Minimal Drops Revenant Build – Elden Ring: Nightreign

With Nightreign’s highly randomized nature, it can be tough to create a reliable build that works well and doesn’t rely on getting a bunch of very specific weapon drops during expeditions and Relic drops outside of them. Still, there are some things that are a known quantity. Like Nightlord-specific Relics, Remembrance Relics, and starting equipment.

Revenant’s starting weapon is surprisingly good, especially once you upgrade it with two Smithing Stones. Meanwhile, some of the relatively easy to obtain Relics can complement her playstyle and even remedy one of her biggest weaknesses – no natural way to regenerate FP during a fight. This means that by following this Revenant build, the only thing you’re leaving up to chance are the Sacred Seals you find during expeditions. And even those have guaranteed spots where you can get them. No shoes? No loot? No problem!

Build Summary

• Type: Jack-of-All Trades Summoner
• Summon spirits and fallen enemy ghosts to assist you in battle
• Use incantations to deal damage from a distance and assist your team
• Attack enemies in melee to create ghosts and apply status ailments

Revenant is a peculiar character. Most of her attributes scale poorly. She has pitiful HP and Stamina. She doesn’t have an innate way to regenerate FP during a fight and can’t be a pure caster. Despite her frail nature, Revenant is incentivized to attack her enemies in melee to conserve FP, create ghosts, and apply status ailments. Yet even so, she’s one of the strongest Nightfarers in the game.

Revenant’s skills allow her team to tackle tough encounters earlier than they have any right to. Her summons can tank most enemies, while her ultimate art can instantly revive her whole team and make them all immortal for about 10 seconds. Revenant’s Cursed Claw is a fist-class weapon with the range of a colossal weapon. This makes it unique and worth using throughout the whole expedition. You can read more about that in our general How to Play Revenant guide.

By focusing on Revenant’s starting weapon and some relics every player is guaranteed to get, this build will deal with one of Revenant’s biggest issues – no way to naturally regenerate FP. It will also leverage Revenant’s early strength and allow your team to grow even stronger by passively increasing their rune acquisition.

Best Relics

Best Effects:

• FP Restoration upon Successive Attacks
• Increased Maximum FP
• Max FP Up with 3+ Sacred Seals Equipped
• Flask Also Heals Allies

Other Options:

• Defeating enemies fills more of the Art gauge
• Starlight Shards in possession at start of expedition
• Ultimate Art Gauge +
• Faith +
• Mind +
• Vigor +
• Increased Maximum HP
• Increased Maximum Stamina

The ideal version of this build requires you to complete Revenant’s remembrance quests and defeat one of the Nightlords. Before you get there, you can use some other Relic combinations. Once you have FP Restoration on Successive Attacks, this build works.

Eventually, when you progress far enough in Revenant’s remembrance quest, you’ll unlock Revenant’s Chalice – a Relic Rite with a Blue, Green, and White sockets. The White socket allows you to use any color Relic. Once you have that, your ideal Relic setup will be:

• Blue – Small Makeup Brush
• Green – Old Pocketwatch
• White – Night of the Wise

Small Makeup Brush

Effects:

• [Revenant] Power up while fighting alongside family
• Increased rune acquisition for self and allies

This is the reward for completing Revenant’s remembrance quest. The power-ups you get for fighting with your summons are relatively minor, but are still nice to have. Helen the Page gives you some HP regen, Frederick the skeletal Pumpkin Head boosts your melee damage, and Frederick the Giant Skeleton increases your survivability. The main boon of this Relic is its increased rune acquisition. Having this effect right from the start will put you ahead of other teams.

Old Pocketwatch

Effects:

• FP Restoration Upon Successive Attacks
• Dexterity +3

This is one of the earliest unique Relics you’ll obtain. You need it to unlock the Duchess character. You will generally find it within your first few expeditions. The extra Dexterity we get from it isn’t too useful, but the FP restoration on successive attacks is invaluable. It triggers as you keep attacking your targets and restores a portion of your maximum FP, making it useful at any level. While two-handing Revenant’s starting weapon, this restoration will occur after the third attack.

Night of the Wise

Effects:

• Increased Maximum FP
• Starting Armament Inflicts Poison
• Poison & Rot in Vicinity Increases Attack Power

This Relic is rewarded after you defeat Gnoster, Wisdom of Night, also known as the Sentient Pest Nightlord. It increases our maximum FP, which is something we want, while also making our starting weapon stronger. With Revenant’s respectable Arcane attribute, applying status ailments is easy, and getting that damage boost from poison makes her Cursed Claw even more viable in the long run.

Best Equipment

Weapon Archetype: Revenant’s Cursed Claw plus Sacred Seal

This build works perfectly fine if you use your starting weapon for the entire expedition. Just make sure to upgrade it whenever you can. Pretty much every merchant sells regular Smithing Stones to make your Claw Rare. And every Tunnel is guaranteed to drop a Smithing Stone [2] to make it Epic.

