Malignance is a new mechanic in Diablo 4 that gives items, which can be inserted into jewelry that gives bonuses to your character.
To access these Diablo 4 Items, you will need to first create a seasonal character and have already completed the campaign. Once we arrive in Kyovashad, we meet a new NPC, Corman.
After completing an introductory mission, Corman dumped some lore on us. But more importantly, he will let us use his cart to craft and salvage Malignant items.
Ichor
Before we talk about the different things, we can craft we need to talk about Ichor.
Ichor is the resource that is used to make everything Malignant related and is split into three different colors. We have Vcious, the orange-colored Offensive Powers; Brutal, the blue-colored Defensive Powers; and Devious, the pink-colored Utility Powers.
Since Ichor is split up into three different types, if you want to craft hearts, invokers, or caches, you’re going to need a lot of Vichor.
Three Different Craftable Items
There are three different categories of craftable items.
Caged Hearts
The first being Caged Hearts, which are the items that go directly into your rings or amulets.
To make one, we will need 35 Ichor of the two other powers that aren’t being created. For example, if we want to make a Devious Caged Heart, we will need 35 of the Vicious Malignant Ichor and 35 of the Brutal Malignant Ichor.
Caged Hearts can also be salvaged for 5 to 15 Ichor of the same color as the heart. This process requires you to prepare a certain amount of Diablo 4 Gold.
Malignant Invokers
Next on the list are Malignant Invokers, which are items that are used at the end of a Malignant Tunnel to summon a tougher enemy. These items are more costly and require 20 of each of the other two colors, but also 50 of the color of the Invoker you are trying to create.
For example, to make a Brutal Malignant Invoker, we need 20 Vicious Malignant Ichor, 20 Devious Malignant Ichor and 50 Brutal Malignant Ichor.
So, we go into a Malignant Tunnel, kill the boss, go further into the tunnel to see a blue Brutal Heart and the fourth color option. It is the black Wrathful Power - Wrathful Heart. And it is more rare than the other three powers.
Since we only have a Brutal Malignant Invoker, we’ll click on that one and fight the enemy that spawns. After killing the enemy, we gain a Caged Heart that shares the color of the Invoker used.
Also, in this case, the Caged Heart turns out to be level 2, which we can see makes this affix much better than its level 1 counterpart.
Since I’m on the subject, level 2 Caged Hearts seem to be pretty rare, at least at this point of where I am in the game, which is level 30 on World Tier 1. So, if you’re seeing a lot of only level one Caged Hearts, don’t worry, you’re not the only one.
Also, Wrathful Hearts give two to five Ichor of the other three colors when salvaged.
Also Read: Diablo 4: Some New Insane Barbarian Changes In Season Of The Malignant
Crafted Caches
Lastly on the list, we have Crafted Caches, which give randomized Caged Hearts and Invokers, but also give the opportunity to gain the black Wrathful Powers with Uncertain Heart and Uncertain Invoker.
As far as I can tell, this is the only way to get a Wrathful Heart or Invoker, which just makes this game lean even further into the RNG aspect unless I’m wrong.
How To Get Malignant Hearts?
Now that we know all about them, how do we get them?
They can drop randomly from monsters in the world. But the easiest way is through the Malignant Tunnels, which show up on the map as the dungeon symbol with the green seasonal leaf next to it. Enter one of these tunnels and it’s just like any other dungeon, either destroy the three bulbous sacks or kill every enemy in the area.
Here is an example. We fight special Malignant monsters that drop a Malignant Heart when defeated. Click on the heart and a tougher version of the enemy will appear. Once that enemy is defeated, they will drop a Caged Heart, which we now know can either be equipped or salvaged.
As mentioned earlier, we find a boss and then after that, we can dive deeper to use an Invoker to fight an additional boss for the chance of a higher leveled heart.
There are 32 hearts altogether, but only each class will have access to 16 of those 32. 12 of the hearts are neutral and for any class, whereas each class has four hearts specifically for them. As you might have guessed, one for each color.
