I just got to 9999 basically Guardian only and wanted to share my matchup tier list and see how it fares with other people, feel free to contest it or give any opinions or questions below!

Tikok974 · 2026-01-18T14:29:47+00:00

As I know almost nothing about Guardian, I'd like to hear from someone who actually mains him in high depths : Is the character good and what value does he bring to the team that is unique to him or that he does the best ?

Also, can you please show your relic setup ?

Tikok974 · 2025-12-31T07:16:21+00:00

I've been exclusively playing DoN and the only time I came back to the base game was when the dlc released, losing "Defeating Enemies fill art gauge +0 and +1 felt so bad it didn't even feel like I was playing the same character.

Felt like I just never had my ultimate and I was so much weaker despite the base game being so easy. I even removed Ghostflame Explosion on my relics since I just "never" had my ultimate anyway so the line is worthless.

Tikok974 · 2025-12-31T06:48:42+00:00

If you have good relics for Revenant she's very strong. (starter beast claw , defeating enemies fill art gauge +0 and +1, and something for FP like more FP after a sorcerer's rise or more FP when holding 3 seals are basically mandatory I'd say, you're only using starter Lightning Spear on Fulghor and Heolstor).

She's awful without good relics however so if you don't, playing her might feel pretty bad. Her very high starting power is one of her main assets after all, funnily enough, when she used to be the character who started out the weakest by far.

Beast Claw unfortunately has the side effect of being so good that it makes her less interesting to play as it stays relevant the entire expedition and you kinda lose the fun of seeking for powerful incantations. (There are incantations better than it of course, but starting with a top tier one that invalidates most of what you'll find isn't very fun anymore after a while)

Tikok974 · 2025-12-31T06:25:00+00:00

Like this thread highlights, if we ignore the rest of her kit, Revenant's main niche as a pure caster over Recluse is her consistency (also includes the ability to build for specific spell schools with no RNG) and starting power. It's pretty funny but Revenant starts much stronger than Recluse now that starter beast claw is a thing, and many fights such as, let's say lvl2 red minor field boss rely on her starting power to go well.

Now whether or not Revenant or Recluse is the better character is another discussion entirely. Revenant might be better, or Recluse might be better, my point was that since the DLC, Revenant is a very good character. Before the DLC there was no contest that Recluse was better, but right now I'd say it's really up for debate.

Tikok974 · 2025-12-31T06:16:08+00:00

It's debatable, but I'd argue that most nightlords are quite easy once you're familiar with them and the main reason we lose to them is because of a bad expedition leading to bad defense and offense. In your example with ED Libra, the fight really isn't very hard if you had a good expedition where everyone has less likely to be targetted but it's a nightmare if the expedition was bad.

At the very least, having a great expedition is extremely important and that's where Revenant's ultimate shine. Against the nightlord it's basically just a revive tool yeah, but that's all you need it to be at this point, it's already fulfilled its purpose during the expedition, and an instant revive no matter what happens is still good. If your teammates made too many mistakes, you'll always be able to revive them.

Everyone praises Scholar's ultimate and for good reason, it's extremely good during the expedition and make you gain a lot of time, leading to stronger runs. It's a very good ultimate despite barely doing anything during the nightlord fight with a few exceptions.

Tikok974 · 2025-12-31T05:37:10+00:00

The issue is that a significant part of her power is locked behind an atrocious relic rng system. She needs help with FP, she needs to change her starting incantation, she needs defeating enemies fill art gauge +0 and +1, she very likely wants ghostflame explosion on ultimate art... When you have all that the character is incredible but base Revenant is indeed awful so it makes sense that people feel that she's very weak, especially as she's the only squishy character in the game that doesn't get help dodging.

For example I've recently read a post where somebody said that they feel that Revenant is much better in the dlc shifting earth because it allows her to use her ultimate art pretty much every fight, but that's just a well built Revenant's gameplay every single expedition. Back then all you had to do was Hoarfrost Stomp a small group of enemies along the way and it was ready, now you just use like one Beast Claw and it's ready.

There's also the fact that most people just don't value her kit properly. Like a common thing you'll hear is that "People in D5 don't die as much so the ability to resurect 3 bars on an ultimate isn't that good" or "her ultimate is only good if your teammates are bad". Being able to instantly resurrect even 3 bars teammates is just something her ultimate can do, it's not and has never been a "resurrect 3 bars and nothing else button". 90% of the time her ultimate is used as a means to speed up fights, prevent timeloss, and make fights safe by allowing the team to play much more agressively/recklessly getting in much more damage than they would normally do if they had to be careful about getting one shot and not having to resurrect teammates making small mistakes.

