Malignant Season Mechanic Explained - Diablo 4 Season 1

Here's everything we know so far about Season 1's Malignant mechanic!

New Questline will introduce the Malignant and explore their story.
Malignant Hearts will drop from Elite enemies with the Malignant affix. Any Elite can spawn as "Malignant".
There are 32 different Malignant powers associated with the Malignant Hearts in total that are "Aspect-like" in terms of power.
Malignant Hearts powers will lead to new powerful builds for all classes.
Malignant Hearts can be socketed into any Jewelry with "Infested" sockets.
All sockets on Jewelry will be "Infested" during Season 1, even those that are added by the Jeweler.
Infested sockets come in 3 different colors. Malignant Hearts come in 4 different types—one for each socket color and one that fits in any socket.
Malignant Hearts get destroyed when they are removed from a socket.
Malignant Tunnels are new areas throughout Sanctuary where players will be able to target-farm specific Malignant Hearts.
New Boss Battle against "Varshan the Consumed" in the Malignant Tunnels.

1 comments

Interested to see how build altering the hearts will be. Definitely feel like build variety was a weak point of vanilla D4 so anything that opens up more possibilities is welcome.