All Diablo 4 Season 1 Malignant Hearts + First Impressions

All 32 Malignant Hearts Effects Listed

In addition to the Season 1 patch notes, the 32 Malignant Hearts were revealed by the Diablo 4 dev team.

The are naturally one of the new core mechanics of the Season of the Malignant, offering a new way to customize your builds.

There are four different types of Hearts: Vicious (Orange, Offensive power), Brutal (Blue, Defensive power), Devious (Pink, Utility power), and Wrathful (Black, Super).

In this breakdown, our experts for each role will be giving their first impressions for all 32 of the Malignant Hearts.

For new Season 1 builds, head to our Diablo 4 builds site.

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.

• Seems weak overall but does have some potential to have synergies with a random Druid or Sorc Lightning passive.

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.

• Has potential to be incredibly powerful. It enables builds to play much more greedily, especially if they are able to use barriers to protect their life. Expect to see this played in most resource-heavy classes

Tempting Fate (Vicious, Offensive-World Tier III):

You gain 40-60% Critical Strike Damage but your Non-Critical Strikes deal 20-15% less damage.

• Very powerful generic heart. It’s good for builds that don’t have better options and rely heavily on crits.

The Lionheart (Brutal, Defensive):

You gain 10% Barrier Generation. You Heal 3-7 Life per second while you have an active Barrier.

• Not very powerful. Most builds that make high use of Barriers don’t worry about their health, so the healing isn’t that valuable. The Barrier Generation is also pretty low.

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.

• This is a very good Defensive choice for the 20% flat damage reduction. Its fire damage is kind of funny because it scales with the level of the mobs. Overall, it’s a very interesting item that will at least be played for the damage reduction but maybe also for its AoE damage.

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.

• Very unlikely to see much play. It’s a bait item like the damage immunity Aspect if you aren’t healthy.

Determination (Devious, Utility):

Resource draining effects are 40-50% less effective. In addition, gain 3.0-8.0% increased Resource Generation.

• Not really sure what this is doing, if it reduces the cost of skills it’s great, if not it’s very bad

Retaliation (Devious, Utility-World Tier III):

Deal 510-680 Fire damage to surrounding enemies whenever a Crowd Control effect is removed from you.

• Another questionable one, not sure where this has a place. Most likely bad.

The Calculated (Devious, Utility-World Tier III):

After spending 150-200 of your Primary Resource, your next attack Stuns enemies hit for 2 seconds.

• And…another one that doesn’t seem too appealing. We doubt this will see much use in any builds.

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.

• This one is interesting – a lot of its value will most likely come from setting it to a specific roll before a boss fight.

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.

• Insane potential! Darkness Necro, Poison Rogue, Poison Druid, Burning Sorc, Bleed Barb all get amazing value from this Heart. It buffs up all of these builds to the next level.

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.

• Sounds game breaking. If it works the way it says, you will be doing 120% bonus damage per enemy in your pull. So if you pull 10 enemies you’ll be doing 1200% damage to all of them. Every single push build will be running this if it works the way it’s worded.

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%.

• Extremely high potential with Unbridled Rage builds. Should average out to be around 15% crit chance. It won’t work well in a build like Whirlwind that overcaps on Crit Chance, but for something like HOTA or Upheaval, it’ll do well.

Resurgent Life (Brutal, Defensive):

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

• Pretty bad in all cases. There are way better defensive options, like Ignoring Pain below.

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%.

• Designed for Double Swing – it makes the build better because Double Swing refunds Fury when hitting knocked-down enemies.

Ignoring Pain (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV):

Incoming damage has a 5-15% chance of being ignored and instead Healing you for 17-68.

• Super powerful with potent defensive properties granting 100% uptime on 15% Damage Reduction and it heals you. Expect it in most Barbarian push builds.

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.

• This would be interesting if Pets did meaningful damage, unfortunately, they do not. Summoning extra wolves will increase the Value of your Shepard’s Aspect but the 5% chance is too low to make this heart competitive with others.

The Agitated Winds (Brutal, Defensive):

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

• Pushing enemies away is rarely good in Diablo 4, so this Heart may do more harm than good.

Inexorable Force (Devious, Utility):

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

• A very strong heart that potentially fixes problems for a lot of builds. For example, pulling enemies can be incredibly powerful for builds like Bulwark that lack large-scale AoE.

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.

• This Malignant Heart is a must-have for any build running Grizzly Rage as it will make up for a lot of the nerfs that Grizzly Rage received from the last patch.

Necromancer

The Sacrilegious (Vicious, Offensive):

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

• Potentially very powerful. It allows you to cast Corpse Tendrils without having it on your bar, giving you an extra Skill Slot as well as getting 100% uptime on vulnerable from it. Can also have value auto-casting Corpse Explosion to proc damage bonuses after consuming Corpses.

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.

• This basically allows you to play without Decrepify on your bar, which gives you an additional skill slot. It is also really useful for speeds as you won’t have to stop to cast. Definitely worth exploring.

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.

• Has decent synergy with the Unique weapon that gives you Essence when hitting a frozen enemy, but beyond that, it’s terrible.

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.

• Insanely strong. Will be played in virtually all builds. Minions and Corpse Explosion, in particular, get loads of value from it because they don’t use Essence to do damage.

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.

• This is basically the Exposure Key Passive without having to take it. Would be much stronger if they didn’t nerf Retribution from 40% (80% on 2h) to 20%.

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.

• Trickery has the potential to be incredibly strong for NMD pushing depending on how much health the decoy has.

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.

• Might have some utility for some T100 ranged builds but overall, not very good.

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.

• Absolutely insane, especially for Poison Imbue builds since Shadow Imbue buffs non-physical damage by 12%. This gives you a way to Chill through Chill Imbue without having to use Penitent Boots which synergizes very well with Creeping Death.

Sorcerer

Tal’Rasha (Vicious, Offensive):

For each unique element you deal damage with, you deal 7-12% increased damage for 3-10 seconds.

• It’s hard to say if it’ll outclass some of the damage increases you can obtain from the General Hearts, but its potential is up there. Most Sorcerer builds have access to both Fire and Lightning through Flame Shield and Teleport, and seeing as it’s obtainable early, it’s a solid increase for most builds.

Spellbreaking (Brutal, Defensive):

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

• Honestly, Blizzard missed the mark a little here. We already skip 30-40% resistance nodes on the Paragon Board when we can, and this bonus is applied after taking damage. Defensive bonuses like this have a high usefulness late game and we’re dying in one hit anyway so this will likely turn out to have no value.

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.

• As a Sorcerer, we apply a lot of CC already – in fact, we apply too much in some cases and end up forcing mobs into an Unstoppable state. This overall decreases DPS and I couldn’t imagine being hit with CC and forcing everything around me to turn Unstoppable. We could argue that it allows us to maybe drop our own CC, but ours is guaranteed and adds vulnerability, this is a % chance.

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%.

• This has the potential to be either pretty cool or amazing. It be used with Chain Lightning with a large mana pool, allowing us to cast 4-5 at once then with % chance to restore primary resource items and Lucky Hit, instantly refill our mana for another cast. This allows us to spam out multiple casts of Chain Lightning with one cast. The potential here is huge especially when combined with other hearts like “The Picana”, “The Dark Dance” or “Tempting Fate” a lot of synergies here for sure.

For new Season 1 builds, head to our Diablo 4 builds site.