Herald Vault

Completing all Artifacts and reaching Level 100 unlocks access to The Herald Vault.

By interacting with the Artifact Tome, the player receives the rock required to enter the vault and face The Herald, the final boss of Vault Hunters.

Herald Fight

The Herald fight is divided into a normal stance and four unique phases, each inspired by the powers of the Vault Gods. After the Herald’s HP is depleted during normal stance, he shifts into one of the phases. Once a phase is completed, the Herald returns to his normal stance, repeating the cycle until all phases have been overcome.

Each phase introduces unique mechanics and requires different strategies to progress.

Phases

Normal Stance: The Herald performs melee and heavy melee attacks, dealing consistent damage while frequently knocking players back.

---

Wendarr Phase:

A time-based mechanic involving the destruction of hourglass sparks.

Mechanics:

• Hourglass sparks spawn with a fixed lifespan of 600 ticks (~30 seconds).
• All sparks must be destroyed before the timer expires.
• If all sparks are destroyed: The Herald is stunned immediately.
• If sparks expire:
  • The Herald absorbs remaining sparks.
  • He unleashes an arena-wide attack whose damage scales with the number absorbed.
• He is then stunned with a yellow health bar that must be depleted. Failure repeats the mechanic till the health is depleted.

---

Velara Phase:

• The phase consists of five fixed waves.
• At the start of each wave, a gray zone appears on the arena floor.
• Vault mobs spawn shortly afterward.
• You must lure mobs into the gray zone and kill them inside it.
• As mobs die inside the zone, it fills from gray → green.
• When the zone is fully green:
  • All current mobs despawn.
  • A new zone appears elsewhere in the arena.
• After all five zones are completed:
  • All mobs despawn.
  • The Herald returns to normal stance.

Each Zone has only one type of Mobs (Horde, Assasins, Tanks, Dwellers, Dungeons).

---

Tenos Phase:

The Herald takes flight and bombards the arena with powerful magical attacks that inflict slowing effects and heavy damage. Some attacks deal true damage, making the Resistance stat highly valuable.

Floating catalysts appear in the arena center, each representing a chest type (e.g., Gilded Chest). Matching chests spawn around the arena, and some contain inhibitors. Inhibitors must be thrown into the matching catalysts to damage the Herald.

This mechanic must be completed four times, with each round requiring more catalysts.

---

Idona Phase:

A rage-state phase. The Herald gains increased HP, movement speed, and extremely high melee damage. Blood orbs spawn regularly and apply heavy bleeding damage over time. The Damage of this Blood Orbs ramps up over time, although they can be destroyed by left clicking them. The herald will gain more damage and speed the more time is spent in this phase.

Completing this phase ends the fight and defeats The Herald.

Trophy Rewards

Defeating the Herald awards a trophy based on completion time:

Icon	Trophy	Defeat Time
	Platinum	00:00 – 14:00
	Gold	14:00 – 20:00
	Silver	20:00 – 25:00
	Bronze	25:00 – 80:00

Specific Attack Patterns and Damage numbers can be found on the Herald Stats page.

Tips and Tricks

The Herald remains one of the hardest encounters in Vault Hunters. Proper preparation and phase mastery are essential.

Gear Affixes: Resistance is strongly recommended due to Tenos’s true-damage attacks. Additional health, regeneration, and healing support provide consistent survivability.

---

Wendarr Phase Tips :

• Sparks expire after ~30s; focus on destroying clustered sparks.
• Using a hammer or cleave weapon hits multiple sparks at once.
• Breaking all sparks now skips the Herald’s attack entirely.
• Burst down the yellow HP bar quickly after the stun.

---

Velara Phase Tips:

• Mobility and crowd-herding skills are highly effective.
• After each zone completes, mobs despawn—use downtime to heal and reposition. So that the next zone can be easily spottet.

---

Tenos Phase Tips:

• Projectiles deal 20 true damage; fangs deal 32 damage with ~80% spawn chance.
• Movement speed and cleansing effects mitigate slows and debuffs.
• Farming ~10 inhibitors of each chest type beforehand can help.
• Avoid standing in the center during bombardments.

---

Idona Phase Tips:

• Blood orbs spawn every 100 ticks (~5 seconds), up to 12 max.
• Constant circling keeps orbs under control.
• Attack opportunities are brief—strike once or twice, then kite.

---

Generic Stances: Between god-phases, the Herald returns to melee stance with increasing health and damage. Good positioning and defensive skills minimize knockback and allow consistent chip damage.

Overall, the fight rewards patience, precision, and a deep understanding of each phase.