Diablo IV Season Of The Malignant, Explained

Diablo IV is launching the debut Season of the Malignant in just over a day, and alongside Patch 1.1.0, a new Codex outlining just how Malignant Hearts and their powers will work has just dropped. And oh boy, there’s a lot of Malignant Heart Powers coming to the game – 32 if you’re a numbers person (which, given you’re likely a Diablo IV fan if you’re reading this, you probably are). 

The very first season of Diablo IV starts at 10 a.m. PDT on July 20 (3 a.m. AEST July 21 for us Aussies), and is looking absolutely stacked. Season of the Malignant will introduce the powerful new Malignant Hearts into the mix. But what exactly are they, how do they work, and what kind of power can they grant your character? 

What are Malignant Hearts and what can they do?

Diablo IV’s Malignant Hearts are dropped by Malignant Monsters (particularly the subtype, Partly Corrupted enemies), with the new Malignant Tunnels (new Dungeons) one of the best locations to get your hands on them. There are six dungeons across Sanctuary that will make up the Malignant Tunnel system, and within the system, you’ll also find the newest Boss to battle: Varshan the Consumed, a formidable new enemy that hurls “globs of corruption” at foes.

The hearts are part of the newest Diablo IV questline, where assisted by Cormond (a former Cathedral of Light priest), you learn to capture the Malignant Hearts and turn them into powers bound to completely throw your perfected build out the window. We’ve got a full rundown of all 32 new powers further down, but it’s also important to note just how to use the hearts to unlock these. 

Malignant Hearts will come in four colours, each with a keyword (Vicious, Devious, Brutal, and Wrathful) depending on the subtype of the monsters slayed – the type of heart will also indicate the type of power they’ll grant. The hearts can be put into special Malignant sockets in gear, replacing the normal sockets of jewelry that would generally fit gems – however, given the different colours, can only be placed into gear with a socket-type of the corresponding colour. Wrathful Hearts are built diff and can slot into any piece of gear regardless of colour.

Salvaging and Crafting Hearts

If you’re sitting on a treasure trove of a particular heart type and are keen to diversify your power options to create the most cracked (or cursed) Diablo IV in all of Sanctuary, Malignant Hearts can also be salvaged, granting Ichor of a corresponding colour. Ichor can be used to create and upgrade other hearts but can also be harvested from lesser Malignant Monsters. Vicious, Devious, and Brutal Hearts will provide 5-15 Ichor when salvaged, while Wrathful hearts will provide 2-5 Ichor of all other Heart types.

To create new hearts, 35 Ichor of each of the other two primary coloured Hearts is required (everything except Wrathful). If you wanted to craft a Brutal heart, you’d need 35 apiece of Devious and Vicious Ichor. The hearts crafted this way are random beyond their colour, and are either Class-specific or suitable for any Class, and are scaled to your character Level.

Malignant Heart Powers

The powers that Diablo IV’s Malignant Hearts can grant are, for the most part, very powerful, with the Super powers particularly packing quite the punch. The Druid Super Malignant Heart power, “The Unconstrained Beast,” is particularly interesting, with a 40-60% chance of automatically activating Grizzly Rage for 3 seconds if you’re hit with a Stun, Freeze, or Knock Down effect. Other powers involve buffs to damage, resistances, and auto activations of abilities, and each Class has four specific powers on top of the 12 “General” powers available.

Here’s a full rundown of all 32 Malignant Heart powers coming to Season of the Malignant this week.

General

• The Picana (Vicious, Offensive): Critical Strikes electrically charge the enemy for 0.75-2.50 seconds, causing lightning to arc between them and any other charged enemies dealing 68-136 Lightning damage.
• The Dark Dance (Vicious, Offensive-World Tier III): Every 5 seconds while above 60% Life, Core Skills cost 68-51 Life instead of your Primary Resource. Skills that consume Life deal 10-20% increased damage.
• Tempting Fate (Vicious, Offensive-World Tier III): You gain 40-60% Critical Strike Damage, but your Non-Critical Strikes deal 20-15% less damage.
• The Lionheart (Brutal, Defensive): You gain 10% Barrier Generation. You Heal 3-7 Life per second while you have an active Barrier.
• Revenge (Brutal, Defensive-World Tier III): 10-20% of incoming damage is instead suppressed. When you use a Defensive, Subterfuge or a Macabre skill, all suppressed damage is amplified by 250% and explodes, dealing up to 1360-2040 Fire damage to Nearby enemies.
• Prudent Heart (Brutal, Defensive-World Tier III): You become Immune for 2.0-4.0 seconds after you lose more than 20% Life in a single hit. This effect can only occur once every 110 seconds.
• Determination (Devious, Utility): Resource draining effects are 40-50% less effective. In addition, gain 3.0-8.0% increased Resource Generation.
• Retaliation (Devious, Utility-World Tier III): Deal 510-680 Fire damage to surrounding enemies whenever a Crowd Control effect is removed from you.
• The Calculated (Devious, Utility-World Tier III): After spending 150-200 of your Primary Resource, your next attack Stuns enemies hit for 2 seconds.
• The Malignant Pact (Wrathful, Super): Cycle through a Malignant bonus every 20 kills:
  • Vicious: Gain 20% Attack Speed.
  • Devious: Core and Basic Skills have a 15% chance to fully restore your Primary Resource.
  • Brutal: Every 21 seconds, gain a Barrier absorbing 85-102 damage.
• Creeping Death (Wrathful, Super): Your damage over time effects are increased by 30-40% for each different Crowd Control effect on the target. Unstoppable monsters and Staggered bosses instead take 110-130% increased damage from your damage over time effects.
• The Barber (Wrathful, Super-World Tier III): Critical Strikes and all subsequent damage within 2.0-4.0 seconds is absorbed by your target. Then, the absorbed damage erupts onto surrounding enemies. Stored damage is increased by 10% per second.

