesword keys are too. Ignore the assorted chests and corpses he recommends, though. They very rarely drop anything.
Boss drops, which Revenant has an affinity for, meaning you're more likely to see them drop.
Random drops from chests, corpses etc. You'll almost never see this, and you should not target it, but it can happen so keep an eye out if it does.

Best Daytime Incantations

Elden Stars
Black Blade (make sure to cast two in a row to use the benefits of the chaincast reduced cast time on the second use)
Discus of Light (super mana efficient, long range, only OK damage limited by your stamina)
Radagon's Rings of Light
Lightning Spear (the best most frustrating spell in Nightreign. Does great DPS, but due to camera lock locations, some bosses are very annoying to hit. I often use this as an early, very low level pickup but change it out ASAP for something more reliable when I find it)
Lightning Strike
Honed Bolt
Death Lightning (useless vs trash or small mobs so you'll need a second spell, but incredible vs large bosses)
Lansseax's Glaive
Giantsflame Take Thee
Burn o Flame
Catch Flame (if you're comfortable playing in very close range, skip if not)
Flame Sling
Black Flame
Bestial Sling (if you're comfortable playing in very close range, skip if not. This thing does INSANE dps and good stagger for an incredibly low mana cost. I use it every time it drops unless I also find Stone of Gurranq)
Stone of Gurranq (this is the secret best incantation for day 1 and 2. It has crazy dps and stance damage and has very low mana use)
Pest Threads
Scarlet Aeonia
Flame of Frenzy
Unendurable Frenzy

Best Nightlord Incantations

Elden Stars
Discus of Light (comes fixed on the Golden Order seal, so is easy enough to find. Although the DPS isn't huge on non-holy-weak bosses, you can spam it all day long, has a long range, and it is easy to hit with, so its effective DPS is good in practice)
Triple Rings of Light (a technically bad spell since an enemy can only be hit by one ring and a lot less mana efficient than Discus, but mana shouldnt be a problem on the Nightlord and this significantly increases your chances of hitting twice per throw)
Radagon's Rings of Light (vs Heolstor only)
Lightning Spear (vs Fulghor only. You will miss a lot, but its worth it for the damage type. Don't charge it)
Lightning Strike (vs Fulghor only, DPS is weak otherwise)
Honed Bolt
Death Lightning
Lansseax's Glaive
Giantsflame Take Thee
Burn o Flame
Black Flame
Stone of Gurranq
Scarlet Aeonia
Flame of Frenzy (comes fixed on the Frenzied Flame Seal, shockingly, so is easy to get. Melts bosses. You'll use this a lot)
Unendurable Frenzy
Frenzied Burst (long cast time but basically doesn't miss, so does consistent DPS)

Item Passives

Basics

FYI: the values on passives are higher for blue and purple and gold loot, but importantly, those values are fixed when the item drops and do not increase if you increase the rarity of the item.

Passives to Aim For by Nightlord Time

Revenant is squishier than every other class, so maximising survivability is even more key than for anyone else. In priority order, you should aim for these passives:

1. Damage Reduction on Full HP

2. Damage Reduction if Damaged Recently

3. Damage Reduction of damage type (specific to the Nightlord)

4. Improved Spellcasting Speed (this caps out at +2; this is high priority because it helps with survivability AND dps)

5. Periodic Glintblades of any kind - put this in your offhand and keep it equipped, you'll get the bonus

6. Improved Incantations and/or Improved Charged Incantations (depending on what Incant you're using and whether the Nightlord is one where you can consistently charge)

7. Improved damage of the type you're intending to do (but be careful of prioritising this passive in case you suddenly find a better Incant late in the game and suddenly have a useless passive)

Passives that are also decent

2. Improved Attack Power at Full HP (move this higher in the priority list if you think you are a god of staying on full hp all the time)

3. Reduced Spell FP Cost (you should try to be in a position not to need this but sometimes the RNG necessitates using this)

Passives that are decent during the day, but get rid of them before the Nightlord

Improved Item Rarity (try to beat your party to open chests as this only affects you and if they open a chest, it won't apply)
FP Restoration on Successive Hits (you shouldn't need this but if you have a good, FP-hungry spell early or aren't confident in your FP management, it can be useful)

Other notable passives

Less Likely to be Targeted (useful if you're newer or less confident, but someone in your party has to be targeted, and I'd rather it be me because I think I can dodge better than your average random. If you have a Guardian in your party, this goes up in value a lot)

Dormant Power and Passives aka Boss Drops ("character" passives, not the passives on weapons)

Basics

When completing Gaols, never take the runes unless the passive is completely useless to you or you are a super advanced god gamer that knows they are going to miss level 15 by exactly 10k runes.