Still, while the starting weapon will serve you well, if you get some outstanding drop during your expedition, feel free to use that instead. Your best upgrades include light, fast-attacking weapons with status ailments like Frostbite, Blood Loss, and Scarlet Rot.

Aside from weapons, your main target during an expedition will be Sacred Seals. The spells they get are highly randomized, so chances are you’ll have to loot quite a few of them until you can find a great one. Luckily, there are some spots where you’re guaranteed to get seals. These are the Great Churches where you’ll find altars with Sacred Seals, and dilapidated shacks scattered throughout Limveld with Sacred Seal chests inside.

Here are some good weapon and seal options for this build:

Rank	Icon	Name	Base Rarity	Base Affinity/Effects	Ideal Changes
S		Reduvia	Epic	Blood Loss	None
S		Scorpion’s Stinger	Epic	Scarlet Rot	None
S		Gravel Stone Seal	Rare	Lightning Spear Catch Flame	Upgrade to Epic*
A		Revenant’s Cursed Claw	Common	Magic	Upgrade to Rare/Epic*
B		Cipher Pata	Epic	Holy	None
B		Golden Order Seal	Epic	Discus of Light Catch Flame	Nonce
B		Godslayer’s Seal	Rare	Black Flame Catch Flame	Upgrade to Epic*

*Rare upgrade requires Smithing Stone [1], Epic needs Smithing Stone [2]

Best Equipment Spells

• Lightning Spear
• Frozen Lightning Spear

It will be difficult to get your best incantations on most runs. So if you don’t see them, you should be on the lookout for solid ranged-damage incantations like Discus of Light and Black Flame, and seals with good incantation scaling.

Gravel Stone Seal is your best chance to get some solid lightning spells. Lightning Spear is a good filler spell that combines good range, decent FP costs, and solid damage. Frozen Lightning Spear is way less common, but can be expedition-winning. It deals fantastic damage in an area while applying Frostbite to its targets.

Best Equipment Passives

Best:

• Improved Incantations
• Improved Dodging
• Less Likely to Be Targeted
• Successive Attacks Improve Attack Power

Secondary Options:

• Improved Charged Incantations
• Improved Item Discovery
• Reduced Spell & Incantation FP Cost
• Improved Sorcery & Incantation Casting Speed
• Improved Flask HP Restoration

For a character who’s expected to physically fight her enemies, Revenant is incredibly fragile. Passives that improve your survivability should always be your first priority. And since we’ll be starting the expedition with a bonus to successive attacks, passives that improve them further should also make your list.

Best Consumables

• Starlight Shards – to restore your FP during tough fights
• Crimsonburst Crystal Tear – for an extended period of regeneration

Restoring FP by continuously attacking your targets is nice. But in some tough fights, getting anywhere near the enemy might be certain death for the frail Revenant. As such, from the very start of every expedition, you should be collecting every piece of Starlight Shards you can. Save them for tough fights like Night Bosses and the Nightlord.

Best Dormant Powers

Best Options:

• Increased Rune Acquisition
• Improved Dodging
• Increased Maximum HP
• Increased Maximum FP
• Less Likely to Be Targeted
• Wending Grace

Good Options:

• Reduced FP Consumption
• Improved Stamina Recovery
• Increased Maximum Stamina
• All Resistances Up
• Improved Sorceries & Incantations

Most of our Dormant Power choices will be aimed at making our Revenant more survivable and improving her incantation-casting abilities. The one standout here is Increased Rune Acquisition. It’s usually a nice-to-have power, but for this build that already starts with increased rune gain it provides some extra synergy.

Location Priorities

Best Location Options:

• Great Church
• Church
• Tunnel

Other Location Options:

• Castle
• Evergaol

Great Churches are guaranteed to have some Sacred Seal altars, and thus should be your highest priority. In fact, even if your team refuses to follow you, you can quickly go in there, grab the seals from the altar without even killing the boss, and reconnect with your squad. Great Churches generally have two spots where they can have an altar – either inside a tunnel underneath it, or on the second floor you reach by climbing the scaffolding around the location.

Another spot where you’re guaranteed some seals isn’t really a location and is not marked on your map. It’s a dilapidated shack that frequently appears around Church and Sorcerer’s Rise locations. Inside, you’re guaranteed a chest with a couple of seals.

Tunnels will guarantee you can upgrade your starting weapon to Epic. You simply need to defeat the boss inside. These bosses are generally very weak – Trolls and singular Knights – and you can defeat them alone if need be.

Regular Churches should be visited on any expedition – you can never have too many flasks. The same goes for the Castle, although it’s not as crucial. It’s just a great location to raid.

Defeating Evergaol bosses gives you some nice runes, but more importantly, the Dormant Power rewards for beating them often include Increased Rune Acquisition, making them extra good for this build.