As we suspected earlier this week, the teaser image ArenaNet released is of a new revenant legend: Ventari. As a healing focused legend, he’s all about offering a supportive playstyle.

Although we already knew the Ventari was to be a legend, first up on the blog post is the announcement of the revenant using staff. Unlike other professions that use the staff as a ranged, spell based weapon, the revenant will use it in melee. Using a mix of melee styles, ArenaNet state “it’s very much about damage prevention rather than directly offensive attacks, to fit the legend’s theme.”

I’ve seen a few glimpses of the datamined staff skills for revenant but we now know of two. Rejuventing Assault cleaves foes around the revenant. As the third skill in an attack chain, the idea is that healing is provided by offensive means, “shards of energy will fly off onto the ground around the target. You or your allies can walk over these for a small amount of healing. This encourages strafing around your target to pick up the orbs as you attack”. The second skill is Surge of the Mists which allows the revenant to charge forwards, knocking enemies back. Similar to a centaur charge, this Ventari skill will thrust and push enemies along with you.

So what about Ventari? Well, he’s a Legend that’s focused entirely on support. Using Ventari’s tablet as the core to almost all skills, you’ll work around the tablet and command it to provide benefits to your allies. Invoking Ventari will see you gain access to one skill - the tablet. Once you’ve summoned it, your skill bar will change to five legend-based skills. If you want to dismiss the tablet, you can stray from it and it’ll disappear or you can use your elite (Energy Expulsion) which will also cause it to disappear. Based on the images here, I can now understand why they wanted to change the Guardian elite Tomes.

Three of the skills detailed in the blog post include:

Ventari’s Will: The revenant moves the tablet towards a target location, healing allies it passes through.

Protective Solace: The revenant summons a protective barrier around the tablet that destroys projectiles.

Energy Expulsion: The revenant erupts energy from the tablet, knocking back foes and leaving behind energy fragments that heal allies.

Sadly there's no video this week of the Ventari in action, but we'll soon be able to play it in a future Heart of Thorns Beta event. We'll keep you posted.