After our full stream summary here comes the official preview of Season of Blood! It covers everything from the new powers, endbosses, Season Journey and Battle Pass, new cosmetics, and much, much more!
And if you’re looking for everything else coming with the season, all the many QoL improvements and the other things mentioned on the stream, here’s Blizzard’s official recap.
Stepping out from the shadows that once obscured them, the Dark Master’s Blood Seekers swoop in to prey upon unsuspecting mortals. Their ravenous appetites have grown—the Season of Blood will soon ooze throughout Sanctuary!
Diablo IV’s second season begins on October 17 at 10 a.m. PDT. Dare to look fanged destruction in the face and send it back to Hell with a new Season Journey, Questline, Season Event, deadly blood-driven enemies, Battle Pass, and more. Plus, new Uber Endgame bosses have arrived in Sanctuary to increase the variety of endgame activities in Diablo IV. These havoc-wreaking bosses are hard to topple but can drop Unique items and Cosmetics found nowhere else. We’re shedding light on all the grisly details—read on for a comprehensive look at Season of Blood’s contents.
Beginning with Season of Blood, players will now have the option to skip the Campaign after completing the Missing Pieces quest from the Prologue on the Seasonal Realm. Choosing to do so will allow you to jump right into content from Season of Blood.
Patch 1.2.0 goes live on October 17 too! Visit this article on October 10 after our upcoming Diablo IV Campfire Chat for more information on Class balance, new Unique items, sweeping changes to Resistances, and a great deal of other quality of life updates and bug fixes.
Codex
Turn Back Crimson Tides with Erys in a New Quest
Siphon the Blood of Your Foes Using Vampiric Powers
Reap Hunter’s Acclaim from the Blood Harvest Season Event
Conquer Brutish Endgame Bosses
Earn Rewards with the Season Journey and Battle Pass
Acquire Fabled Threads from Tejal’s Shop
Seasons and Your Stashed Items
Claim the Umber Winged Darkness Cosmetic Set
Storm into the Season with NVIDIA DLSS 3
Stay Up to Date with Diablo IV News
Turn Back Crimson Tides with Erys in a New Quest
At first, they targeted small hamlets, descending upon insignificant prey and tearing into their jugular—a most grisly death to befall someone. But then their ambitions grew, and they became sloppy, greedy. That’s when word of suspicious vampire activity met your ears, wanderer.
Magistrate Oren, the distraught leader of a town badly plagued by these bloodthirsty assailants, needs your help in investigating the recent slew of murders. Enter Sanctuary’s vampire-infested underbelly in a new Questline, recruit the skillful vampire hunter Erys to your cause, and discover the sinister plot of the Dark Master behind it all.
Your monstrous new adversaries are not a typical demonic disturbance and require you to harness their Vampiric Powers with the aid of new Pact Armor. You must unleash your newfound power on its originators in a most ruthless display to put them to rest. Only then may Sanctuary be truly safe for a spell.
Embark on this new Questline by heading over to Ked Bardu. Speak to Oren and he will set you off on the Blood Money quest.
Siphon the Blood of Your Foes Using Vampiric Powers
Driving a stake into the heart of the Dark Master’s plan will require you to wield their same savagery—Vampiric Powers. What was once a forbidden art shall become Sanctuary’s salvation. But to wield it, you’re going to need blood, Potent Blood. Acquired from fallen adversaries, Potent Blood can be spent in the Vampiric Powers tab within the Character menu to unlock a random power or power upgrade. Vampiric Powers can also be unlocked by completing the Seasonal Questline and from the Blood Harvest Seasonal Event. We’ll cover the latter in detail later.
After learning a Vampiric Power, you can spend Potent Blood in the powers tab to take its might to the next Level. Each power can be upgraded to a maximum of Level 3 and up to five powers can be equipped to your character at a time. When you hover over a Vampiric Power, you’ll notice it displays anywhere between 1–3 symbols and numbers—these are called Pacts and the number is their associated cost. This is where Pact Armor comes into play.
Unpack Your Vampire Power Through Pact Armor
There are three Pact types in total. Using the above image for reference, from left to right, they are called Ferocity, Divinity, and Eternity. Keep your eyes peeled for Chest armor, Pants, Gloves, Boots, and Helms containing Pacts that drop during Season of Blood because they are needed to activate your Vampiric Powers. Once you have both Pact Armor and Vampiric Powers equipped, you’ll need to ensure that the armor you’re wearing provides Pacts that match the activation cost listed on the power.
Let’s use the above Legendary Gloves as an example. They provide 1 Ferocity, 1 Divinity, and 1 Eternity Pacts. If you have a Vampiric Power that requires 1 Ferocity to activate, then this item alone covers the requirement, and you still have 1 Divinity and 1 Eternity available. If you equip a second Vampiric Power that requires both 1 Divinity and 1 Eternity to activate, the boots still provide enough Pacts to activate both powers.
