By
Renee "Wren" Lopez,Hannah Hoolihan,Will Borger,+29 more
updated
Malignant Hearts are items exclusive to Diablo 4 Season 1: Season of the Malignant. When you interact with these items, they summon monsters that drop equippable Caged Hearts, which offer powerful enhancements to your build. Here's everything you need to know about how to get Malignant and Caged Hearts, how to use them, and the bonuses and effects they each impart.
Malignant Heart Colors
There are four colors of Malignant Hearts, and the color corresponds to the type of effect the Caged Hearts produce.
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| Malignant Heart Types | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Vicious Heart | Brutal Heart | Devious Heart | Wrathful Heart |
| Offensive Power | Defensive Power | Utility Power | Super Power |
How to Equip Caged Hearts
Devious, Brutal, and Vicious Hearts can only be slotted in Infested Sockets of the same color, so you'll need to obtain compatible gear in order to equip them. However, Wrathful Hearts can be placed within an Infested Socket of any color.
Once a Heart has been added to a piece of gear, it cannot be removed - only replaced, meaning it will be destroyed in the process.
Jeweller Vendors can add an Infested Socket to your gear, but it will cost you 1 Heart to add it. The color of the slot is randomized, so you are unable to pick the specific type of Socket you would like to add.
You can equip three Caged Hearts at once, using one slot in your amulet and one slot in each of your two rings.
Once Season 1 concludes, your Caged Hearts will disappear. These special bonuses won't carry over when your character moves to the Eternal Realm at the end of the season.
How to Unlock Malignant Hearts
When you begin the new season, you will spawn inside of Kyovashad where a light green priority quest marker will be seen right next to the main Waypoint you spawn in on.
The first quest of the new season questline will task you with finding any survivors on the road outside of the city. You will locate an NPC named Cormond who is being chased by a large corrupted beast. Cormond will run into a nearby tunnel, where you will fight off the beast in order to save the NPC. You will exit the dungeon and meet Cormond again next to a wagon and table that you will be able to interact with.
Cormond will explain to you what you witnessed in the Tunnel, and how the malignant hearts can be cleansed of their corruption and saved. Cormond will then teach you how to use the Cage of Binding Ritual in order to harness these Malignant Hearts' powers.
From there, you will unlock access to the new Malignant Tunnels which can be seen on your map. They look like regular dungeons, but have a little green leaf in the top corner of the dungeon icon. If you hover over these Dungeons, you will be able to see what type of Malignant Invoker you need in order to clear the Outgrowths within.
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How to Get Caged Hearts
There are two ways to get Caged Hearts: farming them from Malignant Monsters, and crafting them at Cormond's Wagon.
You'll need to farm plenty of Hearts in order to salvage them at Cormond's Wagon to get Ichor.
Then, to get the best Caged Hearts, you'll want to craft Malignant Invokers to use on Outgrowths in the Tunnels.
Farming Malignant Hearts
Caged Hearts can be obtained from Malignant Monsters using the Cage of Binding, which you'll gain access to as part of the season's questline, Burning from Within.
Malignant Monsters can be found throughout Sanctuary, but if you want to farm Hearts, the best place to encounter them is the Malignant Tunnels, a new type of dungeon.
Each boss and mini boss will spawn a random color Malignant Heart when first killed. The color of this Malignant Heart will correspond with the color of the Caged Heart the boss or mini-boss will drop.
When you interact with the Malignant Heart, the boss will spawn again, but this time they will be a bit stronger. Once you defeat the boss for a second time, they will drop a Caged Heart that matches the color of the initial Malignant Heart you looted to summon the more powerful boss.
At the end of each Malignant Tunnel, you'll encounter a Malignant Outgrowth. Using a craftable item called the Invoker on the Outgrowth summons a Malignant Elite that will drop another even more powerful Caged Heart.
Crafting Caged Hearts
You can craft the following items at Cormond's Wagon:
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- A random Vicious, Brutal, or Devious Caged Heart.
- Note: Wrathful Hearts cannot be crafted.
- A Vicious, Brutal, or Devious Invoker for use on Outgrowths in the Malignant Tunnels.
- A random Caged Heart or random Invoker.
- Note: This may be the only way to obtain Wrathful Malignant Invokers, and thus the only way to obtain the most powerful Wrathful Hearts.
To craft these items, you'll need Ichor, which is obtained from Salvaged Caged Hearts and from lesser Malignant Monsters.
Salvaging each Vicious, Brutal, and Devious Heart will provide you with 5-15 Ichor, and Wrathful Hearts provide 2-5 Ichor of all other Heart types.
