Summary
Malignant Hearts are the new seasonal mechanic inDiablo 4, and according to players, quite a few of them don’t seem to be working the intended way. Despite Blizzard achieving record-breaking commercial success withDiablo 4, the game has recently sparked to a new wave of backlash due to the controversial changes introduced in Season of the Malignant.All five classes inDiablo 4were heavily nerfed, and though the team at Blizzard announced a new Campfire Chat for July 21 to clarify their choices, it would seem that players and developers have strongly differing opinions on the overall direction of the game.
The featured items forSeason of the Malignant inDiablo 4happen to be Malignant Hearts. There are a grand total of 32 Malignant Hearts for players to find, separated into four distinct categories, and then further sorted per eachDiablo 4class. Unfortunately, each Malignant Heart is unique and takes up an inventory slot. Given the limited stash space that characters are working with inDiablo 4, players are encouraged to salvage them at Cormond’s wagon, and use the obtained Ichor to create new Malignant Hearts in turn.
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While the gameplay loop sounds good on paper, a fair amount ofMalignant Hearts inDiablo 4appear to be bugged. Reported by Xenolithium on theDiablo 4subreddit, it would seem that the Caged Heart of Frozen Terror, exclusive to Necromancers, affects the player character in addition to the enemies they’re fighting. This particular Malignant Heart is meant to inflict Fear for 2.5 seconds per Lucky Hit, as well as place a Chill effect on enemies, but for some reason, if a player kills the enemy before the effect is triggered, the debuffs are applied on the Necromancer instead.
Other Malignant Hearts seem to be experiencing similar bugs, as it was previously reported that the Caged Heart of the Moonrage, restricted to Druids, permanently removes its +3 Skill Rank to Wolves upon resetting a build.Diablo 4players have speculated that these glitches seem to occur due to the Malignant Hearts shutting off their bonuses in non-combat areas such as Region capitals and smaller towns. However, beyond the technical issues that fans have had with Malignant Hearts, it would seem that the community dislikes them from a design standpoint as well.
The bonuses that most Malignant Hearts provide inDiablo 4are considered by many fans to be a far cry from the Legendary Gems ofDiablo 3, as the boons are either too situational to trigger consistently, or numerically negligible to enhance a player’s build. While some bugs were to be expected with therelease ofDiablo 4’s inaugural season, the community seems to have significantly less patience for the game’s shortcomings than it did at launch. Hopefully, the developers will be able to soothe the growing frustration through the upcoming Campfire Chat, and find a good compromise with their customers.
Diablo 4is available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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