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Diablo 4: Season of the Malignant – All Malignant Hearts & How to Get Them

Malignant Hearts will play a major role in builds in Diablo 4's Season of the Malignant. This guide details all you need to know about this new seasonal mechanic.

Diablo 4: Season of the Malignant brings new content for players to partake in and unique items to find and loot, with the biggest being the season-specific Malignant Hearts.

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These new items provide powerful new effects to players, making for very powerful builds and encouraging experimentation during the season. There are quite a few versions and types of Malignant Hearts, all with different uses.

In this guide, we’ll detail what the Malignant Hearts are, as well as provide details on their uses, how to find and craft them and list all the available hearts for players to find as they play Season of the Malignant.

Related: Diablo 4 Developers Talk Season of the Malignant and Their Philosophy on Seasonal Content – Interview

What are Malignant Hearts?

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Malignant Hearts are a new mechanic introduced in Season of the Malignant, providing players with new powerful legendary-like abilities. These new gem-like items are socketed into necklaces and rings and encourage players to explore and find new builds as they discover the different abilities these hearts can offer.

There are four categories of Malignant Hearts, each with a different color and keyword that caters to a specific ability. These include:

  •  Vicious – Orange, Offensive power
  • Brutal – Blue, Defensive power
  • Devious – Pink, Utility power
  • Wrathful – Black, Super

Each of these heart types can be socketed into a piece of jewelry matching the heart’s color. For example, you can socket a Vicious Heart into a piece of jewelry with an orange socket. The only exception to this is the Wrathful Hearts, which are rarer finds and can be socketed into any color.

How to Find and Capture Malignant Hearts

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To capture and use Malignant Hearts, players will need to unlock the Cage of Binding, an item given to players by Cormond during the seasonal quest line. When you have this item, you will be able to acquire Malignant Hearts.

Malignant Hearts can be found by defeating enemies with specific affixes, denoting their corruption and its type. Players will need to fight a weaker version of the enemy first, which will leave behind a heart. They will then need to try and capture the heart, spawning a stronger, corrupted enemy to defeat. Once it’s defeated, players can grab the heart.

Crafting and Salvaging Malignant Hearts

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In addition to finding them in the world, players can craft their own Malignant Hearts and salvage ones they do not need.

To do so, they need to talk with Cormond at his wagon, who will break down the hearts into Ichor of a specific color, depending on the heart you salvage. This can be between 5 – 15 for Vicious, Brutal, and Devious Hearts, and 2-5 Ichor of all other Heart types for Wrathful Hearts.

Crafting a heart will require 35 Ichor for each of the two primary colors needed for that heart. For example, you will need 35 Brutal Ichor and 35 Devious Ichor to make a Vicious Heart. You will then receive a random heart of that type.

Related: Diablo 4 1.1.0a Patch Notes – Season of the Malignant Plagues Sanctuary

All Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4: Season of the Malignant

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Below we have listed all of the Malignant Hearts players can find in Season of the Malignant. We have separated these into colors with subheads for specific classes, so you can find exactly what you are looking for.

Some of these Malignant Hearts will require certain World Tiers. The numbers shown here reflect a level 20 character.

Vicious – Offensive

General/Class-agnostic

  • 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 (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 (World Tier III): You gain 40-60% Critical Strike Damage, but your Non-Critical Strikes deal 20-15% less damage.

Barbarian

  • Focused Rage: After spending 100-60 Fury within 2 seconds, your next Non-Basic Skill’s Critical Strike Chance is increased by 20-30%.

Druid

  • The Moonrage: Kills has a 5% chance to summon a Wolf Companion to your side for 20-30 seconds. In addition, gain +3 to Wolves.

Necromancer

  • The Sacrilegious: Walking near a Corpse automatically activates an equipped Corpse Skill every second, dealing 40-30% reduced damage.

Rogue

  • Cluster Munitions: 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.

Sorcerer

  • Tal’Rasha: For each unique element you deal damage with, you deal 7-12% increased damage for 3-10 seconds.

Brutal – Defensive

General/Class-agnostic

  • The Lionheart: You gain 10% Barrier Generation. You Heal 3-7 Life per second while you have an active Barrier.
  • Revenge (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 (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.

Barbarian

  • Resurgent Life: While below 40-60% Life, you receive 50-60% more Healing from all sources.

Druid

  • The Agitated Winds: When 8-13 Close enemies, automatically cast Cyclone Armor. This cannot occur more than once every 10-20 seconds.

Necromancer

  • The Decrepit Aura: When at least 5 enemies are near you, gain an aura that automatically curses surrounding enemies with Decrepify for 5-15 seconds.

Rogue

  • Trickery: 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.

Sorcerer

  • Spellbreaking: After taking Elemental damage, gain 20-40% Resistance to that element for 5 seconds.

Devious – Utility

General/Class-agnostic

  • Determination: Resource-draining effects are 40-50% less effective. In addition, a gain of 3.0-8.0% increased Resource Generation.
  • Retaliation (World Tier III): Deal 510-680 Fire damage to surrounding enemies whenever a Crowd Control effect is removed from you.
  • The Calculated (World Tier III): After spending 150-200 of your Primary Resources, your next attack Stuns enemies hit for 2 seconds.

Barbarian

  • Punishing Speed: 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%.

Druid

  • Inexorable Force: Up to 30-50 Distant enemies are pulled toward you while you have an Ultimate Skill active.

Necromancer

  • Frozen Terror: Lucky Hit: Up to a 10-20% chance of inflicting Fear for 2.5 seconds. Feared enemies are Chilled for 20% every second.

Rogue

  • The Clipshot: 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.

Sorcerer

  • Spite: 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.

Wrathful – Super

General/Class-agnostic

  • The Malignant Pact: 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: 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 (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

  • Ignoring Pain (World Tier IV): Incoming damage has a 5-15% chance of being ignored and instead Healing you for 17-68.

Druid

  • The Unconstrained Beast (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 Great Feast (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

  • The Vile Apothecary (World Tier IV): Your attacks have a 5-15% chance to apply all Imbuement effects at 40-50% of normal potency.

Sorcerer

  • Omnipower (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%.

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Author
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Matthew Fuller
Matt is a freelance writer based in the UK and has spent over three years covering and writing about video games. He discovered his love of games journalism while attending Canterbury Christchurch University, where he earned a bachelor's and master's degree in Game Design and has been writing ever since. He will find any excuse to play and write about games. When he isn't fighting dragons or exploring far-off galaxies, he spends his free time playing D&D, listening to music, or reading a good book. His primary game bests are Diablo IV, the Final Fantasy series, D&D, and anything new releasing that tickles his fancy.