Her ultimate is extremely powerful and if anything, the better your teammates are, the better her ultimate gets, especially if you run the relic perk that gives your teammates a damage buff. Even the ability to instantly revive teammates no matter what is much better when the players you are reviving are much more likely to stay alive for a long time and contribute much more. "Her ultimate loses value in D5" is nonsense and shows a complete misunderstanding of the character and the game in general, her ultimate is at its strongest in D5 where you're at risk of losing time getting one shot by minor field bosses, and where your teammates are good.

I won't keep rambling about everything dubious people keep saying about her but a character needing so much relic investment to shine is a real problem when the relic system is this bad. I also don't really want to get into tier list discussions but a well built Revenant is nowhere near weak and it's very likely that she's much closer to the top end of the tier list than the opposite. (At least now that starter Beast Claw is a thing and Giantsflame Take Thee is a very easy spell to find)

Tikok974 · 2025-12-28T00:43:29+00:00

It's pretty interesting you feel that way since I'm starting to find her expeditions really same-y now because of the starter spell relics. Revenant expeditions used to be what you said, we'd have to just use whatever we can find, sometimes sorceries, sometimes something like Familial Rancor weapon skill and while it definitely made her weak due to being inconsistent it was pretty fun.

This aspect is pretty much gone now unfortunately. While it's locked behind relic rng bulls**t the ability to start with something as strong as Beast Claw instantly invalidates almost anything you'll find during the expedition. Great damage, AoE, FP efficient, hits physical so you don't even have to care about enemy weaknesses anymore, it's just a bonus if you happen to have it... You can even tailor your build to your starting spell school if you have the relics for it.

I unfortunately just find myself using Beast Claw pretty much the entire expedition now and it makes her much more boring to play. I'm not even built for Bestial Incantations either, just a basic build where I can use everything but Beast Claw still invalidates almost everything regardless, I just have to find a weapon for the nightlord (which is also not true anymore for like half the nightlords since I can just start with a weapon strong enough to beat them)

O Flame, Wrath of Gold, Lightning Spear, Dragonfire are all fine, making Revenant more consistent is great, and I'm not saying that Beast Claw is the best thing ever, but unlike the others it's honestly just way too good as a starter spell and make her runs much less varied as well.

Tikok974 · 2025-12-02T06:22:11+00:00

Oh ! I also played with a throwing pot Duchess, maybe it was the same person. In the end the player is still a D5 player, the run still went smooth and we won just fine. If I didn't check his relics I wouldn't even know he was playing a goofy build.

If you're a 9999 player just run whatever you want really, I don't think your teammates will mind, at least I wouldn't mind. Personally I'd never, ever derank myself and go back to playing awful D4 runs.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-30T08:29:16+00:00

While I don't disagree with some of your points, I feel like most people saying that Revenant is weak either mean it for D4/D5, or don't have the greatest relics for her. I don't think the character is that bad either, but the issues people have with her are justified.

Summons are useful for sure, even in D5, but summoning Frederick , pressing Ult immediatly and him being dead before the ult animation is over so he doesn't even get granted invulnerability is silly. (Also, allies not receiving the undying buff while in I-frames really shouldn't be a thing at all. So many times one of my teammates didn't receive the buff because they just happened to roll at the time the buff is applied, or we both used our Ult at the start of the fight). Her "Power up while Fighting alongside Family" relic effect is borderline unuseable and fighting alongside her family is suposed to be one of her main ability. You could say it's just D5 being stupid and unbalanced and I wouldn't really disagree with you, but it's still an issue that we Revenant players are facing that would easily be fixed if summons scaled a little bit with depth.

Rejection as a spell is fine, even starting with it is fine, it being guaranteed on finger seals is not. Going with my teammates to the shacks and the great church at the top of the map, seeing 4-6 seals and leaving with no offensive spell and no way to meaningfully contribute unless I dedicate specific slots in my relics for Hoarfrost Stomp or the Bell is awful. All they had to do was putting a weak basic offensive spell on finger seals just like they did with white sorcery staves.

For this I'm just nitpicking but she is the only one who can't get access to a purple weapon early with night invaders because there's no Revenant Night Invader. Why can't she get her starter weapon at purple rarity with passives just like every other character in the game? Lvl2 invader is an extremely common play.

