Diablo 4 season two, Season of the Blood, is almost upon us, releasing on Tuesday, Oct. 17. Although the game is suffering from a wide variety of glaring issues, the second season is definitely a step in the right direction by introducing a series of community-requested fixes, shiny new content to fill up dull days, and so much more.
Here’s everything we know about the next Diablo 4 season.
Diablo 4 Season Two: Season of Blood overview
Following the release of the first season, Season of the Malignant, Season of Blood will keep you busy dealing with blood-hungry vampires, five additional bosses, and embracing your newly found vampire powers. Just like with Diablo 4 season one, you have to create a new seasonal character and start your grind all over again. This can be an excellent opportunity to see the game through a Barbarian’s or Necromancer’s eyes.
While you’re patiently waiting for the next Diablo 4 season to start, dive together with me to explore what exactly is waiting for you, including the content and the rewards.
Diablo 4 season two: Season of Blood content
For all Diablo 4 fans out there, Blizzard has a new questline in store featuring vampires, five additional end-game bosses, vampiric powers, and community-requested features.
New vampire questline
Ferocious and hungry as they are, an endless army of vampires will attempt to invade Sanctuary, and your job is to repel them and find out who’s their master orchestrating this entire invasion. You can also recruit a vampire hunter named Erys to help you uncover the mastermind behind this bloody plot.
What are Vampire Powers and how to unlock them
To make your hunt easier, you can learn 22 new Vampire abilities to help you in your hunt, and all classes can wield these powers. But to wield these new vampiric abilities, you’re going to need one thing—Blood. And lots of it.
Potent Blood can be obtained from fallen enemies and used as a form of currency to spend in the Vampiric Powers tab within the Character menu. By spending Potent Blood, you can unlock a random power or power upgrade, and you can unlock even more Vampiric Powers by completing the Seasonal Questline and from the Seasonal Event, Blood Harvest.
All 22 Vampire Powers in Diablo 4 Season Two: Season of Blood
Although everyone has 22 Vampire Powers they can unlock and activate in Diablo 4 Season Two: Season of Blood, they can be split into two groups: Minor Vampiric Powers and Major Vampiric Powers, and they cost different Pacts to activate.
All Minor Vampiric Powers
Minor Vampiric Powers only cost one to three Pacts and, when maxed at level three, the Vampire Powers include the following:
- Anticipation (Costs one Divinity): Your Ultimate Skills gain a 20 percent Cooldown Reduction and 12 percent increased damage for every nearby enemy affected by your Damage Over Time (DoT) effects.
- Coven’s Fangs (Costs two Divinity): Your Conjuration, Companion, Minion, and Bat Familiar attacks deal 52 percent increased damage to Crowd-Controlled enemies. Lucky Hit: Your Conjuration, Companion, Minion, and Bat Familiar now have up to a 30 percent chance to inflict Vampiric Curse when hitting targets.
- Domination (Costs one Ferocity): You deal 24 percent increased damage to Stunned, Immobilized, Frozen, or Feared enemies. They’re instantly killed if they’re also Injured and not an Elite enemy.
- Feed the Coven (Costs one Eternity): Lucky Hit: Conjuration, Companion, Minion, and Bat Familiar attacks will have up to a 60 percent chance to restore 10 Primary Resource to you and increase your Damage by 10 percent for four seconds.
- Hectic (Costs three Divinity): For every five Basic Skills you cast, one of your active Cooldowns is reduced by two seconds.
- Hemomancy (Costs three Eternity): Your attacks deal 80 percent of your Maximum Life as Physical damage to nearby enemies. But this can only occur once every four seconds, and you heal for one percent of your Maximum Life for each enemy damaged this way.
- Infection (Costs one Ferocity): Hitting enemies with direct damage infects them with the Pox. When Pox is inflicted eight times on an enemy, it expunges their infection and deals 70 percent Poison damage.
- Jagged Spikes (Costs one Ferocity and one Divinity): Thorns have a 10 percent chance to deal 300 percent more damage and can Chill enemies for eight percent.
- Prey on the Weak (Costs two Ferocity): You deal 16 percent increased damage to Vulnerable enemies. Vampiric Curse from this ability or your other Vampiric Powers makes enemies Vulnerable.
- Rampart (Costs one Divinity and one Eternity): If you don’t move for three seconds, you gain a Barrier for 40 percent of your Maximum Life for six seconds. This effect can happen once every 20 seconds.
- Ravenous (Costs one Ferocity): Lucky Hit: You have up to a 20 percent chance to increase your Attack Speed by 40 percent of your Total Movement Speed for six seconds.
