All of the Malignant Hearts to collect in Diablo 4 Season 1

Because the upcoming Season of the Malignant is Diablo 4‘s first Season, there’s a fair amount riding on the core mechanic: Malignant Hearts. These powerful items are found inside various kinds of Malignant enemies you’ll be fighting during the Season, and after you tear them out of their chests, you can use them in various items that have the proper sockets. This is a Season-only mechanic that’s entirely new to Diablo 4, and you’ll have to roll a new Seasonal character to try it out.

With Season 1 now live, we know exactly which kinds of Malignant Hearts are available, so let’s talk about all of the Malignant Hearts you can find and use in Diablo 4 Season 1.

There are four classes of Malignant Hearts, each of which drops from a specific kind of Malignant enemy type:

• Vicious Hearts (offensive) drop from Vicious Malignant monsters, or created via the Salvage mechanic at Cormond’s wagon. These can be socketed in Orange Malignant Sockets.
• Brutal Hearts (defensive) drop from Brutal Malignant Monsters, or via Salvage. These are socketed in Blue Malignant Sockets.
• Devious Hearts (utility) drop from Devious Malignant Monsters, or via Salvage. These are socketed in Pink Malignant Sockets.
• Wrathful Hearts are the MVP’s dropped from Wrathful Malignants. You can also create them via Salvage at Cormond’s wagon, and they can be socketed in any color of Malignant socketed item. They grant powers that are considered superior to the other kinds of Hearts.

There are certain Malignant Hearts that provide class-specific bonuses and some are general, available for use for all classes. We’ll talk about those general hearts first before moving on to discuss the ones that have bonuses related to specific classes. My commentary on each Malignant Heart will be available in italics.

General Malignant Hearts

Since these Malignant Hearts can be worn and used by any class, they don’t depend as much on specific abilities or resources and will appeal to a wider variety of players. This shows in how they end up generally being more intereresting and experimental than some of the class specific ones below, in my opinion. I’d say The Malignant Heart is the best of the bunch, with Revenge potentially the most broadly appealing one depending on how it works.

• 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 Picana looks to be a solid Vicious ability for just about anyone who expects to fight a lot of enemies. It depends on how often it manages to charge up its targets — too slow and it will be useless.
• The Dark Dance (Vicious, Offensive-World Tier 3): 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.
  • This one could be really fun but it could also kill you really fast, especially if you don’t have a lot of ways to regain health quickly. 
• Tempting Fate (Vicious, Offensive-World Tier 3): You gain 40-60% Critical Strike Damage but your Non-Critical Strikes deal 20-15% less damage.
  • A solid option if you’ve got a high crit chance and an interesting way to make a crit build feel more important.
• The Lionheart (Brutal, Defensive): You gain 10% Barrier Generation. You Heal 3-7 Life per second while you have an active Barrier.
  • Not particularly remarkable, but that doesn’t make it bad — there’s no downside to it, which makes it less interesting than an ability like The Dark Dance, but also makes it less risky. 
• Revenge (Brutal, Defensive-World Tier 3): 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.
  • I don’t see any language here that clears up whether or not you take the suppressed damage when it explodes, but even if you do, since this happens when you’re using specific kinds of skills that might somewhat reduce that it could still be worth using. If you don’t take that damage this thing is astonishing. 
• Prudent Heart (Brutal, Defensive-World Tier 3): 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.
  • Another solid but unremarkable ability.
• Determination (Devious, Utility): Resource draining effects are 40-50% less effective. In addition, gain 3.0-8.0% increased Resource Generation.
  • If you’ve done a Nightmare dungeon with Resource draining mobs, you’ll probably want this one just for that. It’s also just plain good for more Resource gen, a common issue while leveling. 
• Retaliation (Devious, Utility-World Tier 3): Deal 510-680 Fire damage to surrounding enemies whenever a Crowd Control effect is removed from you.
  • It’s certainly not bad but it’s kind of lacking in excitement.
• The Calculated (Devious, Utility-World Tier 3): After spending 150-200 of your Primary Resource, your next attack Stuns enemies hit for 2 seconds.
  • Another good but not terribly interesting ability
• 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.
  • Now this is an exciting ability, as befits a Wrathful Heart.
• 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.
  • I like that this isn’t just useless against enemies that can’t be crowd controlled and it’s a pretty solid ability for anyone who does a lot of CC. 
• The Barber (Wrathful, Super-World Tier 3): 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.
  • This is an interesting ability that could well end up really powerful in situations where you need to kill a lot of enemies fairly quickly, but that 2 to 4 second delay before the damage gets applied could end up meaning that a lot of this damage may end up wasted. 