Customize Pact Armor to Your Needs
You might not always have armor with the right Pacts to activate the Vampiric Powers in your collection. The Dark Master’s servants have devised two types of items to remedy this situation: standalone Pacts and Cleansing Acids.
Standalone Pacts are used to add a specific type of Pact to an item of your choice (this can only be done if the maximum amount of that Pact type isn’t already on that item). Cleansing Acids are used to remove Pacts from an item.
These crafting items can be pried from the clutches of Blood Seekers, as well as acquired from the Blood Harvest Season event, Season Journey, Opulent Coffins, and through the new Questline. Use these tools to ensure you always have Pact Armor that matches the Vampiric Powers you’d like to use.
Bleed New Blood into Your Build
Now that you’ve learned of Vampiric Powers and Pact Armor, let’s look at the 22 Vampiric Powers available in Season of Blood. All Classes can wield any Vampiric Power, and in doing so, they will sculpt your character into a vampire-killing machine. Will you seek to diversify your collection of powers or concentrate your resources on maxing out a handful of them?
The new Vampiric Curse keyword has been added to complement these terrifying powers. Look out for it as you read about each power.
Vampiric Curse: Killing an enemy affected by your Vampiric Curse stores their soul. Casting a Defensive, Macabre, or Agility Skill will unleash stored souls to attack nearby enemies. You can hold up to 8 souls.
The below values reflect each Vampiric Power at their maximum Level 3.
Minor Vampiric Powers (1–3 Pacts Required):
- Anticipation (1 Divinity): Your Ultimate Skills gain 20% Cooldown Reduction. Your Ultimate Skills gain 12% increased damage for each nearby enemy affected by your Damage Over Time effects.
- Coven’s Fangs (2 Divinity): Your Conjuration, Companion, Minion, and Bat Familiar attacks deal 52% increased damage to Crowd Controlled enemies. Lucky Hit: Your Conjuration, Companion, Minion, and Bat Familiar have up to a 30% chance to inflict Vampiric Curse when hitting enemies.
- Domination (1 Ferocity): You deal 24% increased damage to enemies who are Stunned, Immobilized, Frozen, or Feared. If they’re also Injured and not an Elite, they’re instantly killed.
- Feed the Coven (1 Eternity): Lucky Hit: Conjuration, Companion, Minion and Bat Familiar attacks have up to a 60% chance to restore 10 Primary Resource to you and increase your Damage by 10% for 4 seconds.
- Hectic (3 Divinity): For every 5 Basic Skills you cast, one of your active Cooldowns is reduced by 2 seconds.
- Hemomancy (3 Eternity): Your attacks deal 80% of your Maximum Life as Physical damage to nearby enemies. This can only occur once every 4 seconds. You heal for 1% of your Maximum Life for each enemy damaged this way.
- Infection (1 Ferocity): Hitting enemies with direct damage infects them with Pox. Inflicting Pox 8 times on an enemy expunges their infection, dealing 70% Poison damage.
- Jagged Spikes (1 Ferocity, 1 Divinity): Thorns have a 10% chance to deal 300% increased damage and Chill enemies for 8%.
- Prey on the Weak (2 Ferocity): You deal 16% increased damage to Vulnerable enemies. Enemies are Vulnerable while affected by a Vampiric Curse from your other Vampiric Powers.
- Rampart (1 Divinity, 1 Eternity): After not moving for 3 seconds, you gain a Barrier for 40% of your Maximum Life for 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 20 seconds.
- Ravenous (3 Ferocity): Lucky Hit: Up to a 20% chance to increase your Attack Speed by 40% of your Total Movement Speed for 6 seconds.
- Resilience (2 Eternity): You gain 1% Damage Reduction for each 2% Life you are missing.
- Sanguine Brace (1 Divinity, 1 Eternity): When you kill an enemy, Fortify for 6% of your Base Life. While you have more Fortify than half of your Maximum Life, you gain 8% Critical Strike Chance.
- Terror (1 Ferocity, 1 Divinity, 1 Eternity): When struck, you have a 14% chance to Fear nearby enemies and Slow them by 80% for 2 seconds. You are guaranteed to Critically Strike enemies who are Feared.
- Undying (1 Eternity): Casting Skills heals you for 3% Life. Double this bonus while below 50% Life.
Major Vampiric Powers (6 Pacts Required):
- Accursed Touch (6 Divinity): Lucky Hit: Up to a 44% chance to inflict Vampiric Curse on enemies. Enemies with the Vampiric Curse have a 15% chance to spread it to other surrounding enemies. Accursed Souls deal 200% increased damage.
- Bathe in Blood (3 Divinity, 3 Eternity): While Channeling a Skill, you form a pool of blood beneath you. While channeling a skill in a pool, your Channeled Skills deal 40% increased damage and you gain 30% Damage Reduction. A pool can only form once every 8 seconds.