Creating a random Heart of a specific type costs 35 Ichor of the other two primary-colored Hearts. For example, if you wanted to craft a Vicious heart, you would need 35 Brutal Ichor and 35 Devious Ichor.
The Hearts you craft will be scaled to the Level of your character, and will always either be for your specific Class or Class-agnostic.
Don't forget to salvage any lower level Caged Hearts you have for their Ichor!
All Malignant Hearts
As of the July 20 Diablo IV 1.1.0b patch, Malignant Hearts will now always grant armor that directly maps with their item power.
There are four Malignant Hearts - one of each type - specific to each Class, and 12 General Malignant Hearts - three of each type - that can be equipped by any Class.
Below, you'll find a full list of the 32 available Caged Hearts and their effects. Click the links below to skip to:
- General Malignant Hearts
- Barbarian Malignant Hearts
- Druid Malignant Hearts
- Necromancer Malignant Hearts
- Rogue Malignant Hearts
- Sorcerer Malignant Hearts
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General Malignant Hearts
| 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Vicious |
| The Dark Dance | 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Vicious |
| Tempting Fate | World Tier III You gain 40-60% Critical Strike Damage but your Non-Critical Strikes deal 20-15% less damage. | |
|---|---|---|
| Vicious |
| The Lionheart | You gain 10% Barrier Generation. You Heal 3-7 Life per second while you have an active Barrier. | |
|---|---|---|
| Brutal |
| Revenge | 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Brutal |
| Prudent Heart | 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Brutal |
| Determination | Resource draining effects are 40-50% less effective. In addition, gain 3.0-8.0% increased Resource Generation. | |
|---|---|---|
| Devious |
| Retaliation | World Tier III Deal 510-680 Fire damage to surrounding enemies whenever a Crowd Control effect is removed from you. | |
|---|---|---|
| Devious |
| The Calculated | World Tier III After spending 150-200 of your Primary Resource, your next attack Stuns enemies hit for 2 seconds. | |
|---|---|---|
| Devious |
| The Malignant Pact | Cycle through a Malignant bonus every 20 kills:
| |
|---|---|---|
| Wrathful |
| 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Wrathful |
| The Barber | 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Wrathful |
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Barbarian Malignant Hearts
| Focused Rage | After spending 100-60 Fury within 2 seconds, your next Non-Basic Skill's Critical Strike Chance is increased by 20-30%. | |
|---|---|---|
| Vicious |
| Resurgent Life | While below 40-60% Life, you receive 50-60% more Healing from all sources. | |
|---|---|---|
| Brutal |
| 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%. | |
|---|---|---|
| Devious |
| Ignoring Pain | World Tier IV Incoming damage has a 5-15% chance of being ignored and instead Healing you for 17-68. | |
|---|---|---|
| Wrathful |
Druid Malignant Hearts
| 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Vicious |
| The Agitated Winds | When 8-13 Close enemies, automatically cast Cyclone Armor. This cannot occur more than once every 10-20 seconds. | |
|---|---|---|
| Brutal |
| Inexorable Force | Up to 30-50 Distant enemies are pulled toward you while you have an Ultimate Skill active. | |
|---|---|---|
| Devious |
| The Unconstrained Beast | 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 | |
|---|---|---|
| Wrathful |
Necromancer Malignant Hearts
| The Sacrilegious | Walking near a Corpse automatically activates an equipped Corpse Skill every second, dealing 40-30% reduced damage. | |
|---|---|---|
| Vicious |
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| 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Brutal |
| 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Devious |
| The Great Feast | 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 | |
|---|---|---|
| Wrathful |
Rogue Malignant Hearts
| 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Vicious |
| 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Brutal |
| 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Devious |
| The Vile Apothecary | World Tier IV Your attacks have a 5-15% chance to apply all Imbuement effects at 40-50% of normal potency. | |
|---|---|---|
| Wrathful |
Sorcerer Malignant Hearts
| Tal’Rasha | For each unique element you deal damage with, you deal 7-12% increased damage for 3-10 seconds. | |
|---|---|---|
| Vicious |
| Spellbreaking | After taking Elemental damage, gain 20-40% Resistance to that element for 5 seconds. | |
|---|---|---|
| Brutal |
| 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. | |
|---|---|---|
| Devious |
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| Omnipower | 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% | |
|---|---|---|
| Wrathful |
Up Next: Battle Pass
Top Guide Sections
- Beginner's Guide - Tips for Getting Started
- Walkthrough
- How to Start A Seasonal Character
- World Tier Guide and Overview
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