Malignant Hearts are a central feature of Diablo 4’s Season 1, offering a tantalizing 32 different powerful Malignant Heart Powers to play around with.
Dropped from a new Malignant enemy type, Malignant Hearts work similarly to Gems in that they can be slotted into gear pieces to significantly improve your equipment.
Each Malignant Heart has a Legendary Power of its own, granting you access to a variety of powerful buffs and bonuses.
Find out about all 32 Malignant Hearts and their powers below.
What Are Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4?
Malignant Hearts are rewards for killing Malignant enemies in Diablo 4. They function similarly to Gems in that they can be slotted into gear to upgrade them.
Unlike Gems, Malignant Hearts can only be slotted into Malignant Sockets in Jewelry. They grant access to Malignant Heart Powers which are powerful unique abilities that upgrade as you level up.
There are four Malignant Heart types in Diablo 4:
- Vicious Heart
- Grants Offensive Powers and is slotted into Red Malignant Sockets
- Brutal Heart
- Grants Defensive Powers and is slotted into Blue Malignant Sockets
- Devious Heart
- Grants Utility Powers and is slotted into Purple Malignant Sockets
- Wrathful Heart
- Grants very powerful ‘Super’ Powers and can be slotted into any of the above three Malignant Sockets
All 32 Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4 Season 1
Here are all 32 Malignant Hearts and Powers in Diablo 4, sorted by type and which classes they are available for.
For each effect listed below, the stats reflect what it would be for a level 20 character. As your Season character increases in level, the Malignant Hearts will also increase in power.
Vicious Malignant Hearts – Offensive Powers
| Malignant Power | Effect | Class | World Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Picana | 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. | All | Any |
| The Dark Dance | 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. | All | 3 or 4 |
| Tempting Fate | You gain 40-60% Critical Strike Damage but your Non-Critical Strikes deal 20-15% less damage. | All | 3 or 4 |
| Focused Rage | After spending 100-60 Fury within 2 seconds, your next Non-Basic Skill’s Critical Strike Chance is increased by 20-30%. | Barbarian | Any |
| The Moonrage | Kills have a 5% chance to summon a Wolf Companion to your side for 20-30 seconds. In addition, gain +3 to Wolves. | Druid | Any |
| The Sacrilegious | Walking near a Corpse automatically activates an equipped Corpse Skill every second, dealing 40-30% reduced damage. | Necromancer | Any |
| 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. | Rogue | Any |
| Tal’Rasha | For each unique element you deal damage with, you deal 7-12% increased damage for 3-10 seconds. | Sorcerer | Any |
Brutal Malignant Hearts – Defensive Powers
| Malignant Power | Effect | Class | World Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Lionheart | You gain 10% Barrier Generation. You Heal 3-7 Life per second while you have an active Barrier. | All | Any |
| Revenge | 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. | All | 3 or 4 |
| Prudent Heart | 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. | All | 3 or 4 |
| Resurgent Life | While below 40-60% Life, you receive 50-60% more Healing from all sources. | Barbarian | Any |
| The Agitated Winds | When 8-13 Close enemies, automatically cast Cyclone Armor. This cannot occur more than once every 10-20 seconds. | Druid | Any |
| 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. | Necromancer | Any |
| 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. | Rogue | Any |
| Spellbreaking | After taking Elemental damage, gain 20-40% Resistance to that element for 5 seconds. | Sorcerer | Any |
Devious Malignant Hearts – Utility Powers
| Malignant Power | Effect | Class | World Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Determination | Resource draining effects are 40-50% less effective. In addition, gain 3.0-8.0% increased Resource Generation. | All | Any |
| Retaliation | Deal 510-680 Fire damage to surrounding enemies whenever a Crowd Control effect is removed from you. | All | 3 or 4 |
| The Calculated | After spending 150-200 of your Primary Resource, your next attack Stuns enemies hit for 2 seconds. | All | 3 or 4 |
| 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%. | Barbarian | Any |
| Inexorable Force | Up to 30-50 Distant enemies are pulled toward you while you have an Ultimate Skill active. | Druid | Any |
| 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. | Necromancer | Any |
| 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. | Rogue | Any |
| 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. | Sorcerer | Any |
Wrathful Malignant Hearts – ‘Super’ Powers
| Malignant Power | Effect | Class | World Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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. | All | Any |
| 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. | All | Any |
| The Barber | 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. | All | 3 or 4 |
| Ignoring Pain | Incoming damage has a 5-15% chance of being ignored and instead Healing you for 17-68. | Barbarian | 4 |
| The Unconstrained Beast | 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. | Druid | 4 |
| The Great Feast | 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. | Necromancer | 4 |
| The Vile Apothecary | Your attacks have a 5-15% chance to apply all Imbuement effects at 40-50% of normal potency. | Rogue | 4 |
| Omnipower | 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%. | Sorcerer | 4 |
How to Get Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4 Season 1
To get Malignant Hearts, you need to defeat Malignant enemies. You can then slot them into the corresponding Malignant Jewelry sockets of your choice.
Malignant Hearts can be upgraded into more powerful Caged Hearts. You need to defeat a partly corrupted Malignant enemy and capture them in a ritual using the Cage of Binding. You will receive the Cage of Binding as part of a questline in Diablo 4’s Season of the Malignant.
Once you have performed the ritual, it will transform the enemy into a fully corrupted Malignant enemy. Defeating it will give you a Caged Heart.
These Malignant enemies are tougher than Diablo 4’s standard Elites and will spawn at random throughout the game.
A more reliable way of farming Malignant Hearts is to run through one of the six Malignant Tunnels introduced in Season 1. These are smaller versions of Diablo 4’s dungeons that are infested with Malignant enemies.