- Resilience (Costs two Eternity): You gain a one percent Damage Reduction for every two percent of Life you’re missing.
- Sanguine Brace (Costs one Divinity and one Eternity): When you kill an enemy, you become Fortified for six percent of your Base Life. While you have more Fortify than half of your Maximum Life, you’ll gain an eight percent Critical Strike Chance.
- Terror (Costs one Ferocity, one Divinity, and one Eternity): If you’ve been hit, you gain a 14 percent chance to Fear nearby enemies and Slow them by 80 percent for two seconds. You are also guaranteed to Critically Strike enemies who are Feared.
- Undying (Costs one Eternity): Casting Skills heals you for three percent of your Life. And this doubles if you’re below 50 percent Life.
All Major Vampiric Powers
Major Vampiric Powers cost six Pacts and, when maxed at level three, include the following:
- Accursed Touch (Costs six Divinity): Lucky Hit: You have up to a 44 percent chance to inflict Vampiric Curse on enemies. Those with Vampiric Curse have a 15 percent chance to spread it to other surrounding enemies. And the more Accursed Souls you gain from Vampiric Curse will deal 200 percent increased damage.
- Bathe in Blood (Costs three Divinity and three Eternity): While Channeling a Skill, you’ll form a pool of blood beneath you. And if you’re Channeling a skill in a pool, your Channeled Skills deal 40 percent increased damage, and you gain 30 percent Damage Reduction. But this pool can only form once every eight seconds.
- Blood Boil (Costs six Eternity): When your Core Skills Overpower an enemy, you’ll spawn three Volatile Blood Drops. And by collecting a Volatile Blood Drop, you’ll cause it to explode, dealing 60 percent Physical damage around you. And every 20 seconds, your next Skill is guaranteed to Overpower.
- Call Familiar (Costs three Ferocity and three Divinity): Casting a Mastery, Weapon Mastery, Macabre, Wrath, or Imbuement Skill calls an allied bat to attack nearby enemies, and it will deal 80 percent Physical damage with a 30 percent chance to Stun.
- Flowing Veins (Costs two Ferocity, two Divinity, and two Eternity): You deal 60 percent increased DoT to enemies moving or affected by Vampiric Curse.
- Metamorphosis (Costs two Ferocity, two Divinity, and two Eternity): When you Evade, you’ll turn into a cloud of bats and become Unstoppable for four seconds. Enemies in your path take 160 percent Physical damage and are inflicted with Vampiric Curse.
- Moonrise (Costs six Ferocity): Hitting an enemy with a Basic Skill gives you four percent Attack Speed for 10 seconds, and this can stack up to five times. Once you have max stacks, you enter a Vampiric Bloodrage and gain 160 percent Basic Skill damage and 15 percent Movement Speed for 10 seconds.
Like your regular abilities, you can level your Vampire Powers up to a maximum of level three. And if you look at the activation costs, you’ll notice three symbols. These are your Pacts and are tied to your new Pact Armor.
Using Pact Armor to activate your Vampire Powers
In Season Two: Season of Blood, your Chest armor, Pants, Gloves, Boots, and Helms contain Pacts, which are used to unlock your Vampire Powers.
You’ll notice on your gear there are three symbols, and starting from the left, the Pacts include Ferocity, Divinity, and Eternity.
With your Vampire Powers and Pact Armor equipped, you must ensure the Pacts Granted on the armor match the Activation Costs on the Vampiric Powers to activate them.
Using the Pact Armor above as a reference, if your Vampire Power were to cost one Divinity to activate, you would need to equip Pact Armor with one Divinity, which this Shattered Runic Glove has.
Once that Vampire Power has been activated, you only have one Ferocity and one Eternity left on the Shattered Runic Glove you can use. So, if you have a Vampire Power that requires one Ferocity and one Eternity to activate, these gloves have what you need to activate it. But if you need more Pacts, you must equip more Pact Armor.
If you need a specific Pact or want to remove all Pacts from your Pact Armor, there is a way to do that.
Removing and adding Pacts to Pact Armor
If Diablo 4 Season Two: Season of Blood, you can use the following items to either remove all Pacts from one piece of gear or add one Pact to a piece of gear, up to the maximum limit:
- Cleansing Acid-All: Removes all Pacts on a piece of Pact Armor
- Pact of Ferocity: Adds one Pact of Ferocity to a Chest Armor, Gloves, Boots, Pants, or Helm
- Pact of Divinity: Adds one Pact of Divinity to a Chest Armor, Gloves, Boots, Pants, or Helm
- Pact of Eternity: Adds one Pact of Eternity to a Chest Armor, Gloves, Boots, Pants, or Helm
If you exceed the maximum number of Pacts on a piece of armor, these consumables will have no effect. So, don’t waste these precious resources, and make sure you have the right consumable and have enough Pact slots available before trying to add more.