Sorcerer Malignant Hearts

This collection of Sorcerer-specific Malignant Hearts is one of the more eclectic, as befits Sorcerers in general. I think Spite is my favorite, but I could see a case for either Tal’Rasha or Omnipower as the #1 pick depending on your playstyle.

• Tal’Rasha (Vicious, Offensive): For each unique element you deal damage with, you deal 7-12% increased damage for 3-10 seconds.
  • Pretty solid and rewards you for a broader range of abilities, which I always like to see.
• Spellbreaking (Brutal, Defensive): After taking Elemental damage, gain 20-40% Resistance to that element for 5 seconds.
  • I am starting to worry that the words “solid but not remarkable”or variations on them will be showing up a lot for Defensive abilities. They definitely describe this one. 
• 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.
  • This may be the first effect based around being Crowd Controlled that I actually like, because the idea of getting Frozen and then the guy that did it and all of his friends also getting Frozen is hilarious to me.
• Omnipower (Wrathful, Super-World Tier 4): 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%.
  • I am not personally a fan of abilities that take all of my resources, but if you have a fast resource generation option this could end up being very powerful

Necromancer Malignant Hearts

Necromancers may have the most focused assortment of Malignant Hearts of any class, but I have to say The Great Feast feels utterly epic to me.

• The Sacrilegious (Vicious, Offensive): Walking near a Corpse automatically activates an equipped Corpse Skill every second, dealing 40-30% reduced damage.
  • I haven’t played a Necromancer yet, so I feel like this is a bit over my head but I don’t like that reduced damage tradeoff for the automatic activation of Corpse Skills. 
• 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.
  • Based on what I know about Decrepify, this seems pretty good to me. 
• 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.
  • Just plain feels like a really nice synergy between Fear and Chilled here.
• The Great Feast (Wrathful, Super-World Tier 4): 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.
  • That little of an Resource drain for that much increased damage? Yes. Yes please.

Druid Malignant Hearts

Moonrage is awesome. Inexorable Force is awesome. The Unconstrained Beast may be the best Malignant Heart in the game. Druids are impressing me with their Malignant Heart options here. A++ would rip faces off with my claws again.

• 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.
  • I never say no to more 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.
  • Ah, it’s our old friend, solid but unremarkable.
• Inexorable Force (Devious, Utility): Up to 30-50 Distant enemies are pulled toward you while you have an Ultimate Skill active.
  • I mean, it’s never a bad idea to hit more things with your Ultimate.
• The Unconstrained Beast (Wrathful, Super-World Tier 4): 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.
  • Grizzly Rage is already pretty great. Now imagine you also have Inexorable Force socketed, and you get stunned and immediately yoink everyone right into range of your explosion of beary violence. Honestly, it’s making me seriously want to level up a Druid in Season 1.

Rogue Malignant Hearts

I am not a Rogue IRL, but I do play one in Diablo 4 (not exactly up to max level yet, but still) and I think of these options either Trickery or The Vile Apothecary are the best.

• 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.
  • Useful, assuredly, but one wonders if it’s worth it compared to some of the General Hearts we’ve seen.
• 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.
  • Up front I just like this because it feels appropriately underhanded for a Rogue.
• 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.
  • I feel like that 20 to 40% Lucky Hit is a bit low for this.
• The Vile Apothecary (Wrathful, Super-World Tier 4): Your attacks have a 5-15% chance to apply all Imbuement effects at 40-50% of normal potency.
  • The reduction in potency is balanced by getting three imbuement effects at once, I think. This one is subtle but could be a lot stronger than it initially appears. People already like Cold/Shadow or Cold/Poison, so having all three might end up being better than you might otherwise expect.

Barbarian Malignant Hearts

I feel like Barbarians would be by and large better off chasing General Malignant Hearts like The Malignant Pact  or Creeping Death than any of these except Ignoring Pain. If you’re using a lot of attacks based around two weapon fighting like Frenzy, then Punishing Speed becomes genuinely good.

• 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%.
  • Looks like Solid but Unremarkable decided to switch it up and get on a Vicious Heart here.
• Resurgent Life (Brutal, Defensive): While below 40-60% Life, you receive 50-60% more Healing from all sources.
  • Yikes, two for two on the SbR’s for Barbarians.
• 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%.
  • Actually really good for a Frenzy/DW build.
• Ignoring Pain (Wrathful, Super-World Tier 4): Incoming damage has a 5-15% chance of being ignored and instead Healing you for 17-68.
  • The winner for Barbarian specific Malignant Heart powers, this one could end up making you practically unkillable, especially when combined with Barbarian abilities like Iron Skin or Challenging Shout. 

And that’s every Malignant Heart in Season 1. The Season is now live, so you can log on and start collecting the hearts of your enemies right now.