Revenant Hunting and Artifacts

Endran

In terms of improving hunting as a Revenant, what are the relative priorities of skills and artifacts? Are Avoidance and the damage reduction miniskills higher priority than artifacts like +CON or sip increase? Does skill level in Riving affect duplicity attack damage? Does STR impact hunting NPCs or only PvP? Thank you!

Elene

As a general guideline, I would always recommend getting miniskills first and having transcendent Avoidance. Some bashing areas do great rely on how well you can rank the different types of damage you can get (for example, Xaanhal, where cutting/blunt audit does nothing to help, or the Volcano/Sparklight).

Your +1 stats increase, LV. 1 sip ring, critical hits, eq/balance recovery, enhancement, can all be gained temporarily by buying Ylem amulets that would be sold by vendors at your city's pylon. If there isn't, see if you can ask for someone in a different city on your tether to help you purchase them. They costs 15,000 gold, and are temporary because they only last for 12 weeks before they decay, and you can only wear a maximum of 3. 

You might want to consider getting the hunt_dmg artifact for Revenant though, it would definitely make a difference, and as far as I am aware, strength does make a difference to your swings. HELP STATS should tell you what stat your class prefers. 

Endran

@Elene Thank you so much for the help! Some of this is very different from the other IREs that I've played so this info is a big help!

Elene

I forgot that transcendent Avoidance gives you the ability to utilize DIVERT MELEE and DODGE MELEE, which grants you better % ability to reduce damage you take or dodge the attack outright. AUDIT shows you what your % are, as well as a bunch of other information.

And you're welcome!

Tetchta

For PVE, here's basically the Order of Priority for Artifacts/Credits (some are def debateable, but it should be pretty close):

1. tri-trans (or at the very least get all your relevant bashing skills and defs. In Revenant, I think this is at least: 356 lessons in Riving, transcendent
   
2. manifestation, and...0 lessons in chirography? I think you might get everything you need from that out the gate for PVE)
   
3. omnitrans (or at least transed miniskills + trans avoidance. I know it sounds unsexy, but lessons ->miniskills gives you some of the best bang for your buck in the game, and avoidance with divert melee or dodge melee are absolutely critical for damage mitigation)
   
4. sip ring pays dividends
   
5. hunt damage boost (that packaged sip/damage artie may seem like a good deal, which it technically is, but since it presently only has one level and can't be upgraded at a discount, it's basically wasted credits)
   

After this it's a bit hard to tell what arties are best exactly. The protection amulet is very good, runes can be really good with weapon classes (after extensive testing, we discovered that fell is more or less equivalent to duplicity, so you can get by with one set of runes at least!), and then it's a trickle down where things really only matter if you plan on turbowhaling or min/maxing your PVE efficiency. I'd only consider looking at the stat-boost arties after getting the above, since the returns, while substantial, do diminish and the artifacts are very expensive. Also a lot of people forget to do this, but be sure to drink the VIGOR potion before bashing when you start getting crits. It becomes one of your major sources of health recovery eventually, since it returns health to you upon a critical strike. You'll also wanna pick up an enchanted ring, which is more or less a ring with four resistance enchantments stacked on top of it. That'll do a TON to boost your tankiness.

Nipsy

Honestly focusing on survivability has proven more beneficial for me than having hunt_revenant.

You can get a weapon with decent speed, or two...with damage/decent speed. I chose battleaxes, but even then, any small blade for duplicity will work.
Unless you wanna go 2hand, and sacrifice some speed, but truly I find it unnecessary.

Having sip/health has bolstered me overall, I had hunt_revenant(3) and honestly got rid of it, because with survivability the increase total didn't seem to matter, with things like crits, decent speed and decent damage, the increase wasnt HUGE to make it really worth it for me. Between sip/con/strength/enhancement and having an artefact shield tattoo, I found myself doing just fine overall, and without the need for hunting specific artefacts.

Tetchta

Survivability is really good to work on and there's a reason I put it above damage boosts, but hunt(3) is def worth getting, and will contribute quite a bit to survivability; Aetolian PVE is heavily tied to how much damage you can do (for a lot of reasons; more base damage = more vigor healing, and the more things that are dead, the less things there are to kill you, etc). That said, I'm not a salesman, and if you don't wann buy an artifact, don't do it! But if you're seriously into PVE it's def a big boost to both speed and survivability. Eventually, things like shield are just wasted balance in a lot of bashing zones and can actually get you killed, because enemies will break past it and then ruin your potatoes immediately, so tankiness/survivability only goes so far.