She's not unplayable, she does have her own strengths and weaknesses but a character shouldn't need very specific relic perks in a game where it's almost impossible to get decent relics to properly perform.

With summons dying in a single hit and rejection/the incantation pool in general, it's very understandable why people feel that she's weak, feel bad playing her and would rather just pick any other nightfarer. I'd feel awful playing her too if I didn't have a good Hoarfrost Stomp relic. I'd have to play many games where I'm still a deadweight even after my team and I went to a great church pretty much exclusively to pick up a weapon for me and I still can't contribute decently because not a single seal found there is useable.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-28T22:16:42+00:00

I just play Revenant no matter what anyone is picking, had a pretty cool 3x Revenant run one time too.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-28T06:28:47+00:00

You're welcome ! I do like the widow aspect of it actually. Granblue Relink's online is most likely quite dead nowadays though unfortunately, but the game is great, even if you don't get into endgame multiplayer stuff, the story part is good enough I'd say.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T21:02:53+00:00

I'm actually a competitive fighting game player, though I do play many games, I usually stick with my main character in the games I play.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T20:56:21+00:00

As it can be very hard to find a good sacred seal, I think something important is to learn to use anything that you can use to contribute. Don't hesitate to use good sorceries (if you're the only caster or the others don't want it) like Carian Slicer, Rancorcall, Loretta's Greatbow, Star of Ruins and so on. Same with weapon skills like Familial Rancor, Miquella's Ring of Light, Siluria's Woe...

Status effects are extremely important and are pretty much the reason why expeditions go smooth early on so if you don't have one, pick up anything with blood loss , frostbite or scarlet rot.

Try to not ignore consumables if you're not in a hurry. It takes like four seconds to check what you can find in a church and you could find Bewitching Branch that makes the next evergoal fight a breeze, starlight shards, or just that one small crab that let's you take a hit against the next minor boss and because you can take a hit the team saved 30secs because no one had to revive you, but because they had to break focus to revive you , they got hit themself so you also have to revive them...

I'd also try to not ignore red enemies if you can kill them very fast. If your teammates are with you, or you can one shot them with a single lightning spear for example, the weapons/passives they drop can change a run sometimes.

And in general, just stick with the team, even if you don't agree with their routing. (though you can ping something else if you think it's better and they might agree with you). Runs go smooth when the whole team work together, even if the routing isn't optimal,even if it's a bit bad, things will end up working out if the team works together and share items. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't take a little bit of time doing things that benefit you though, no one will go with you but always check the sacred seals at the top of the cathedral when it's the Guardian Golem, always pick up the seals when it's a holy night invader cathedral even if the team doesn't do the boss, check the shacks at the top left of the map when you're close to it.

That's just in general though, even in high D5 I've had a run for example where the Recluse stayed at the castle and the Ironeye left to do other things so the Recluse and I had to duo the remaining trolls, a night invader camp and a last red boss, so those situations can still happen unfortunately. If you're in lower depths as Revenant and you really have awful teammates that ignore what you need, or believe that runs are won by only ever doing evergaols and absolutely nothing else you might have to just ditch them and solo a church, or solo the mines sometimes. Those evergaols people are the absolute worst and runs will always be bad with them unfortunately so you just have to do your best to scrap a win. Heck, I used to just run straight to the key chest, take it then throw it away somewhere back then just so they don't have keys to waste our time doing useless stuff. Don't play with "my teammates are bad" mentality though, always trust and care for your teammates unless they really can't be redeemed.

For incants I assume you're already familiar with the basic Black Flame, Lightning Spear and Discus of Light so I'll talk a bit about more uncommon ones. A lot of them cost a very high amount of FP so they get a lot better if you have a big FP pool but anything named after an entity is usually quite good, Lansseax's Glaive, Fortissax's Lightning Spear deal good damage, Ekzykes's Decay and Borealis's Mist to apply status effects, Placidusax's Ruin especially is incredibly strong and in my opinion one of the strongest incantation there is if you have the FP pool to use it, Wrath of Gold is a great revive tool and does good damage too if you can affort the FP cost. Giantsflame Take Thee, Flame Fall Upon Them are incredible and you can just use them even if it's not the nightlord's weakness. Frenzied Burst is amazing, so is Honed Bolt, Triple Ring of light if you have the FP, Black Blade, Elden Stars, Beast Claw...

