wrote up my thoughts of the class, it's rather long winded so didn't want to bloat another of the discussions.
A good way to check balance is to look at the numbers both in isolation and when compared to others who have potential similar utility and roles for the sake of not having to go though every single combination I'll keep this initial analysis in comparison to both base game guards.
Starting with hp values the Anointed has 30 which goes up by four per level except the final which increases by 5 for a total of 47 which is pretty great for a frontline unit being only 4 points behind Man-At-Arms at max level and a huge 10 points clear of Houndmaster.
In terms of Dodge it starts at a base of 5 and increases and goes up by the usual 5 this puts it even with Man-At-Arms at all levels and 5 points behind Houndmaster at the same level, again about what is to be expected from a frontline class.
On the resistance side of things is where things look a little strange with Anointed having a very high 60% stun res at level 0 which is absurdly high being 20% higher than both other guard classes giving a chance to be stunned of only 40% at starting level which drops to only 20% at max level as resistance growth outpaces enemy stun chance increase, this is a powerful trait for any class but more so for healers and guard classes which anointed is both and greatly increases the consistency of the entire kit. The Blight Res matches both other guard classes while Bleed being slightly lower does hurt the class slightly due to how common bleeds are. The 10% Move res would seem to be a weakness though outside of the two tempo damage/clean up attacks Anointed can still function just fine from any position and certainly has no trouble getting back in position even if it is at a tempo loss. Debuff res of 60% is again absurdly high being 30% higher than both other guard users which makes it much harder to disrupt. Deathblow being slightly higher is pretty much just for flavour as everyone knows it's just a myth.

In regards to Spd the Anointed starts at 4 at base level and increases up to 6 at max which is comfortably between the two other guard classes being 1 higher than Man-At-Arms and 1 point lower than Houndmaster.
It's crit rate is actually the lowest when compared to the other two guard classes with Man-At-Arms having 1% more crit and Houndmaster having 3% more crit at all levels.
In regards to Damage the Anointed has a 6-8 range with an avarge damage of 7 at starting level which increases steadily to 10-14 with an average of 12 at max level while Man-At-Arms has 5-9 at starting level with an the same average of 7 at starting level and an unfavourable comparison of 8-14 for an average of 11 at max level while Houndmaster has 4-7 at starting level for an average of 5.5 and a 7-13 with an average of 10 though for Houndmaster the lower damage is offset slightly by potential bleed damage.

The Crit effect of increased damage a slight boost to amount healed is certainly great while active but effectively needing two conditional triggers ( the crit and a mark on self.) keeps it firmly in check.
The movement of 3 forward and 3 back is incredible, effectively letting you potentially use him to reposition others in the team to quickly fix the party formation if shuffled around probably should be adjusted down to 2 forward and 2 back to bring it in line with Man-at-Arms and Houndmaster.
The District choice of Alter of Light gives the class even more stun res making the Anointed even less likely to be stunned and the extra healing perfectly compliments one of his skills.

And now finally onto the skills themselves
Sacred Blade is the sustain focused of the frontline attack options, it's got fairly low damage, can only be used from the front and can only hit the front meaning it will struggle to inflict much damage at all though the always active self-heal is a great addition that becomes far more effective while he's marked, it certainly has it's uses in certain builds.

Zealous Ire is the damage focused one of the two frontline attack skills allowing the Anointed to effectively clean up kills for it's team thanks to the inherent ability to ignore prot makes the damage dependable and the increased damage while marked becoming 10-12 at starting level and reaching 16-22 thanks to how DD rounds up, the increased crit chance vs undead is a nice bit of class flavour too.

Holy Obligation is an incredible support move that's perfect of the Anointed as it increases an ally's chance to hit, reduces the damage you take by adding prot, adds a mark to set up the extra effects of both frontline attack moves and makes sure he goes first in the following turn allowing efficient clean up or an emergency heal making it a helpful tool that has uses in almost any build though needs a little forethought to get the full value from it.