SIf you don’t get a piece of gear with the Pacts you need on it, you can always add or remove Pacts with these consumables, which you can get from Blood Seekers, the Blood Harvest Season event, in the Season Two Season Journey, Opulent Coffins, and via the new Seasonal Questline.
Five end-game Uber bosses
Once you reach the end, Blizzard will have five Uber bosses to tackle, including Girgoire, Echo of Varshan, The Beast in the Ice, Dark Master, and Echo of Durel.
However, you need to meet the summoning conditions for the following bosses to fight it:
- Grigoire, The Galvanic Saint (World Tier Three and Four): You must gather enough Living Steel from the Tortured Offering in Helltide. This boss can drop Unique items exclusive from Grigoire, and you have a chance to get the Demonbinder Mount Armor Cosmetic.
- Echo of Varshan (World Tier Three and Four): You must defeat Grotesque Debtors during Whispers of the Dead for a chance to get parts of Varshan’s body. And the Tree of Whispers collections—this is what you get when you turn in Grim Favors—also guarantee a part of Varshan’s body. Once you have enough pieces, including a Malignant Heart, if you’re playing on World Tier Four, you can summon and fight Varshan. You have a chance to get the Flesh-Weld Rod Trophy and Unique items exclusive to Varshan.
- The Beast in the Ice (World Tier Four): You must gather Distilled Fear while completing Tier 30 or higher Nightmare Dungeons. Once you have enough Distilled Fear, visit the Occultist and craft the Glacial Fissure Nightmare Sigil. From here, you need to activate it, and then you can fight The Beast in the Ice. There’s a chance that the Skull Torch and Fell Steed Mount Trophies may drop from this boss and their exclusive Unique items.
- Dark Master (World Tier Four): Defeat a World Boss on World Tier Four or complete any Legion Event. You’ll acquire Exquisite Blood from these activities, and once you have enough, you can summon Dark Master. This boss may drop the Diadem of the Ancient Helm Cosmetic alongside other Unique items exclusives.
- Echo of Duriel (World Tier Four): Defeat Grigoire and Varshan in World Tier Four to collect Mucus-Slick Eggs and Shards of Agony. Once you have enough, you can summon Duriel. Duriel is the only one who has a chance to drop Uber Unique items, and the smoldering Brimstone Mount can potentially drop from him.
Community-requested features
The change everyone’s been waiting for is, undoubtedly, that gems will no longer take up your inventory space, meaning you’ll have a lot more space to work within your bags. On top of that, the stash will be searchable and filterable.
Other notable changes are that Paragon Points, Skill Points, Potion Charges, and Obol capacity upgrades will carry over from one season to another, and you don’t have to do that mindless grind.
As the icing on top of the cake, Blizzard is tweaking how the Vulnerable, Overpower, Critical Strike Damage, and Elemental Resistances effects work and making Unique and Ultra Unique items a bit more available to players.
Diablo 4 Season Two: Season of Blood battle pass rewards
The Diablo 4 Season Two: Season of Blood Battle Pass begins on Oct. 17 at 10 am PDT and has 90 Tiers, with 27 being Free Tiers and 63 Premium Tiers.
While you can get rewards from the free tiers, you’ll have to pay $10 for a premium battle pass and $25 for an accelerated one if you want all of the Diablo 4 Season Two, Season of the Blood, Battle Pass rewards.
From the Free Tiers, you will earn the following rewards:
- Five Armor Basics
- A Town Portal
- Five Weapon Transmogs
- A Mount Trophy
- A Title (prefix and suffix)
- 20 Smoldering Ash
In addition to the Free Tiers, those who purchase the Premium Battle Pass will also get the following rewards:
- Two Town Portals
- Ten Emotes (There are two for each class)
- 19 Weapon Transmogs
- Two Mounts
- Two Mount Armors
- Five Mount Trophies
- Two Titles (This equates to two prefixes and two suffixes)
- Ten Armor Transmogs (There are two sets of armor for every class)
- 700 Platinum (This is spread across multiple tiers)
And if you get the Accelerated Battle Pass, you’ll get the Free Tiers and the Premium Tiers, along with the following:
- 20 Tier Skips
- One Emote (Vampire’s Repose)
It will take some work to get all 90 tiers, but these rewards are certainly worth it.