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What you need to do before D4 Season 1
Okay, well the first thing you'll need to do is complete the campaign. You won't be able to access any of the new story, mechanics, or items until you do. That isn't all though. Blizzard says that a lot of your progress can carry over from the Eternal Realm to the Seasonal Realm, which ought to be a great way to power level from July 20. Before season 1 goes live, you'll want to collect as many Altar of Lilith statutes and discover as many new locations as you can, as all of that renown you earn will carry across to your new seasonal character. Speaking of progression – starting July 18, you'll want to log into the character that you have progressed the furthest with, as this will trigger a process to ensure that all of your progress will be propagated across your entire account.
How to access Season of the Malignant
If you want to jump into Season of the Malignant content you'll first need to complete the core campaign on the Eternal Realm. Once you do that, you'll start to encounter Malignant enemies anywhere in the open world, regardless of whether you decide to buy the battle pass or play in the Seasonal Realm. Naturally, if you want to go all in on the Season of the Malignant, you'll need to create a new character on the Seasonal Realm and head straight to Kyovashad. Thankfully, Blizzard has confirmed that your renown will carry over to your new character – including your unlocked Altar of Lilith statues, potion charges, skill points, and your map progress.
Malignant Hearts
season 1 is introducing a suite of new mechanics, systems, and items – all stemming out of the plague spreading out across Sanctuary. Regardless of whether you are exploring the open world with your original character or with a Seasonal character, you will always have a chance to encounter a Malignant enemy. Defeat it and it will expose a Malignant Heart which you can use a cage of binding on to begin a ritual. This will summon Malignant enemies in the area and a powerful elite which, if defeated, can drop a new item called a caged heart.
The D4 caged heart is essentially a replacement for gems. These can be socketed into gear and offer an enormous amount of power – so much so that the Diablo 4 team has joked that "broken builds" can be generated by being smart with the new item. There are 32 new Malignant powers which can be unlocked; each Malignant Heart you collect will have a specific color coding, with each corresponding to a socket color that appears on gear collected on the Seasonal Realm. There are three socket colors but four different colored hearts, with the rare fourth being omni-color – as in, it can be socketed in any item and offer specific power sets that will change the way you pilot your character.
Malignant Tunnels
Malignant Hearts are a key component of the Diablo 4 season 1 experience and Blizzard promises that there will be a way to farm them. All across the world of Sanctuary will be alternative dungeons called Malignant Tunnels. If you complete these unique areas you'll encounter an Outgrowth at the end – use a crafted invoker on the Outgrowth and it'll summon an Elite Malignant enemy. Kill that and you'll get a colored Malignant Heart back and, better yet, the invoker can be crafted to correspond to one of the specific color sets of the hearts, letting you target farm to a degree.
New Items
Alongside the Malignant Hearts and Malignant gear, Blizzard is also introducing a suite of new items to the game as part of season 1. You should expect to encounter new Unique items, new bosses, and new legendary gear and, better still, this will appear across both the Eternal and Seasonal Realm. Oh, and better still, this will all be available in the game from July 18, where all of this new content will go live alongside quality-of-life changes and balance updates ahead of season 1 launch.
This post was edited by Whimsyshire on Jul 6 2023 04:13pm