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Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts list: All Malignant Hearts and effects

A full list of all Malignant Hearts available in Diablo 4

Diablo 4's corrupted Malignant Monster playing around with a floating Malignant Heart in a screenshot from the game's Season 1 update
Image credit: Blizzard

Looking for a full list of all 32 Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4? Diablo 4 Season 1 is live, and it brings a powerful new mechanic that can enhance your builds: Malignant Hearts. Malignant Hearts are basically new types of gems, but they have unique powers that align more with those you get from Legendary Aspects.

In this guide, we'll provide a full list of all 32 Malignant Hearts and their effects in Diablo 4 Season 1. We'll then highlight the best Malignant Hearts, so that you know which ones to focus on when crafting a new build over the coming months.

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Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts list

Below, you'll find a full list of all 32 Malignant Hearts available in Diablo 4 Season 1:

Malignant Heart Class Type Effect
The Picana All Vicious, Offensive Critical Strikes electrically charge the enemy for 0.72-2.50 seconds, causing lightning to arc between them and any other charged enemies dealing 68-136 Lightning damage.
The Dark Dance All Vicious, Offensive 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 All Vicious, Offensive You gain 40-60% Critical Strike Damage but your Non-Critical Strikes deal 20-15% less damage.
The Lionheart All Brutal, Defensive You gain 10% Barrier Generation. You heal 3-7 Life per second while you have an active Barrier.
Revenge All Brutal, Defensive 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 All Brutal, Defensive You become Immune for 2-4 seconds after you lose more than 20% Life in a single hit. This effect can only occur once every 110 seconds.
Determination All Devious, Utility Resource draining effects are 40-50% less effective. In addition, gain 3-8 increased Resource Generation.
Retaliation All Devious, Utility Deal 510-680 Fire damage to surrounding enemies whenever a Crowd Control effect is removed from you.
The Calculated All Devious, Utility After spending 150-200 of your Primary Resource, your next attack Stuns enemies hit for 2 seconds.
The Malignant Pact All 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.
Creeping Death All 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.
The Barber All Wrathful, Super Critical Strikes and all subsequent damage within 2-4 seconds is absorbed by your target. Then, the absorbed damage erupts onto surrounding enemies. Stored damage is increased by 10% per second.
Focused Rage Barbarian Vicious, Offensive After spending 100-60 Fury within 2 seconds, your next non-basic skill's Critical Strike Chance is increased by 20-30%.
Resurgent Life Barbarian Brutal, Defensive While below 40-60% Life, you receive 50-60% more Healing from all sources.
Punishing Speed Barbarian 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%.
Ignoring Pain Barbarian Wrathful, Super Incoming damage has a 5-15% chance of being ignored and instead Healing you for 17-68 Life.
The Moonrage Druid 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.
The Agitated Winds Druid Brutal, Defensive When 8-13 Close enemies, automatically cast Cyclone Armor. This cannot occur more than once every 10-20 seconds.
Inexorable Force Druid Devious, Utility Up to 30-50 Distant enemies are pulled toward you while you have an Ultimate Skill active.
The Unconstrained Beast Druid Wrathful, Super 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.
The Sacrilegious Necromancer Vicious, Offensive Walking near a Corpse automatically activates an equipped Corpse Skill every second, dealing 40-30% reduced damage.
The Decrepit Aura Necromancer Brutal, Defensive When at least 5 enemies are near you, gain an aura that automatically curses surrounding enemies with Decrepify for 5-15 seconds.
Frozen Terror Necromancer 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.
The Great Feast Necromancer Wrathful, Super 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.
Cluster Munitions Rogue 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.
Trickery Rogue 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.
The Clipshot Rogue 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.
The Vile Apothecary Rogue Wrathful, Super Your attacks have a 5-15% chance to apply all Imbuement effects at 40-50% of normal potency.
Tal'Rasha Sorcerer Vicious, Offensive For each unique element you deal damage with, you deal 7-12% increased damage for 3-10 seconds.
Spellbreaking Sorcerer Brutal, Defensive After taking Elemental damage, gain 20-40% Resistance to that element for 5 seconds.
Spite Sorcerer 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.
Omnipower Sorcerer Wrathful, Super 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%.