Passives to Prioritise

Any HP buff
Any Physical Damage Negation
Any Affinity Damage Negation relevant to the Nightlord
Any incantation or affinity damage buff
FP increase or Reduced FP Consumption
Improved Flask Restoration percentage
Periodical Glintblades of any type
Stars/Ice Storm/Frenzy Flame/etc whilst walking/sprinting/dodging/etc
Improved Dodging

Passives to Strongly Consider

Stamina Regen or Increases
Resistances Up (if relevant to the Nightlord)
Incantation Duration (if you've got a buff to use)
Increased Rune Acquisition (if it's earlyish in the run and you're with randoms and you aren't on a good shifting earth, this can mitigate a bit of "teammate RNG" and make sure you get to 15 and have spare runes for purchases)

Talismans

In no particular order, you should prioritise:

Any Damage Mitigation relevant to your Nightlord
Damage Mitigation at Low HP (Blue-Feathered Branchsword) - this is notable because the buff is huge (50%) so can actually keep you alive if you get hit.
Increased Maximum HP (Crimson Amber Medallion)
Increased Maximum HP/Stamina (Erdtree's Favour)
Spellcasting Speed +2 (Radagon Icon) - This is notable because +2 spellcasting speed relics are pretty rare as passive drops, so this talisman can free up 2 passive item slots
Improved Incantations (Godfrey Icon / Faithful Canvas Talisman)
25% Reduced Spell FP Cost and and 15% HP down (Primal Glintstone Blade) - This is pretty good for the daytime if you need it, as it can help with FP management. Throw it away as soon as you don't need the FP and definitely before the Nightlord.

Relic Choices

You'd think I'd have done this first, but I saved it until last purposefully so that you could read and understand the guide before you start thinking about what relics to use.

These are my "Tier 1" Relics buffs - aim for these as much as you can. If you can get all 6 of these on Relics, you'll be in a pretty good spot.

[Revenant] Strengthen Family and Allies When Ultimate is activated - This gives a massive 25% damage to your allies for a very long 30 seconds. Note it doesn't affect you, but the effect on the party is dramatic. Taking the duration and buff into account, this is roughly twice the damage increase of the unbuffed Recluse Ult.
[Revenant] Power Up When Fighting Alongside Family - This gives you a 10% damage buff with Pumpkin Head, 20% Affinity Resist with tank skeleton, and largely irrelevant HP regen with the Page. 10% damage is a lot over the course of the day and during damage windows on a Nightlord, and the 20% affinity resist is more stacking survivability reduction that can be very powerful on some Nightlords such as Augur's Sleep and Caligo's Frost. Tip for high level play - the range of this buff is either infinite or gigantic, so you can sit Tank Skelly off to one side of the arena (remember he's immobile) and benefit from 20% affinity damage reduction for a lot of most fights.
[Revenant] Ghostflame Explosion When Activating Ultimate Art - Free damage is free damage. This is a relevant extra free chunk of damage even vs a Nightlord. In the daytime, it means that you get a powerful AoE which can shave good time off your run over the course of 2 days, especially if you fight things like Beastmen or other multiple-boss bosses. And if you clear a bunch of adds with it, Necromancy actually can do something relevant for a change. All in all - free damage is free damage, and free damage is good.
Attack Power Increase for Each Evergaol Prisoner Defeated - everyone's favourite OP buff (5% per prisoner defeated if you're unaware). It's the best damage buff on a relic and for a Revenant where it isn't always certain what damage type we'll end up with, the only one that consistently applies to our attacks. Even if this is nerfed to some smaller value in future, we'll likely still want it.
Max FP Increase for each Sorcerer's Rise - 18% max FP for each Sorcerer's Rise. Even if you only do one, that's a huge buff that really fixes your mana. Given we also want rises for Shards and Talismans, we're always going to try to path by them, so this relic buff is high value
Increased Vigor - Stat buffs are generally frowned upon in Nightreign, rightly so because most damage scaling stats are pretty bad past the first few levels and flat damage etc is just so much more powerful. But for non-scaling stats like Vigor, especially for a squishy class like Revenant, flat Vigor is actually pretty nice; 3 Vigor is 60hp, which is a 30% base hp increase at level 1 and an 8%~ base HP increase at level 15. This is multiplied out by +hp effects, too, so is a high value slot for Revenant. Having it in multiple slots if that's how your relics fall is also pretty good.

Here are my tier 2 relic buffs - use these to "tiebreak" if you have a relic with some of the Tier 1s and assorted other buffs, or if you cant find enough of the tier 1s.

