Herald

The Herald is a Cosmic/Cultist enemy in Darkest Dungeon II encountered in all regions at Oblivion's Rampart and Oblivion's Ingress.

Description
Beholder of the coming horrors, the Herald sounds in honor of the most towering cultists at its sides, resounding otherwordly sonorities to acclaim their powers. The haunting sound of their mind-breaking melodies is however more than just a inhuman melody : it is also a dreadful revelation of the coming of the apocalypse.

Combat Skills
is only generated if there is a Cultist who can be worshiped, i.e Cardinal, Deacon, Exemplar.

Strategy
The herald stays in the back lines causing bleed  and  burn  to the backlines and also has access to a very powerful ability that causes stress and destroys positive tokens. Although it may not seem like much of a threat at first glance, do not underestimate the damage of this enemy, as stress and dot can accumulate along with the direct damage it causes capable of denying entire setups with its ability to destroy tokens from abilities such as Take Aim or Retribution.

A unique feature of the Herald is Inversion. In contrast to Clarion Call's positive token stripping ability, Inversion allows it to absorb the negative tokens of it's teammates, converting them into positive tokens on itself. While these tokens aren't nearly as dangerous on the Herald as if they were on other Cultists such as Deacons or Evangelists, they are nonetheless annoying and, moreover, remove those negative tokens from their allies, denying combos and damage.

Whether you're more scared of it's stress output or it's synergy ruining abilities, tackling it first is a high priority for most teams. Skills that move them forward such as Daemon's Pull or Ransack can neutralize the threat for a round. Their signature move of Clarion Call is dangerous if it's allowed to be repeated, as the cumulative stress can cripple parties in the long term. Plentiful stress reduction should be planned if you have to keep the Herald alive. It leaves itself most vulnerable when it's attempting to invert tokens on itself, so you could try to make it use inversion and then kill it with high damage attacks such as Finale or a powered Judgement.

Trivia

 * The Herald has had multiple tweaks to its move set that lowered its reliance on Clarion Call and gave it more movement options.
 * Disharmony used to be Harmonious End. Harmonious End dealt stress and inflicted Horror on a hero but could only be used after the Herald had used Inversion.
 * Clarion Call used to attack from all 4 ranks on the enemy party. Now it only attacks from the backline.
 * Clarion Call used to deal 2-3 stress damage. Now it only deals 2 stress per use.
 * There used to be a Fight setup consisting of 4 Heralds in one team. It was great.
 * The mask worn by the Herald appears to be featured in the artwork for the achievement "Banishment".