Diablo 4 Season of the Malignant Starts Thursday, July 20th (10am PDT) and you need to do a few things to fully prepare for Season 1. Seasons are a "fresh start" experience where you play a new character to complete the Season Journey and experience the Seasonal Theme. For season 1 you find and kill Malignant Enemies who drop powerful Malignant Hearts. Socket these into the correctly colored socket on your Jewelry (Amulet and Rings) to make broken builds! Check out our Developer Livestream Wrapup for more information.
Pre-Season Information
The Pre-Season patch arrives on July 18th and brings balance changes, Uniques, new Legendary Aspects and Renown propagating to your entire account. This means you need to log into your characters between the 18th and 20th in order to transfer your Renown progress before the Season starts. After you do, your Altars of Lillith and Areas Discovered progression carries over to Seasonal Characters! If you've done everything on one character, log into that one. But if your progression is split across several characters, log into all of them.
If you're playing Hardcore, keep your characters alive until the 18th to transfer your progression!
Complete the Campaign
During their recent Livestream the developers revealed Cormond, your guide to the Season of the Malignant. To participate in Seasonal content, you need to complete the campaign! Prepare by completing the Campaign on any character (softcore or hardcore) before the 20th of July. If you need a build, don't worry we've got you covered.
To participate in the Season, you need to make a Seasonal character. When you do, select "Skip Campaign" this way you can aid Cormond and collect Malignant Hearts from level 1! Don't forget to use your Horse to get around faster.
If you're looking for a way to level up faster, check out our Alt Leveling Guide for some tips and tricks!
Altars of Lillith
Altars of Lillith give 10 Renown each, and provide Attributes, Murmuring Obols, and Paragon Points. There are 160 Altars to find scattered throughout the nooks and crannies of Sanctuary. Make sure to find every Altar of Lillith to prepare for Season 1. The Altar of Lillith bonuses are account wide but the Renown is currently character specific. As of the 18th, the Renown is applied to all characters on your account making it much easier to level your Seasonal character.
Check out our Altar of Lillith guide for every location and some tips on how to collect them efficiently! This can be tedious, but at least you only need to do it once.
Areas Discovered
The World Map begins obscured by fog of war, but as you explore Sanctuary areas are revealed over time. Each area you discover grants 5 Renown and there are 307 total areas to find. Blizzard recently confirmed this progression and Renown will transfer to your Seasonal characters. Therefore, to prepare for Season 1 you need to travel around Sanctuary and reveal as much of the map as you can before the 20th!
As far as we know the Renown from your Altars of Lillith and Areas Discovered doesn't transfer between Softcore and Hardcore.
Starting Renown
In Season 1 and beyond, a portion of your Renown transfers to all characters on your account once unlocked. This means you are significantly stronger and level faster. You need 200 Renown in each region to unlock +1 Skill Point, and 300 additional Renown to unlock +1 Potion Capacity. Having +5 Skill Points and +5 Potion Charges makes the early levels a breeze and in most zones you'll only need a few Side Quests, Strongholds, Waypoints, or Dungeons to reach 900 Renown and unlock another Skill Point.
| Zone | Areas Discovered (Renown) | Altars of Lillith (Renown) | Total |
| Fractured Peaks | 76 (380) | 28 (280) | 660 |
| Dry Steppes | 51 (255) | 33 (330) | 585 |
| Hawezar | 56 (280) | 34 (340) | 620 |
| Kehjistan | 54 (270) | 31 (310) | 580 |
| Scosglen | 70 (350) | 34 (340) | 690 |
For more information on the best way to reach 2000 Renown stay tuned for our upcoming Renown Speed Run Guide!
Video Guide
Quick Checklist
If you want to keep track of things for yourself, copy the following checklist into Notepad, Word or some other document.
How to Prepare for Season 1 Checklist
Season 1 Approaches
The Maxroll Diablo 4 Team has been working around the clock to prepare for Season 1, updating Resource Guides and Build Guides alike to keep you ahead of the game! More tools and Guides are in the works as we approach Season 1. If you haven't already, head over to our Discord and select the D4 role in #roles to stay up to date with our content development. Keep on hacking and slashing!