In this guide, we will go over everything you need to know about the new seasonal mechanics and powers for Diablo 4 Season of Blood. You’ll learn what those powers are, how to earn them, how to use them in your build, what each of them does, and more. Sounds interesting? Then let’s go!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Where Do These Powers Come From?
In the second season, the world of Sanctuary becomes plagued by vampiric forces, their reign spreads across the lands very rapidly, and amidst all this chaos, your character gets bit. And as you may know from classic vampire lore such as the one created by Bram Stoker, after you get bit, you’re supposed to become an undead servant of your master, the vampire who sucked your blood. But, since our hero has the blood of Lilith cursing through their vanes, we do not become a servant but instead become a full-fledged vampire with a mind not controlled by a master. Thus, we gain the ability to fight fire with fire.
Now, the entire Vampiric Powers system consists of only 3 co-depended components:
- Vampiric Powers: new skills that can be unlocked and used in your build that come on top of the skills that you get from your regular class skill board and that have their own unique effects and properties.
- Pacts: similar to Season of the Malignant and the 4 types of the Hearts, pacts are both the types of powers and the requirement for them to be activated. More on them later. For now, just memorize that there are 3 pacts:
Ferocity
Divinity
Eternity
- Potent Blood: a resource gained from killing other vampires. It will be used to unlock new Vampiric Powers and to level them up.
Lastly, keep in mind that, much like with the first season, all of these powers and mechanics will be available on the seasonal servers. Any characters from the “Eternal” realms won’t get access to these powers.
How Do Powers Work?
There are a total of 22 Vampiric Powers. You can earn them from:
- Some of them you will get for advancing through the seasonal campaign in the form of quest rewards.
- Buy random powers by spending the Potent Blood.
- Some come as rewards for leveling the reputation of Hunters Acclaim during Blood Harvest Event
None of these powers are tied to the specific class, meaning they can be used in any build as long as you fulfill their requirements. To learn how to use them, we must focus on the brand new UI element of the character’s inventory, The Vampiric Powers Interface. Let’s highlight its components and describe what each of them does:
At the very top, you will see the amount of available and required Pacts. Each power comes with its own cost – a combination and amount of pacts that your gear must have to be able to use the chosen power. Read more on how to get these pacts down below.
At the center of this UI, you see what’s called the Sanguine Circle – out of all 22 powers, you can only equip and use 5 by slotting them into this circle in the middle.
To the left of the circle, you see the list of gear items and what Pacts each of them provides. Depending on the World Tier, each piece of gear will have from 3 to 5 random Pacts. Your job is to combine the gear to have the right combination of Pacts to activate the chosen powers. You’ll need to refer to the Pacts section of this UI to know how many of which Pacts you need.
Below the circle, you see the list of all Vampiric Powers – the ones you already unlocked and the ones that are still unavailable to you. This is how you can track which Powers you can already use and which ones you need to obtain.
Further down is the amount of the Potent Blood you have at the moment vs the total amount you can have.
Activating, Leveling Vampiric Powers And A New Keyword
As we’ve said before, in order to activate chosen powers, you’ll need to equip gear items on your character that provide the right combination of Pacts, as shown in the new interface. Here’s how many Pacts can a piece of gear have based on the World Tier:
- Adventurer-Veteran: 3 Pacts maximum per item
- Nightmare: 4 Pacts maximum per item
- Torment: 5 Pacts maximum per item
Vampiric Powers can be Minor and Major, requiring more or less Pacts to activate based on that. Furthermore, your Vampiric Powers can be leveled up to 3 times by spending Potent Blood. All it does is make the effects of leveled-up skills more powerful, but before you can level them up, you need to unlock them first, which is kind of obvious.
On top of that, Season of the Blood will feature a new Keyword – Vampiric Curse. Other Keywords you already know about are Vulnerable, Chilled, etc. Here’s what the Vampiric Curse keyword does:
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.
List of Vampiric Powers
Anticipation
Pact Requirement: 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
Pact Requirement: 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
Pact Requirement: 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
Pact Requirement: 1 Eternity
Source: Quest
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
Pact Requirement: 3 Divinity
For every 5 Basic Skills you cast, one of your active Cooldowns is reduced by 2 seconds.
Hemomancy
Pact Requirement: 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
Pact Requirement: 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
Pact Requirement: 1 Ferocity, 1 Divinity
Thorns have a 10% chance to deal 300% increased damage and Chill enemies for 8%.
Prey on the Weak
Pact Requirement: 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
Pact Requirement: 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
Pact Requirement: 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
Pact Requirement: 2 Eternity
You gain 1% Damage Reduction for each 2% Life you are missing.
Sanguine Brace
Pact Requirement: 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
Pact Requirement: 1 Ferocity, 1 Divinity, 1 Eternity
Source: Potent Blood
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
Pact Requirement: 1 Eternity
Casting Skills heals you for 3% Life. Double this bonus while below 50% Life.
Accursed Touch
Pact Requirement: 6 Divinity
Source: Blood Harvest
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
Pact Requirement: 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
Pact Requirement: 6 Eternity
Source: Potent Blood
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
Pact Requirement: 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
Pact Requirement: 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
Pact Requirement: 2 Ferocity, 2 Divinity, 2 Eternity
Source: Quest
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
Pact Requirement: 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.
Ready To Use Your New Powers?
Let’s, recap everything we’ve learned:
- Vampiric Powers: Abilities gained after a vampire bite, used for good in “Season of Blood.”
- Vampiric Powers System: Intertwined with Pact system and Potent Blood resource for enhanced gameplay.
- Accessing Vampiric Powers: Exclusive to Seasonal Realms; 22 powers available, equip up to 5.
- How They Work: Unlocked through Season Campaign, gameplay, or Potent Blood; upgradable to level 3.
- Vampiric Powers Interface: Displays Pacts, gear, and the Sanguine Circle for equipped powers.
- Acquiring Powers: Obtain from Potent Blood, Hunters Acclaim rewards, or Campaign Quest rewards.
- Activating Powers: Meet Pact requirement on armor pieces to activate.
- Upgrading Powers: Enhance unlocked powers using Potent Blood to a max of Level 3.
- Vampiric Curse Keyword: Part of the system; stores souls of defeated enemies for attacks.
- Types of Powers: Two levels – Minor (1-3 Pacts) and Major (6 Pacts).
Along with the many changes that we went through in one of our previous articles and these new thematic skills available to all classes, the second season shapes up to be a great one if you love to make builds. It is easy to see how the new system adds a lot of the build variety. It’s going to be exciting to see what powers will be OP and what new build guides the community will make. We shall also make our own guides here, so do stick around for everything Diablo 4.
While we are nearing the end of the first season and going into the second season, LFCarry offers players and D4 fans an ultimate bundle of boosting services that will help you with the seasonal grind, leveling up your characters, unlocking the Altars of Lilith, and so much more! So, come over to LFCarry.com and make your character all-powerful!