Condemn is a situational skill though is very helpful in area's where dangerous backline enemies have stealth stealth as it yanks them right to the front while removing their stealth while also offering utility to interferer with enemies that heal a lot or just mess with the enemy formation.

Admonish is another impressive support move that accomplishes a lot in opening up the enemy this time by absolutely nuking the enemy spd value leading to more of your team being able to outspeed them, reduces the risk of taking spikes of damage or stress by lowering the enemy crit chance by a rather large amount while turning off any guards the enemy might have to protect it's high damage units from damage or disruption effectively shifting the tempo of the fight in a single move though like Holy Obligation does require a way to capitalise on the advantages it gives.

Safeguard is an interesting skill from a balance perspective as it functions as a fairly potent self heal that places a guard over an injured ally while healing them enough to keep them out of danger for the moment making it a great healing option however as a guard it performs poorly offering no form of damage mitigation at all to the Anointed making it a poor option in most fights that would require a guard.

Renew is the simple to use aoe healing that balances out the fact it can be used from any position by not healing the user, it's a basic solution but certainly works well and makes you think about if you should use Safeguard, Sacred Blade or someone else with healing to keep the Anointed's own hp up.


The set of unique camping skills the Anointed brings to the table are situational but certainly quite good to have when you need them.

Restore is about as straight forward in it's use as it gets, removes a mortality de-buff from an ally and grants a passable healing received buff of 20% for a very low cost of 2 points making it a super cheap way to remove the death's door de-buff.

Duty of the Divine is another of the remove death's door de-buff camping skills this time for the Anointed the +25% virtue chance is so-so but on form thematically and the added deathblow brings him close to the deathblow res cap without wasting a trinket slot on something and with how good removing the death's door de-buff is for 2 points the virtue and deathblow res are nice extras.

Hallowed Prophecy is an incredible 2 point skill though like many of the Anointed's camping skills is situational as it only works on a religious ally, still removing 33 stress for 2 points is just incredible.

Edifying Sermon is certainly the most universal camping skill out of this set offering a -15 stress to all allies and a 15% virtue chance to yourself for 4 points, it's a good by itself but has great synergy with Duty of the Divine letting you reach 65% Virtue chance with just the camping skills which is close to a high enough chance to be used as a last gasp to prevent an affliction on the Anointed who if he's been guarding a lot can build up a lot of stress, luck dependent but having it as a when needed tactic is pretty neat.

Trinkets

Worn Holy Symbol is a pretty good common trinket doing 15% extra damage against Undead and Eldrich with the side benefit of 15% virtue chance with the downside of doing 15% less damage to human enemies, while it's got it's up and downs as the human sub-type is fairly common it still finds use in the ruins and the cove where the human sub-type is less common and there are high prot undead and eldrich to chew though, it should also be noted that the Necromancer who is often the first boss dealt with on each playthough is both sub-types and the Anoited is already an excellent pick for that fight.

Cherished Prayerbook is an impressive uncommon that adjusts how the friendly skills function by adding a cleanse to the effects though that comes at a pretty hefty cost of 1 point less hp healed and 10% less de-buff chance which does hurt but can be worked around and having already great buff skills also remove bleed is worth the trade off in fights where enemies use a lot of bleeds and/or blights.

Doctrine of Light is just the trinket the Anointed needed to function as a tank increasing prot when he is ether marked or is guarding while also increasing the duration of his guard which is very helpful during one of the endgame missions and can see some use in other fights too.

Oath of Judgment is a catch all trinket to facilitate the support side of the kit granting a 20% increased chance to move a target, a 20% increase to debuff chance and 5 acc to ranged skills to make them a little more reliable though this comes at the cost of lowering dodge by 7 which reduces effective durability somewhat, still the increase to landing potent effects is usually worth the cost.