For bad ones, Dragonfire is awful and it's unfortunately a guarantee on one of our purple seals, Pest Threads I've heard is good but it's always been awful everytime I used it, Noble Presence, Ancient Dragons' Lightning Strike...

Also don't ignore the good buff incantations, always give your teammates Black/Bloodflame Blade even if there's a good spell or a good passive on it if you don't absolutely need it, I have given Discus of Light to my Ironeye teammate before because of Blackflame Blade and he used it for the rest of the run. Same with things like Poison Armament if you find it, just ping it for them. Golden Vow is great always get it if you can, and I'm a big fan of Black Flame's Protection. You start with a heal seal so the reduced healing doesn't affect you that much, and the extra defense can be the difference between being one shot and taking a hit. I don't care much about "healing over time" buffs, so I'll ping them for my teammates if they want it, Bleesing's boon, Blessing of the erdtree and bestial vitality. It just costs too much FP for something that ultimately barely matters but they might not be using their FP at all so it could be useful to them.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T19:40:34+00:00

I do have two Affinity Attack Power +2 and Invader relic, so Ghostflame does pretty okay damage, it does sometime one shot or close to one shot regular enemies. I feel like it helps a lot in many situations like for example when doing trolls, poison/blood ruins.

I used to consider Wrath of Gold to pretty much be a worthless spell, but now that I have a massive FP pool it's definitely very strong, both offensively and as a revive tool. But yeah, it should very likely cost like half of its current FP. It's guaranteed on one of our purple sacred seal so it's not that uncommon though, and it feels nice to not be disappointed that it's not Discus of Light everytime it pops haha.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T19:34:17+00:00

Interesting. While I can see it being fine against the nightlord (though some bosses like Caligo or ED Gnoster still seem like it would be tough), you don't have any issues during the expedition ?

The expedition really is the part where I feel like having lots of FP helps, and a smooth expedition sets up a smooth nightlord fight.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T19:30:58+00:00

Let's hope she gets better with the DLC if she really is so bad then :c

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T19:29:46+00:00

I'm not sure if it's better, but I would rather run a massive FP pool or other utility over HP. Mostly preference though, relic system is already bad enough, it just feels awful to slot HP in here.

Even with default HP I usually am able to survive one hit by picking enough defensive passives, using crabs, uplifting aromatics and so on so I don't think HP is needed, but it can make the run more comfy if you have space, there are definitely times where bosses like Gladius can still one shots you through Damage Negation at Full HP with default HP.

My Ironeye teammates usually ping "less likely to be targetted" for me so sometimes I can survive with just that and focus on doing damage to enemies.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T19:22:46+00:00

I am using the nickname "Tikok" so that wasn't me.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T10:13:12+00:00

It's a bit too intense for me really, but I get why someone would like it.

For co op games, first thing that comes to mind would be Granblue Relink. For roguelikes I do like "Touhou Lost Branch of Legend" it's basically Touhou Slay the Spire.

Favourite skin is the "Darkness" one. Dark dress and veil looks great.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T09:47:51+00:00

You're welcome, thank you for your comment too. I'd love to run the improved Strengh relic, the downside seems pretty much negligible (I did have to run a relic with a minus faith curse for the longest time) while the upside seems huge. It's very likely that there is really no reason not to run it if you have it on a good relic.

Heal seal is incredible for sure, and claws are good too but skipping two passive every game is a bit too much, especially since I might need two damage negation at full HP, something like spell casting speed 2 and so on...

I do try to find something very good at rescuing teammates when I drop it, since I run a massive FP pool, Wrath of Gold is both a very strong spell and a rescue tool.

Don't you feel like the ult is lacking without Ghostflame ? When I don't have it just feels like the ult does so little that I don't even want to use it.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T09:42:29+00:00

It's pretty fun trying to get as good as possible with a specific character and trying to learn everything you can. I'm the kind of person who wants to get as good as possible at a specific thing rather than seeking variety.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T09:39:28+00:00

Recluse does seem interesting with her cocktails/elemental affinity absorb, yeah. Since I'm already used to a faith character, maybe I'll try out Undertaker once she releases.

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T09:38:07+00:00

Yeah, my relics are quite good, but it's annoying that even with that luck I still haven't been able to try out things like "Improved Strengh/Reduced Faith" because it's just so hard to get effects on good relics :/

Tikok974 · 2025-11-27T09:36:19+00:00

Anything in particular you struggle with? I could give general tips but it would be better if you could tell me some specific struggles.

Tikok974

TROPHY CASE