How to unlock and improve your new vampiric powers in Diablo 4 Season 2

In Diablo 4 Season 2, Season of Blood, Sanctuary is beset by a newly turned army of ravenous vampires, and you get to wield their dreadful Vampiric Powers to “hunt the hunter.” But, you have a few things to do before you can use their Powers for (perhaps dubiously) good. How do we get these awesome new Vampiric Powers in the first place? And, more importantly, how do we get the absolute best out of these Powers?

Unlock and level Vampiric Powers with Potent Blood

Unlocking new Vampiric Powers in Season 2 and subsequently leveling them requires a new seasonal resource — Potent Blood. There are three ways to farm Potent Blood, but the easiest and fastest is to farm the Blood Harvest. The Blood Harvest Seasonal event is new to Season 2; it is centered around the Dark Master’s Blood Seeker lieutenants commanding armies of vampires to conquer the Dry Steppes, Hawezar, and Scosglen. Keep an eye out for Blood Lures during a Harvest event, as they will  summon Blood Seekers to you instead of having to hunt them.

You unlock your first Vampiric Power — Undying — through the initial questline with Erys. This questline also gives you your first Potent Blood, which you can spend it in two ways: to unlock Vampiric Powers, or to level up Vampiric Powers. Both are done in the Vampiric Powers tab on the Characters menu, shown by a  blood droplet with the green Seasonal leaf icon next to your Equipment tab.

Admittedly, the Vampiric Powers UI can be confusing. Here are the most important things you need to know about this tab:

• Total Pacts available (from armor) and required (by Vampiric Powers) are shown at the top of the screen.
• Equip and unequip Vampiric Powers by right-clicking the unlocked power’s icon on PC (X button on Playstation / A button on Xbox). Equipped powers are shown in the Power circle ta
• Spend 25 Potent Blood from your available pool by clicking on the ‘Spend’ button to unlock or level Vampiric Powers.

Hitting the Spend Potent Blood button changes the Vampiric Powers tab to a view of three randomly chosen Vampiric Powers; a new power to unlock shows just the power icon and a power to level has its current level in the bottom left. Select one from your three choices and hit Allocate XP, exactly as if you were leveling a Paragon Glyph. There are 15 Vampiric Powers available to unlock with Potent Blood, and

Leveling a Vampiric Power involves more patience. Going from level 1 to level 2 requires 5 XP, where each ‘XP’ costs 25  Potent Blood. Upgrading from Level 2 to Level 3 requires 10 XP. Want to take a Vampiric Power from unlock to Level 3?

• Unlock Level 1 = 25 Potent Blood
• 5 XP for Level 2 = 125 Potent Blood
• 10 XP for Level 3 = 250 Potent Blood
• Total = 400 Potent Blood

There are 15 Vampiric Powers unlocked with Potent Blood, but all 22 require Potent Blood to level them from 1 to 3. That’s 8625 Potent Blood to farm up.

Don Pact Armor to activate Vampiric Powers

Unlocking your Vampiric Powers is the first big step — the next is activation, which is requires seasonal attributes called Pacts on your Armor pieces. You have a chance for Pact values to roll on Chests, Pants, Gloves, Boots, or Helms. Each pact — Ferocity (red crown), Divinity (golden cup), and Eternity (white skull), have a unique icon and value shown between the Armor value and stat rolls. Keep in mind, Armor does have a maximum amount of Pacts per piece, depending on the armor slot.

In the example graphic on Blizzard’s announcement, they show a pair of Shattered Runic Gloves (legendary requiring level 45) that rolled with 1 Ferocity, 1 Divinity, and 1 Eternity. Let’s say those gloves are the first piece of armor you’ve received with Pacts on them. You can now use one, two, or even three minor Vampiric Powers, depending on what their Pact cost is. Let’s see how many sample combinations you can make, based on the costs provided in our Vampiric Power list:

• Anticipation (1 Divinity) and Feed the Coven (1 Eternity) OR Undying (1 Eternity) and Domination (1 Ferocity) OR Infection (1 Ferocity) — 4 combinations
• Jagged Spikes (1 Ferocity, 1 Divinity) and Feed the Coven (1 Eternity) OR Undying (1 Eternity) — 2 combinations
• Rampart (1 Divinity, 1 Eternity) and Domination (1 Ferocity) OR Infection (1 Ferocity) — 2 combinations
• Sanguine Brace (1 Divinity, 1 Eternity) and Domination (1 Ferocity) OR Infection (1 Ferocity) — 2 combinations
• Terror (1 Ferocity, 1 Divinity, 1 Eternity) — single combination

That is 11 different combinations of powers from one piece of gear.

Similar to Potent Blood, Pact Armor has the highest drop chance during the Blood Harvest Seasonal Event. This is important because Blizzard has not said if all armor is guaranteed to roll with Pacts on the piece during the Season! It becomes even more important when you think of how often you may be assessing your gear for upgrades. You won’t be wearing level 1 pieces at level 20, or 30, or so forth — you will have to take Pact rolls into account on upgrades! Luckily, Blizzard is accounting for that.

Customize armor with desired Pacts

Two new consumables are joining the roundup in Season 2: standalone Pacts and Cleansing Acids. Standalone Pacts work similarly to Ramaladni’s Gift in Diablo 3, adding +1 of the listed Pact Type — Ferocity, Divinity, or Eternity — to the targeted armor piece up to the maximum amount for that piece. If you’ve hit the maximum, you cannot use the standalone consumable on that piece.

Cleansing Acids work in the exact opposite way, removing either a specific Pact’s values from an armor piece or removing all Pact values from that piece. The Cleansing Acids targeting specific pacts are crafted with the Herbalist from an all-pact Cleansing Acid. Regardless, be very careful — using a Cleansing Acid is not reversible, so you will be starting entirely from scratch on that piece of gear if you apply the all Pacts version of Cleansing Acid.

Both consumables complement each other in expanding your ability to customize your gear during Season 2. Additionally, Standalone Pacts help expand your gear pool — if you receive that perfect Unique item for your build, and it doesn’t have your ideal Pacts, tweak it! And if you get a huge upgrade for one slot that changes your Pact totals, look for other upgrades that balance out the difference. Stay flexible and remember you have a lot of options here. Use new drops as an opportunity to try a different combination of Vampiric Powers.

Season 2’s power theme is definitely more involved than Season 1’s, but I would argue it’s going to be way more interesting too. Yes, you need to perform some due diligence on your gear, but for incredible rewards. Who doesn’t want to turn into a cloud of bats to evade their enemies? And we get to tackle it all in Season of Blood.

Originally published October 16, 2023. Updated October 26, 2023.