Revenants

{{#vardefine:pagename|Revenants/Strategies}}

This article is about the monsters. For the music track, see Revenants (music track).

File:Fighting revenant dragon.png

A player fights a revenant dragon within the Revenant Caves.

Revenants are the ghostly versions of creatures slain during the God Wars found in the Revenant Caves within the Wilderness in levels 19 to 40. They are capable of hitting high and accurately for their combat levels, although most of the damage can be mitigated with a charged bracelet of ethereum. As the Revenant Caves location is members-only, all revenants are members-only creatures.

Revenants have a fairly generous drop table, but as they are in the Wilderness, the player is always at risk of getting killed by other players. Due to the revenants' lucrativeness, player killers are common. The caves they inhabit are singles-plus combat, where PvP situations take priority over PvM: a player in combat with a revenant can be attacked by another player.

Unique drops from the revenants include the Wilderness weapons, a set of weapons that have increased effectiveness against monsters in the Wilderness when charged with revenant ether. They also drop various ancient artefacts, which can be sold to the Emblem Trader wandering within the Revenant Caves for a set amount of coins, as well as ancient crystals, four of which are used to construct an obelisk in the superior garden of a player-owned house.

Strategy

Main article: Revenants/Strategies

File:Revenant healing.gif

A revenant imp healing itself.

Revenants are capable of using all three forms of combat. Their attacks have very high accuracy against any player not using a bracelet of ethereum regardless of their defensive bonuses. In addition, their attacks change based on the player's defensive stats and protection prayers being used. They are also capable of healing themselves when their health falls below 50%, though this only occurs a limited amount of times. When it heals itself, a lightning strike can be seen.

Being undead, revenants are susceptible to the effects of the salve amulet and its enchanted version.

Drops

Revenants drop a variety of high-valued armour, weapons, and skilling resources. Revenants can also drop the unique Wilderness weapons, and the ancient artefacts which can be exchanged for large sums of coins. The drop rates for the Wilderness weapons are increased by 5 times the normal rate when assigned a revenants Slayer task from Krystilia. This boosted rate is not applied if the player is assigned ghosts as a Slayer task. All revenants share the same drop list. However, higher-leveled revenants are more likely to drop these items compared to lower leveled ones.

In addition to the combat level modifier, being skulled increases the drop rate of various items by ~45%, such as Wilderness weapons, most ancient artefacts, yew and magic seeds and the ancient crystal. Being skulled decreases the drop rate of the ancient emblem by nearly 3.5 times the normal rate and removes the dragon med helm from their drop table. The boost for being skulled stacks with the increased drop rate of Wilderness weapons while on a revenants Slayer task. Note that the skull obtained by playing on a high-risk world does not provide a boost to the revenants' drop table. Wearing an amulet of avarice will cause all of the revenants' drops to be noted if applicable.

List of revenants

File:Revenant Caves map.png

A map of the Revenant Caves, displaying the spawn locations of different types of revenants.

Image	Name	Combat level	Hitpoints	Defence level	Max hit
File:Revenant imp.png	Revenant imp	7	10	4	2
File:Revenant goblin.png	Revenant goblin	15	14	14	3
File:Revenant pyrefiend.png	Revenant pyrefiend	52	48	33	5
File:Revenant hobgoblin.png	Revenant hobgoblin	60	72	41	8
File:Revenant cyclops.png	Revenant cyclops	82	110	49	16
File:Revenant hellhound.png	Revenant hellhound	90	80	80	14
File:Revenant demon.png	Revenant demon	98	80	80	18
File:Revenant ork.png	Revenant ork	105	105	60	20
File:Revenant dark beast.png	Revenant dark beast	120	140	80	23
File:Revenant knight.png	Revenant knight	126	143	80	27
	Revenant dragon	135	155	87	30
File:Revenant maledictus.png	Revenant maledictus (demiboss)	397	1250	90	30

Controversy

Initially, revenants were to drop Ancient Warriors' equipment much like their RuneScape counterparts had when they were moved into the Forinthry Dungeon. Their weapons were not included for balancing reasons; to compensate for this, other rewards were designed. However, the polls for both the armour and the new equipment did not pass. To ensure that revenants would still be worth killing, they were given a generous, but generic drop table as a result. This included a rare drop of 100 dragon platelegs or plateskirts, which was criticised as it was considered artificial and most of it would be lost if the player was killed.

8 February 2018 changes

On an update on 8 February 2018, revenants gained a massive drop buff as it was determined that players were not obtaining more than the stated profit per hour (which was 2,000,000 per hour). This also added the ancient medallion, effigy and relic to replace the 100x multiplier, and revenants were given a massive drop overhaul, dropping many resource items like runite ores and black dragonhides.

Immediately after the update, players began to complain about how many resources were entering the game, devaluing other bosses, skilling and granting players more profit per hour than originally intended. Many players began to compare the revenants to other monsters such as brutal black dragons, Zulrah and Vorkath, other monsters with generous drop tables but had a requirement to access. Since revenants had no requirements to kill and the fact that they were killed much faster, items that the revenants dropped began to crash at an alarming rate. Initially, Jagex determined that the flow of resources into the game was meeting the expected profit rate that was intended.