- Blood Boil (6 Eternity): When your Core Skills Overpower an enemy, you spawn 3 Volatile Blood Drops. Collecting a Volatile Blood Drop causes it to explode, dealing 60% Physical damage around you. Every 20 seconds, your next Skill is guaranteed to Overpower.
- Call Familiar (3 Ferocity, 3 Divinity): Casting a Mastery, Weapon Mastery, Macabre, Wrath, or Imbuement Skill calls a bat ally to attack nearby enemies, dealing 80% Physical damage with a 30% chance to Stun.
- Flowing Veins (2 Ferocity, 2 Divinity, 2 Eternity): You deal 60% increased Damage Over Time to enemies that are moving or affected by a Vampiric Curse.
- Metamorphosis (2 Ferocity, 2 Divinity, 2 Eternity): When you Evade you turn into a cloud of bats, becoming Unstoppable for 4 seconds. Enemies along your path take 160% Physical damage and are inflicted with Vampiric Curse.
- Moonrise (6 Ferocity): Hitting an enemy with a Basic Skill grants you 4% Attack Speed for 10 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Upon reaching maximum stacks, you enter a Vampiric Bloodrage, gaining 160% Basic Skill damage and 15% Movement Speed for 10 seconds.
Reap Hunter’s Acclaim from the Blood Harvest Season Event
Home to the highest chance for receiving Potent Blood and Pact Armor drops is the Blood Harvest Seasonal Event. With a wave of his hand, the Dark Master has dispatched cunning Blood Seekers with armies of vampires to conquest the Dry Steppes, Hawezar, and Scosglen regions of Sanctuary, imprisoning its denizens and causing pandemonium.
Putting enemies to the sword during Bounties, bursting Blood Blisters, completing World Events, disrupting vampiric rituals, and freeing prisoners, will earn you some Reputation. With Reputation, you’ll climb Tiers containing useful rewards, such as crafting materials, Items, and Pact consumables.
Inside the Blood Harvest, you’ll have the chance to acquire Blood Lures, which summon Blood Seekers for you to extinguish. You can also use any Seeker Keys you find to free prisoners of the Dark Master’s army or on Seekers Caches to receive Pact Armor, Pact Consumables, and Potent Blood.
Crush the Dark Master’s Army in New Events
There will also be new World Events and Dungeon Events where you can go toe-to-toe with more Blood Seekers and other vampire foot soldiers as well. The dark master’s army calls some of Sanctuary’s Dungeons home—delve into their depths to see what secrets lie in wait.
Conquer Brutish Endgame Bosses
Reinforcements from the darkest depths of the Burning Hells take hold of Sanctuary, ushering in a new era of death and wanton destruction. This batch of Uber difficulty Endgame bosses are not for the faint of heart, but the chance to receive Unique items and Cosmetic items await those who muster the courage to stand against them. Each boss has a variety of Unique items they can drop, with some of those being exclusive to only that boss. The same goes for the special Cosmetic items they can potentially drop.
You can test your hand at slaying these unsightly abominations in the Eternal or Seasonal Realms starting in World Tier III, with even more intense encounters awaiting you in World Tier IV. These foes will only grant you an audience on their terms.
Below is a list of the bosses and the requirements to encounter them.
Grigoire, The Galvanic Saint (World Tier III and IV): You must gather enough Living Steel from the Tortured Offering in Helltide. In addition to Unique items that can only drop from Grigoire, you also have a chance to receive the Demonbinder Mount Armor Cosmetic.
Echo of Varshan (World Tier III and IV): Defeat Grotesque Debtors during Whispers of the Dead for a chance to receive parts of Varshan’s body. The Tree of Whispers collections—gained from turning in Grim Favors—guarantees a part of Varshan’s body. Once you have enough parts, including a Malignant Heart if you’re playing on World Tier IV, you can summon Varshan. The Flesh-Weld Rod Trophy has a chance to drop from this boss in addition to Unique items that can only drop from Varshan.
The Beast in the Ice (World Tier IV): Gather Distilled Fear while completing Tier 30 or higher Nightmare Dungeons. After you have enough, visit the Occultist and craft the Glacial Fissure Nightmare Sigil, activate it, then you can fight The Beast in the Ice. The Skull Torch and Fell Steed Mount Trophies can potentially drop from this boss, in addition to Unique items exclusive to it.
Dark Master (World Tier IV): Defeat a World Boss on World Tier IV or complete a Legion Event. From these activities you’ll acquire Exquisite Blood. Once you have enough, you’ll be able to summon the Dark Master. The Diadem of the Ancient Helm Cosmetic can potentially drop from this boss, in addition to Unique items exclusive to it.