Barbarian

• Focused Rage (Vicious, Offensive): After spending 100-60 Fury within 2 seconds, your next Non-Basic Skill’s Critical Strike Chance is increased by 20-30%.
• Resurgent Life (Brutal, Defensive): While below 40-60% Life, you receive 50-60% more Healing from all sources.
• Punishing Speed (Devious, Utility): Your Skills have a 20-30% chance to Knock Down all enemies for 1.25 seconds when that Skill’s Attack Speed is higher than 35-20%.
• Ignoring Pain (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): Incoming damage has a 5-15% chance of being ignored and instead Healing you for 17-68.

Druid

• The Moonrage (Vicious, Offensive): Kills have a 5% chance to summon a Wolf Companion to your side for 20-30 seconds. In addition, gain +3 to Wolves.
• The Agitated Winds (Brutal, Defensive): When 8-13 Close enemies, automatically cast Cyclone Armor. This cannot occur more than once every 10-20 seconds.
• Inexorable Force (Devious, Utility): Up to 30-50 Distant enemies are pulled toward you while you have an Ultimate Skill active.
• The Unconstrained Beast (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): When you are hit with a Stun, Freeze or Knock Down effect, there is a 40-60% chance to automatically activate Grizzly Rage for 3 seconds.

Necromancer

• The Sacrilegious (Vicious, Offensive): Walking near a Corpse automatically activates an equipped Corpse Skill every second, dealing 40-30% reduced damage.
• The Decrepit Aura (Brutal, Defensive): When at least 5 enemies are near you, gain an aura that automatically curses surrounding enemies with Decrepify for 5-15 seconds.
• Frozen Terror (Devious, Utility): Lucky Hit: Up to a 10-20% chance of inflicting Fear for 2.5 seconds. Feared enemies are Chilled for 20% every second.
• The Great Feast (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): Each Minion drains 1.0-2.0 Essence per second but deals 50-75% increased damage. With no Minions, this bonus applies to you and drains 5 Essence per second.

Rogue

• Cluster Munitions (Vicious, Offensive): Lucky Hit: You have up to a 20% chance to launch 3 Stun Grenades that deal 26-32 Physical damage and Stun enemies for 0.50 seconds.
• Trickery (Brutal, Defensive): When you use a Subterfuge Skill, leave behind an unstable Shadow Decoy Trap that Taunts enemies. The Shadow Decoy Trap will explode after 6.0 seconds dealing 680-1020 Shadow damage. Cannot occur more than once every 5 seconds.
• The Clipshot (Devious, Utility): Lucky Hit: Up to a 20-40% chance for your Cutthroat Skills to Slow by 40% for 3 seconds and your Marksman Skills to Knock Back enemies.
• The Vile Apothecary (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): Your attacks have a 5-15% chance to apply all Imbuement effects at 40-50% of normal potency.

Sorcerer

• Tal’Rasha (Vicious, Offensive): For each unique element you deal damage with, you deal 7-12% increased damage for 3-10 seconds.
• Spellbreaking (Brutal, Defensive): After taking Elemental damage, gain 20-40% Resistance to that element for 5 seconds.
• Spite (Devious, Utility): When you are afflicted with a Crowd Control effect, there is a 20-40% chance that the same enemy and enemies around you are also afflicted with the same effect for 3 seconds.
• Omnipower (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): Core Skills that launch a projectile consume all of your Mana. For every 45-35 extra Mana consumed, you launch an additional projectile, and the damage is increased by 3.0-5.0%.

How to start collecting Diablo IV’s Malignant Hearts

To start Diablo IV’s newest Seasonal questline, Burning from Within, you’ll have to have finished the campaign on the Eternal Realm, or complete it during the Season on the Seasonal Realm at least once. If you’re already way ahead of that part, once Season of the Malignant drops on July 20 at 10 a.m. PDT (3 a.m. July 21st AEST), head to Kyovashad and link up with Cormond to get all those build-changing powers on and around your gear.

Best of luck out there, wanderers.