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Season 1 is officially here, and there are quite a few new things you’ll need to familiarize yourself with in order to get the most out of the new content. The Malignant, tumor-like evil is spreading throughout Sanctuary, and it is your job to tame it and use it to your advantage as you face the hordes of evil.
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Although the Caged Hearts may be the shiniest of new features, you’ll also need to gather a trove of Malignant Ichor to become more powerful. Here’s how to get each type, and what to do with them.
Malignant Ichor Types
If you go into your Materials menu, you’ll notice there are three new Malignant Ichor types located at the bottom of the menu.Brutal, Devious, and Vicious Ichorare all separate materials that you will find and are directly related to the types of Caged Hearts you can claim as well.
Think of the Malignant Ichor as the base material that makes up any Malignant items, the hearts included. The rarity of each type is in order as well, with Brutal being the most common, and Vicious being the rarest.
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How To Get Malignant Ichor
Despite each type being completely separate from the other, the way you earn them is the exact same - from killing monsters. As far as it seems, there is no correlation between a particular type being dropped by specific enemies. Instead, there is a random chance that one or more types of Malignant Ichor will drop when killing any enemy, with the elite or boss enemies more likely to drop more than one type or a larger quantity at a time.
To get Malignant Ichor quickly, we recommend venturing into the Malignant Tunnels. While you can get it outside the tunnels, it appears to drop more frequently when defeating enemies inside. You can also get them by completing events inside and outside the tunnels. Not every event will drop them, but you will have roughly a 50% chance which makes it easy to string events together and rack up the Ichor.
Finally, you can also get Malignant Ichor bysalvaging jewelry that contains a Caged Heart at the blacksmith, or by salvaging a Caged Heart directly at Cormond’s Workbench. Typically, you’ll get anywhere from 8 to 15 Ichor per heart, depending on the type.
How To Use Malignant Ichor
If you want to use these materials for crafting Malignant Items, first you’ll need to go to Cormond’s Workbench. You’ll gain access to this after completing the prologue story for Season 1. Once you have access, you can visit his workbench in every major town.
When you have collected enough Ichor, you canuse them to craft each type of Caged Heart, Malignant Invoker, or Crafted Caches. You’ll be able to socket the Caged Hearts in jewelry, use the Malignant Invokers inside Malignant Tunnels, and use the caches to get a variety of materials.
