How to Use Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4 Season 1

Each season of Diablo 4 is planned to bring new mechanics to the game. Season of the Malignant, the first season, uses Malignant Hearts to empower player builds in new and interesting ways. So how do you use them once you get them? Here’s how to equip them in D4.

How to Use Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4

How to get Malignant Hearts

It may seem easy to gather Malignant Hearts, but there are a few key elements to actually getting them. Cormond will walk you through how to get hearts, but you’ll most likely encounter Malignant Elites before that point.

• Kill the Malignant Elite: This drops a Caged Heart.
• Interact with the Caged Heart: This starts a short ritual that summons more enemies that are buffed by the Malignant Elite.
• Kill Malignant Elite 2.0: The original elite is respawned tougher with more health.
• Collect the Malignant Heart.

Each fight with a Malignant Elite is a three part fight. I typically clear all the surrounding mobs before interacting with the Caged Heart to increase my chances of surviving the whole encounter.

Using a Malignant Invoker

While the hearts that drop from normal Malignant Elites are good, to get the best Malignant Heart and a heart of the type you’re looking for, you’ll need to use a Malignant Invoker. Created at Cormond’s workbench, the invoker is used at the end of Malignant Tunnels to summon stronger Malignant Elites. You’ll have to complete the three stage fight, but the heart that drops will be stronger.

How to Use a Malignant Heart

Once you have a Malignant Heart you need to equip it. Malignant Hearts act like Gems, but can only be slotted into jewelry. Along with the item limitation, each socket on the jewelry is a specific color. The color corresponds to the heart and must match in order for the heart to go into the socket. The types of Malignant Hearts are:

• Viscous Heart: Orange, gives offensive affixes.
• Brutal Heart: Blue, gives defensive affixes.
• Devious Heart: Purple, gives utility affixes.
• Wrathful Heart: Green, gives unique affixes with various bonuses.

If you have jewelry with a specific color, you’ll want to use a Malignant Invoker to get a heart of that color. Onec slotted, however, you can’t remove it. You can slot another heart in it, but it won’t give you the previous heart back.

That’s all you need to know about using Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4. There are a total of 32 Malignant Heart bonuses to try out with your build. If you’re looking for more on D4, like how to clear Strongholds or the best ways to farm for upgrade materials, check out our guide hub.