How to build Linus and Raven?

Pavise is definitely better than escutcheon as he can make tremendous use of heavy blade, allowing him to tank more damage. Even though his defenses are pitiful (see build below), he's deceptively tanky, tanking special procs from big boys like B!Ephraim.One great thing to note is that specials like Luna, Moonbow, Black Luna, and Aether are fairly ineffective against the build given his pitiful defenses.

That's very true. Raven's defenses are quite thin, especially if using the L&D refine on Basilikos. The shield pulse build tries to exploit his weak defenses by putting all his stat points into attacking and using his special to soak incoming damage.

It goes like this:
Basilikos+eff
(some assist)
Pavise
Life and death 3
Shield pulse
(whatever C-skill you want, could be def smoke)
Heavy or flashing blade

As long as he doesn't take consecutive attacks or attacks from 2 range he's safe. (So beware, for example, of brave weapons.) Black luna, Regnal Astra, ignis, doesn't matter. Everything just gets really heavily muffled by 50% reduction.

Linus has a number of ways to build, but I'm a bit skeptical of the L&D refine for him because I like his def. I don't think fury is the way to go, though, because with fury he basically has to play like Raven (your suggestion of desperation would be very appropriate) except he's slower. If you want to play desperation galeforce on him, I suggest keeping brazen atk/spd and supporting him with an infantry pulse. He hits someone, gets hit back, and galeforce activates (because you definitely want heavy blade / flashing blade on a Basilikos galeforce build). And I guess you do use the L&D refine in that case. His spd is a bit low for my taste otherwise. Nowadays he's not head and shoulders above the competition even with 45 spd (brazen atk/spd + Basilikos refine).