Season of the Malignant will dawn in Diablo IV tomorrow. The team is preparing us all for the new season, with everything to do to prepare. It has also been patched with a number of fixes, new items, and class tweaks across the board.
Malignant Monsters are coming. These new monsters are roaming around Sanctuary and attacking anyone that comes within range, which creates some opportunities. The residents of Sanctuary are looking for help and hope, and you get to benefit from catching and slaying these new monsters.
You’ll learn how to get Malignant Hearts of several types from the monsters you slay, and importantly, how to forge them into Malignant sockets in the jewelry you get this season, where they are used instead of gems. There are four types of hearts–in colors that drop from monsters of the corresponding color–and 32 possible Malignant Hearts to use.
The season prep guide contains everything you’ll need to know, including seasonal characters and how they’ll work for the uninitiated, and the team advises to play up to the season start with the character that you have progressed with the most, in order to carry over certain unlocks to your new character when you create one for the season. This way you will have all previously discovered map areas and altars unlocked, and your mount available immediately.
When it comes to the most recent patch, the changes, including balance changes to classes, are what the new season will start with. The team is focusing on what they're calling "itemization disparities", but there are some class stat decreases across the classes too. The team is acknowledging that Item Affixes have also been nerfed To bring down the total possible power a character can have.
There are some positives, such as some affixes being more widely available, Nightmare dungeons will drop three rare items instead of just one, and a number of other tweaks. There are even a couple of helpful changes like some mobs moving around less in combat so that if you are melee focused you don't have to run around chasing them as much, and world bosses will helpfully drop potions more often.
Read the full patch notes at Diablo IV.
