change node field value without node->save or without causing hook_entity_presave infinite loop
I think I have found a simple solution 

add revision message with UNIQUE string before saving the node

    //...
    $node-&gt;setNewRevision(TRUE);
    $node-&gt;revision_log-&gt;value = "AUTOMATED-UPDATE ". $field." incremented to ".$old_value ;
    $node-&gt;save();


check on the hook_entity_presave that the revision was not AUTOMATED by checking in the log for our UNIQUE string

    if ($entity-&gt;getEntityType()-&gt;id() == 'node') {
        $log = $entity-&gt;revision_log-&gt;value;
        if( substr( $log, 0, 16 ) === "AUTOMATED-UPDATE" )
            return;
        ...