21 February 2018 changes

Eventually, more player complaints had Jagex look into the revenants again, from which they determined that only some players were making profit at or above the expected value, while many others were not, in addition to the inflated kills per hour. On 21 February 2018, a hotfix was implemented:

• Dwarf multicannons cannot be placed in the revenant section of the caves; they could, however, be placed in any other part of the cave.
• Revenants' access to the main drop table was significantly reduced, especially the lower levelled revenants. Higher levelled revenants have a better chance of accessing the main drop table.
• The quantity of several drops, such as onyx bolt tips, were significantly reduced.
• Revenants in World 345 (permanent Deadman mode) no longer access the main drop table, now only dropping ether and the bracelet of ethereum. Any emblems players had would also be converted into their respective trade-in values.

1 March 2018 changes

The changes made on 21 February caused player complaints on revenants no longer being a viable money making method for the risk involved by being in a multi-combat area in the Wilderness. In an update on 1 March 2018, Jagex stated that they have "overstepped it a little with the reductions" based on post-change data analysis, and made the following changes as a result:

• The chances of rolling on the normal loot table rather than coins have been increased slightly.
• Ancient artefacts are now always lost on death, even if it is the only item in the player's possession. This was done to promote the risk of staying in the caves once the player receives it, and when the player attempts to exchange it.
• Previously, the revenant's magic attack would only target one player. This allowed many players to wear a different pair of gloves instead of the bracelet of ethereum, as there is no necessity for it due to safety in numbers. The revenant's magic attacks now targets up to ten players that stand on the same tile as the main target, with the change intending to promote players to use the bracelet, which is always lost on death.

21 October 2020 changes

Despite revenants being stabilised in terms of drops and the only recent notable change being that the bracelet of ethereum only blocked 75% of a revenant's damage, there were player complaints regarding gold farming and protection clans preventing legitimate players from killing revenants. Players suggested to either change or remove the revenants, although a majority supported roaming revenants, in that they would wander the Wilderness like they did in RuneScape from 2007 to 2011.

On 16 October 2020, Jagex decided against roaming revenants, instead opting to change how they would work in the caves.

In an update on 21 October 2020, the following changes were applied to revenants:

• In order to enter the caves the revenants resided in, players now have to pay a 100,000 coin fee before entering. This fee can be paid from your bank. This fee does not need to be repaid unless the player dies inside the caves, in which their killer obtains this fee.
• The cave itself was modified, with all non-revenant monsters being moved to the Wilderness Slayer Cave and replaced by revenants – the spawn amounts are unchanged. More spawns may be added based on player feedback.
• The cave's combat preferences were changed to "singles-plus" to prevent piling common in multi-way combat zones. In a standard single-way zone, a player could fight a monster and could not be attacked until the monster died or its aggression was shaken off. Single-plus zones are similar to single-way zones, except another player can attack a player already in combat with a monster. The said monster will lose aggression when this occurs.
  • In addition, a 10 second timer was added to prevent piling by players.
• Drop tables were modified once more: being skulled plays less of an impact in obtaining rare drops and the item quantities for regular loot were significantly reduced.

27 October 2021 changes

The changes applied on 21 October 2020 were not satisfactory as revenants were providing much less gold than what had been announced on release, as there were very few, extremely far spawns and killing them could be irritating due to their ability to rapidly restore health below half.

On 27 October 2021 in an update, Jagex gave revenants the following changes:

• The drop tables were readjusted once more:
  • Most drops that were previously noted, such as battlestaves, are no longer noted.
  • Revenants can now drop blighted items, such as supplies and spell sacks.
  • Multiple item drops appear in greater quantities.
  • The amulet of avarice provides a 20% accuracy and damage boost
• Added an additional spawn to each revenant area.
• Revenants now heal when below half health, but cannot heal again for 15 ticks (9 seconds), and heal anywhere from 8-36 times. They will still heal when below half health if available.
• Revenants respawn 33% faster.

Changes

Date	Changes
[[{{#explode:25 January 2023| |0}} {{#explode:25 January 2023| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:25 January 2023| |2}}]] (update)	Increased the drop rates of Wilderness weapons from Revenants by 50%. Increased the drop rates of Wilderness weapons from Revenants by 5x when killing them on a Wilderness Slayer task.

Trivia

• Unlike in RuneScape, there are no revenant icefiends, vampyres or werewolves in Old School RuneScape. The models used by these revenants are also simply transparent models of their living counterparts, rather than the ghost-like tail the revenants are often recognised with. In addition to this, several revenants cannot be killed for a task (e.g. the revenant pyrefiend cannot be killed in place of normal pyrefiends).
• Revenants were originally the replacement for player killers between 10 December 2007 and 1 February 2011 in RuneScape, when free trade and PvP in the Wilderness were removed (to counter real world trading). Similar to player killers, they could attack players depending on their combat level and depth in the Wilderness, as well as heal themselves, use Tele Block, and freeze the player.
• If a revenant attempts to heal at the exact same tick when dealing a killing blow (the animation and sound plays but the revenant dies), you will not be awarded any loot.