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Diablo 4's Season of the Malignant augments the dungeons of Sanctuary with Malignant monsters, tougher variants of Elite enemies with a new reward type called Malignant Hearts. Socket these into your jewelry to gain powerful modifiers, roughly the strength of a Legendary affix or lower-tier Unique item.
Before you start collecting hearts for yourself, you'll first need to learn how to fight these Malignant monsters. This guide will showcase how to complete this season's introductory quest, explaining how to defeat Malignant monsters, craft new items, and techniques to target-farm specific hearts. But first, let's explain how you can go about unlocking Season of the Malignant's new quest.
How To Start The Quest
You can start "Burning from Within" upon completing the campaign. Those who skipped the campaign during character creation can access this quest immediately. Since this is a seasonal quest, only Season of the Malignant characters can access this quest. Eternal Realm characters cannot start this quest.
Once you beat the campaign, head to Kyovashad and speak to Vytran. They will guide you through Season of the Malignant's first quest, unlocking access to Malignant Heart crafting options. You'll find him right next to the town waypoint. Talk to them to start the quest.
Look For Survivors On The Road
Vytran has witnessed corrupted monsters spreading across Fractured Peaks, one of which is nearby. Head to the Forest Clearing cellar southeast of Menestad to find the survivor. You'll need to enter the instance and kill the Malignant monster inside.
Malignant monsters are tougher than your typical Elite enemy, featuring unique modifiers and additional HP. Their moveset is the same as their standard Elite counterpart, so you can predictably dodge incoming attacks if you know that monster's attack patterns. Kill the Malignant monster and speak with the survivor, Cormond, outside the clearing to finish this objective. He'll relocate to a different region of Sanctuary. Track him down.
Find Cormond Outside Of Orbei
You'll find Cormond southwest of Ked Bardu, the capital of Dry Steppes. When you cross a short bridge, turn north to find Cormand. He's made a small crating station you can use to craft powerful reagents to fight the Malignant horrors, but he requires specific materials first. You'll need to enter a nearby Malignant den and clear out its inhabitants to get your hands on some crafting reagents.
Defeat Malignant In The Ravening Pit
The closest Malignant Tunnel is in the Ravening Pit, located southeast of Cormond's crafting bench and northeast of Jirandai. Hop on your mount and travel to the dungeon.
Malignant Tunnels are variants of pre-existing dungeons that feature Malignant Elites, tougher monsters that feature stronger modifiers. You'll find three Malignant enemies within each Malignant Tunnel you visit. Killing a Malignant monster will drop its heart. Interacting with it will respawn the enemy, further buffing its HP and modifiers. Manage to kill them, and their heart will become a powerful gem you can place into a matching jewelry socket.
You can resummon all Malignant Elites this way to trap their corrupted hearts. Clear out the monsters and adjacent area to finish the dungeon. Visit Cormond once again to unlock some new crafting options at his workbench.
Craft A Brutal Malignant Invoker At Cormond's Workbench
Season of the Malignant lets you earn powerful Malignant Hearts from slain monsters, but it's difficult to get your hands on the exact one you want. This is where Cormond's workbench comes in. Cormond has multiple crafting stations scattered across Sanctuary you can use to forge Malignant Invokers, caches of resources, or new Malignant Hearts entirely.
This quest requires you to forge a Brutal Malignant Invoker with the reagents you received from the last dungeon. Invokers can be used at the end of Malignant Tunnel dungeons to force spawn a specific Malignant Elite. Hearts that drop from monsters aren't entirely random; each monster type has a specific pool of hearts it can drop, denoted by the heart's color. For example, all damage-oriented hearts have the "Vicious" prefix and have an orange glow in your inventory. There are four types of Malignant Hearts you can find: Brutal, Vicious, Whispering, and Devious.
Invokers let you force a specific type of heart to spawn from these dungeons. In this case, the Brutal Malignant Invoker will let you force a Brutal Malignant Elite to spawn. The next quest objective showcases how this is done.
Find A Brutal Outgrowth
Finding Specific Outgrowth Types
Dungeons marked with a green leaf on your map are Malignant Tunnels. Hovering over these dungeons will display the type of outgrowth present in the dungeon—showcased in the gray text under the dungeon name. For example, the Boiling Wound dungeon states that it requires a Devious Invoker to fully clear the outgrowth.
The quest will guide you to Dindai Hollow, a dungeon located southwest of Cormond's workbench. It's directly across the Dindai Flats. Hop on your horse and enter the Malignant Tunnel. As before, kill all three of the Malignant Elites inside and trap their hearts. Remember: trapping the monster's heart will respawn the Elite with stronger modifiers and reinforcements. Be sure you're at full HP before attempting this.
When you've cleared most of the dungeon, you'll stumble upon the "Invoke the Malignant" event. This is where you can target-farm certain Malignant Elites. The type of outgrowth you activate determines the Malignant Elite that spawns. For example, a Brutal Outgrowth will cause a Brutal Malignant Elite to spawn, dropping a Brutal Heart (blue color) when slain. Defeating this monster will end the quest. The rest of the season plays out in much the same way. Fight Malignant Elites for hearts, craft invokers, and visit Malignant Tunnels to target-farm specific hearts you need.