Echo of Duriel (World Tier IV): Defeat both Grigoire, The Galvanic Saint and Varshan in World Tier IV to collect Mucus-Slick Eggs and Shards of Agony. Once you have enough, you’ll be able to summon the Lord of Pain, Duriel! Out of this group of Bosses, Duriel is the only one who has a chance to drop Uber Unique items. The smoldering Brimstone Mount can also potentially drop from this boss.
Keep in mind that:
You’ll need to meet the summoning conditions of a boss each time you want to fight it, so hold on to any additional summoning materials that you might acquire during your travels.
Developer’s Note: We have received feedback that there is a lack of variety in the Endgame experiences offered and that there are not enough opportunities to farm Unique and Uber Unique items. This group of Endgame bosses were created to pose a challenge to high-level players while allowing them to farm sought-after items in a fun and intense way.
These demonic barons of torment await the opportunity to grind you into dust—defy their expectations!
Earn Rewards with the Season Journey and Battle Pass
As you hunt down Lord Zir’s acolytes with Erys and unlock the secrets of your newfound Vampiric Powers, you’ll earn rewards from the Season Journey and Battle Pass.
The Season Journey is broken into Chapters with tasks to complete. As you progress through the Journey, you’ll earn rewards befitting Sanctuary’s defenders, such as new Legendary Aspects, the Salmagundi mount, Strips and Points mount armor, and 3 Scrolls of Amnesia, which provide a free Skill Tree and Paragon Board reset. The Journey also provides Favor—the resource used to climb through the Battle Pass’ Tiers—which can also be earned naturally by playing aspects of the game.
Douse Your Wanderer in Sanguine Styles
The Season of Blood Battle Pass begins on October 17, 10 a.m. PDT and hosts 90 Tiers—27 Free Tiers and 63 Premium Tiers.
If you get the Premium Battle Pass, not only will the rewards of the Free Tiers be yours to wield, but Awoken Armor Sets, Mount and Mount Armor, Platinum, and more also await you. For example, the Famished Thoroughbred mount unlocks at Tier 1 and Awoken Marrow cosmetics unlocks at various higher Tiers. If you decide to embrace the bloody madness and get the Accelerated Seasonal Battle Pass, you’ll also receive 20 Tier Skips and the Vampire’s Repose emote.
Smoldering Ashes earned from the Free Tiers can be spent on Season Blessings that provide helpful bonuses to beat back Hell’s armies. There are five total Blessings to choose from, three of which are new with Season of Blood:
- Urn of Blood: Boost the Hunter’s Acclaim you earn from Blood Harvest activities.
- Urn of Helltides: Boost the chance to receive an extra equipment item from Helltide chests. The extra item will be of Legendary rarity or better.
- Urn of Swift Travel: Boost how quickly your Mount recovers from sprinting.
The bonuses gained from Season Blessings only last until the end of Season of Blood.
Acquire Fabled Threads from Tejal’s Shop
We’re dialing up the heat in the Shop with new Equipment, Armor, Accessories, Mount and Mount Armor bundles that will have you slaying in style. Starting on October 17, you’ll want to pay Tejal a visit to browse her wares—remember to check back often as she’ll update her stock throughout Season of Blood. One such rarefied find from the far reaches of Sanctuary is the Hell’s Champion Prestige Barbarian Equipment, which contains an Armor Cosmetic, 2 Weapon Cosmetics, and a Marking for all your Barbarian characters.
Seasons and Your Stashed Items
With Season of the Malignant coming to an end, we want to ensure your hard-earned gear transfers to the Eternal Realm with you.
Once Season of the Malignant ends, all Seasonal characters will be transferred to the Eternal Realm. All items in that character’s Season of the Malignant Stash will go into a new Withdraw Only Stash tab in the Eternal Realm. You have all of Season of Blood to withdraw any items you would like to keep from Season of the Malignant—any items left in the Withdraw Only Stash tab once Season of Blood ends will be unrecoverable.
Claim the Umber Winged Darkness Cosmetic Set
One of Hell’s gifts will be returning to the ether soon. If you purchased any digital edition of Diablo IV prior to October 17, you have until March 31, 2024, to redeem your Umber Winged Darkness Cosmetic Set for Diablo Immortal. This cosmetic can be redeemed by logging into Diablo Immortal and clicking on the corresponding in-game mail notification.
Storm into the Season with NVIDIA DLSS 3
You might be ready to hunt the hunter in Season of Blood after reading our preview, but so must your PC. Experience the slaughter with enhanced performance using NVIDIA DLSS 3. For more information on DLSS 3, visit NVIDIA’s website.
Stay Up to Date with Diablo IV News
We held a Developer Update Livestream today focused on the quality-of-life changes coming in Season of Blood, which can be watched here. Also, follow our official Diablo IV account on X for updates and the occasional dark meme.
May you overcome the Burning Hell’s legions in Season of Blood!
-The Diablo IV Team