Oath of Vengeance has it's problems, it's clearly meant to be the damage trinket with 20% more damage, 7% more crit that adds 7% more at 75% hp and again at 50% hp which is fairly potent even with the low base damage of the Anointed though it then adds on a 5 point bleed over 2 rounds when you land a melee attack however the downsides are rather crippling with -99 hp healed which is just bizarre given it makes two moves in the kit useless, a -40% to stress healing received which certainly does hurt quite a lot but the Anointed does have the means to deal with it thanks to it's camping skills and other damage trinket giving virtue chance.
This trinket could probably do with some adjustments, the bleed effect doesn't help much as there is already a move in the kit that Bypasses prot that doesn't require you to turn off the Anointed's healing, removing the bleed from the trinket then adjusting the heal to -50% would given the same incentive to focus on aggression without completely killing the usability of his guard.

Oath of Altruism is the defence orientated ultra-rare trinket and performs it's function far less obstructively offering an extra 3 hp in healing, a +15% virtue chance and making all friendly skills cure horror in exchange for -20% damage, -15% crit and inflicting 8 stress on a landing a killing blow with the Anointed, the healing buff is a rather impactful and the virtue chance when used with the camping skills lets you reach the virtue cap of 95% giving functional uses to both, the cure horror isn't going to be impactful too often but is helpful when it does come into play. The first two downsides make sense for such an upside effectively reducing the range you can land clean up kills and the third while punishing you for doing so doesn't prevent you doing so when just taking the stress is better than letting the enemy live. It even has synergy with other trinkets Worn Holy Symbol can somewhat offset the damage penalty while also letting you reach the virtue cap with help from the camping skills, Cherished Prayerbook has it's own heal penalty cancelled out while offering the always helpful cleanse effect to the already buffed friendly skills, Doctrine of Light has two of it's conditions met by friendly skills while also benefiting greatly from boosted self healing and while order of Judgment doesn't benefit directly the skills the support set want to use are uneffected while having access to a greater amount of sustain giving greater control over the fight.


The Favour of the Flame has a fairly interesting effect alongside a pretty helpful +10 Acc, when the Anointed gets attacked it tries to inflict a bleed 2 over 2 at 140% bleed chance a fairly potent revenge effect with the downside being the -7 dodge, having an on attack rather than a on hit is always going to have potential to get out of hand though the – 7 dodge blances things by getting the Anointed hit more. Perhaps looking into how it works as an on getting hit rather than a on getting attacked since the former would fit with the idea of controling damage and sustaining that the Anointed already does well and letting the penalty actually add to your ability to inflict damage.

The Blessing of Light is the second trinket from the crimson court set offering a +2 hp when healing which is fairly potent even by itself but like it's counterpart in the set it has a trigger effect when attacked this time giving the party -2 stress with every attempt the enemy makes to hit the Anointed though like it's counterpart it also has a – 7 dodge penalty. Like the other part of the set I think the on getting hit condition would make it fit in with controlling damage elements of the rest of the kit.

The set bonus for the CC trinkets is a bit baffling as the while the +25% Virtue chance can take full effect the second buff the +25% death blow resist hit's the deathblow cap after just +17% as deathblow res caps out at 87%

Fractured Feather is the Colour of Madness addition to the Anointed's kit and focuses on keeping your health high to gain various beneficial effects though healing and controlling the damage you take, the first beneficial effect give +3 spd when above 50% hp which is a great way to set up the control sooner in the first turn letting which is paired this time with + 2 extra hp healed when over 50% which is a bit odd to have more healing at high health though functions well to give incentive to keep using self healing to keep topped up reducing the odds of being put in a bad spot as once you hit below 50% the downsides really kick in hard with +25% stress damage taken which will add up quickly and bizarrely a massive penalty of -50 dodge at death's door despite how many options are in the kit to increase death's door res. The massive stress penalty is probably enough of a downside as it does take a fair bit of investment to turn it in your favour and since the trinket seems to be a little backwards whey not make the death's door effect something to do with attacking to keep the duality that the very rare and Crimson court trinkets have going on.