If you missed the Malignant Hearts from Season 1, Season 2 brought them back as Malignant Rings. We’ve ranked all the Malignant Rings in Diablo 4, from worst to best.
That doesn’t mean that the lowest on the list are bad, they just aren’t as powerful as the others. And since each one is tied to a specific class, you’ll unfortunately be stuck with only one per character.
Diablo 4: All Malignant Rings, ranked
5. Rogue – Writhing Band of Trickery
Although the Rogue class is the best class in our Season 2 classes tier list, they sadly received the most boring Malignant Ring. Perhaps it’s to counter the fact that they’re still a highly-powerful class. After casting a Subterfuge Skill, Writhing Band of Trickery will leave behind a Decoy Trap that continuously lures and Taunts enemies. It’ll explode after three seconds to deal Shadow damage, and it can occur every 12 seconds.
Traps don’t really do much for most Rogue builds, but at least they lure enemies away. If you do end up getting this Malignant Ring, there’s no harm in trying it out, but it just doesn’t seem like a very good one compared to the rest.
4. Druid – Airidah’s Inexorable Will
This Druid ring will aid you if you want to improve your Ultimate skills. Airidah’s Inexorable Will pulls Distant enemies into your Ultimate Skill, while also dealing Physical damage. The damage also increases depending on your Willpower.
I think this is a decent Malignant Ring, especially because of the damage increase with high Willpower points. It also reduces the Ultimate Cooldown, which helps greatly. I practically never used Ultimates because of how long their Cooldowns feel interminable.
Related: How to get Malignant Hearts efficiently in Diablo 4 Season 2
3. Necromancer – Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul
Since most Necromancers rely on Corpse Skills, I find the Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul to be a great Malignant Ring. It’ll automatically activate the following equipped Skills on the Corpses around you: Raise Skeleton (every 2.0-1.0 seconds), Corpse Explosion (every 2.0-1.0 seconds), and Corpse Tendrils (every 16-8 seconds).
I remember playing around with Malignant Hearts back in Season 1 and having one that gave me this power. It was a lot more useful than I thought it’d be since I didn’t have to constantly activate these Skills myself. It also gives +3 Ranks to all Corpse Skills, which leaves a lot of room open in your Skill Tree.
2. Sorcerer – Tal Rasha’s Iridescent Loop
Second place goes to Tal Rasha’s Iridescent Loop, which is only for Sorcerers. For each type of Elemental damage you deal, you’ll gain increased damage for four seconds. Also, dealing Elemental damage refreshes the bonuses.
Despite Sorcerers being a pretty weak class at the moment, having this Malignant Ring would really improve their build. Elemental damage is a Sorcerer’s bread and butter, so no matter what build you’re using, this ring can’t limit you.
1. Barbarian – Ring of Red Furor
Finally, the number one spot is for the class that was in last place in our Season 2 tier list. Barbarians get a nice boost with the Ring of Red Furor. After you spend 100 Fury within three seconds, the next casting of Hammer of the Ancients, Upheaval, or Death Blow will be a guaranteed Critical Strike, dealing 10-30% bonus Critical Strike Damage.
That’s quite a large bonus, and since you get the choice of three different Skills to activate this ring, I feel it’s vital for any endgame Barbarian build. It gets even better with the increased Resource generation, meaning you’ll rarely run out of Fury to spend.
Diablo 4 is available on Battle.net, PlayStation, and Xbox.