Best Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4

Certain Malignant Hearts are already outshining the rest, providing a huge power boost to their respective classes. If you're hoping to complete all of the Seasonal challenges, including fighting Uber Lilith and reaching level 100, then you'll need to know which Malignant Hearts will help you most.

Below, we'll break down the best Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4:

Determination

One of the worst effects to have in a Nightmare Dungeon is "Resource Burn", which makes enemies drain your Primary Resource whenever they deal damage. With Determination, you can make Resource Burn far less impactful, with a flat reduction to resource-draining effects and increased Resource Generation.


The Malignant Pact

The Malignant Pact is perhaps the most interesting effect, cycling through three different powers every 20 kills.

While that does mean you don't get any of them consistently, the effects available here (+20% attack speed, 15% chance to fully restore your Primary Resource when using a Core or Basic skill, and gain a Barrier absorbing 85-102 damage every 21 seconds) are all really strong. The attack speed and chance to fully restore your Primary Resource in particular are sure to have a massive impact on any tough fight.


Creeping Death

For those who use damage over time effects, Creeping Death is incredibly strong. It boosts damage over time by 30-40% for each different Crowd Control effect on the target, which can clearly stack to massive amounts of damage if you're a CC-heavy build.

The Corpse Explosion Necromancer in particular could benefit well from this, if you build around Darkness damage which inflicts over time.


Ignoring Pain

Ignoring Pain is unique to the Barbarian, and it's incredible It gives you a 5-15% chance to ignore incoming damage and instead heal for 17-68 Life. The Life gain is a small amount at higher levels, but the maximum 15% chance to ignore damage is going to prove incredible on every World Tier. Expect this to be an essential Malignant Heart on any Barbarian build throughout Season 1.


The Unconstrained Beast

Grizzly Rage grants you Unstoppable, which removes any status effects, making it a very strong Ultimate skill. With The Unconstrained Beast equipped, you get a 40-60% chance to automatically trigger Grizzly Rage for 3 seconds whenever you are hit with a Stun, Freeze, or Knock Down effect.

That means you will have a roughly 50% chance to automatically negate any of these three status effects, and get the additional effect of Grizzly Rage that boosts your Spirit Regeneration by 28%.


The Great Feast

The Great Feast is a brilliant Malignant Heart for any Necromancer in Season 1. However, the effect is slightly different depending on whether you're using Minions or not.

Those using Minions will have their Essence drained by 1-2 points per second for each Minion. However, all Minions will also deal 50-75% extra damage. Those without Minions will instead get the bonus damage applied directly to themselves, but they'll drain 5 Essence per second.

It clearly incentivizes using Minions rather than keeping that damage for yourself, but it's a huge power boost regardless. The Necromancer was already dealing massive damage before Season 1, and this is set to make endgame content even easier.


The Vile Apothecary

The Rogue's Vile Apothecary Malignant Heart gives all of your attacks a 5-15% chance to apply all Imbuement effects at 40-50% of normal potency.

While the Imbuement effects on offer here are weaker than those you'd usually trigger yourself, having up to a 15% chance to activate them for free could massively increase your damage and inflict the Chilled, Poisoned, and Infected status effects all at once.

That wraps up our guide on Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts. If you're busy researching before you dive into the new Season, then make sure to also take a look at our Diablo 4 Necromancer builds, Rogue builds, Druid builds, Barbarian builds, and Sorcerer builds guides so that you can find a powerful new playstyle to enjoy. Make sure to also check out our Diablo 4 interactive map to find Dungeons, Altars of Lilith, and other important collectibles and POIs throughout the Season.


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