Start with a Stonesword Key - this really reduces the RNG of your map seeds and drops, and adds a bit of speed to your runs. Some people think it's superfluous and I don't care. Until I have godlike relics, I'll take this whenever I can reasonably get it and I'd recommend you do the same!
Increased FP/Increased Mind - much like Vigor but less good, nontheless extra FP is helpful if you can get it on an otherwise good relic. Increased FP is equivalent to approximately 5 Mind.
Flask Also Heals Allies - I think this relic buff is actually underused by any class, but the fact it comes on a Revenant remembrance relic brainwashing the community into thinking Revenant is a support class has a lot to answer for! Anyway, it's a good buff if you can find it, and it does double duty for Revenant by healing her pets. This honestly isn't incredible and I challenge anyone to use it on purpose in a way that generates huge value, but if you have pets out anyway, they might as well have some free hp on occasion.
HP Regen on Post Damage Attacks - this is a generally nice relic for free HP and it can really add up over the course of a fight. You'll see people talk about how amazing this is because it's so broken with Elden Stars, and they're right, so enjoy how broken it is the 1/100 runs you see Elden Stars.
Improved Resistance - +75 resistance is a really big number, and if you're fighting an appropriate Nightlord and have this on a relic with T1/T2 stats, it's worth taking. These relics are very slept on, I feel, although I can't say I've ever seen a good relic with Revenant stats that also had good resistances.
Max FP up with 3+ Staves/Seals Equipped - this looks good on paper but in practice can be a bit iffy. Very often you will end a run with all sorts of random items equipped in order to get your 6 passives, which in practice means triggering this might be the wrong thing to do. It's even harder if you want to keep your claws. Still, if you get this on a relic that is otherwise good, it's a nice option to have and on the odd occasion you don't find 6 great passives it means you still have a way to generate value.

Damage Relic Buffs

Fire Damage - Fire Affects Black Flame damage (ie Black Flame, an incant you can use all the way to the Nightlord), the brilliant Giantsflame spells, AND Flames of Frenzy spells. I'd confidently say on almost every run, you can find one of these and get a lot of value from fire damage if you choose to build in that direction, and you can do this independent of the boss you're targeting. The value of this only goes up vs Caligo or Gnoster.
Holy Damage - It's a bit more of a gamble than fire, because you definitely won't get a good Holy spell every run even if you target it, but if you're chasing Holy damage for Tricephalos or Heolstor there's a good chance that you'll get it. Holy damage isn't a bad shout for a non-T1 relic slot vs these bosses.
Lightning Damage - If you're fighting Fulghor, it's very difficult NOT to find Lightning spear, so Lightning relics are good.
Godslayer Incantations - I would absolutely love to stack multiple of this and fire damage, and run a bunch of runs using nothing more than the common Black Flame. It is extremely rare not to find Black Flame on a run due to it being fixed on Godslayer Icons, and this would be a viable way to build and force Black Flame as your main attack.
Flame of Frenzy Incantations - Flame of Frenzy is easily found on most runs due to it being fixed on Frenzy Icons, so this is a good throw-in in a non-T1 relic slot, though I wouldn't try too hard to force it unless you like gambling.

Overhyped/Overused Relic Buffs

Ultimate Art +x / Defeating Enemeis Refills Ultimate Art - The numbers on these just aren't high enough to make a difference on a Nightlord. You're probably only getting one Ult off in a Nightlord fight anyway unless a) your team suck at DPS (in which case you have bigger problems) or b) you pop your ult as you enter and hope to refill it by the end of the fight. For the daytime, more ults is better, but since you don't use your Ult on cooldown there will always be some waste which means you probably wasted this relic. Some of the love for this buff comes from - you guessed it - people thinking Revenant is a support character and needs to ult more. Don't do it.
Start with Wraith-Calling Bell - the love of this buff comes from the myth of "Revenant has FP issues" and likely some peoples' lack of knowledge of where to find Incants early. It's a cool item and its FP efficiency is undeniable, but equally you can just use your claws and not waste a relic (and item) slot. Not a terrible buff if you find it on an otherwise good relic, but I've seen advice that you should always prioritise this buff, which you should not.
[Revenant] Expend Own HP to Fully Heal Allies on Ultimate Art - Man do I hate that this comes on a Remembrance relic with Ghostflame Explosion. This relic buff is a straight downgrade - there is no circumstance in which I want to lose hp. You're making your allies invincible when you ult, so they're probably going to lose all of their HP during the "wailing away phase" anyway, if they even had HP to heal. If I do manage to not get hit during the Ult, I've now guaranteed I need to drink a potion. Nothing about this is good and it needs to be buffed. I'd encourage you to avoid using this.

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