As the name suggests, Diablo 4’s first season, Season of the Malignant, revolves around the new Malignant Heart mechanic. These new drops - 32 new Malignant Hearts - can be found while playing a season character and offer various benefits and, in some cases, adverse side effects, when equipped. The Heart of the Decrepit Aura is a Necromancer-exclusive Malignant Heart that offers a relatively painless but potentially potent benefit that many Necromancer builds will benefit from. That being the case, this page will discuss the Heart of the Decrepit Aura in Diablo 4, listing its stats, discussing its effects and providing details for farming this Malignant Heart.
The Heart of the Decrepit Aura will curse nearby enemies - provided there’s enough of them - with Decrepify.
Diablo 4 Heart of the Decrepit Aura Malignant Heart Stats¶
Somewhat similar to jewels in Diablo 2, Malignant Hearts can be socketed in rings and amulets, whereupon they’ll yield various benefits (often conditional) to their bearer. Malignant Hearts and the sockets they can be installed in come in four types: Vicious Hearts, Brutal Hearts, Devious Hearts and Wrathful Hearts, and the correct type of Malignant Heart must be matched with the appropriate Malignant Socket - (Brutal Hearts can only be installed in Brutal Sockets, etc). The type of socket in a piece of jewelry is determined when it drops, and cannot be changed - get a great ring with the wrong kind of Malignant Socket? Sad times. Alternatively, Malignant Hearts spawn from different sources, usually bearing the keyword name for the type of Malignant Heart that will drop (Brutal, Devious, Vicious, Wrathful). Defeating a Brutal Elite will always yield a Brutal Heart, but there are numerous different types of Brutal Hearts, so it’s purely up to chance that you’ll get the exact Brutal Malignant Heart. Yes, there’s an awful lot of RNG in this process.
The Heart of the Decrepit Aura is a Brutal Heart (blue) and will not take effect until it’s socketed into a Brutal Socket. Once done, this Necromancer-specific heart curses enemies around the bearer with 
Decrepify for 6 - 17 seconds. The downside condition is that this effect only procs when the Necromancer is surrounded by a specific number of enemies - low Item Power Hearts of the Decrepit Aura may require as many as four enemies to be nearby before it procs.
Despite having minions, many Necromancer builds opt to sacrifice them for more power, and you’ll often find yourself in the thick of things. In these scenarios, slowing your enemies by 40% and reducing their damage output by 20% is a very fine boon, indeed. Given the relatively magnitude of the debuff this Malignant Heart inflicts and the simplicity of using it, it’s a pretty straightforward and potent defensive boon for pretty much every Necromancer build… although World Bosses and other powerful and antisocial foes may not benefit from it. Still, during most runs - including the ubiquitous Nightmare Dungeons and Malignant Tunnel runs, you’ll have this working to keep you safe all the time, making it a worthy equip.
(1 of 3) Hunt down Brutal Elites,
How to Find a Heart of the Decrepit Aura Malignant Heart in Diablo 4 Season 1¶
For such a simple, evergreen and potent boon, you may expect to have to put in some serious work, but the Heart of the Decrepit is actually one of the easier Malignant Hearts to find. It is a Brutal Heart (blue), which can be found in any difficulty - even a relatively fresh character in World Tier 1 can get one, provided you have completed (or skipped the main campaign. You’ll also need to advance the season questline (look for green quest icons, starting with the season quest Burning From Within), ideally until 
Answers in the Ashes starts. At this point most of the core mechanics governing Malignant Hearts will have been unlocked.
With all that out of the way, it’s time to start farming Malignant Hearts - check out the linked page for more information, but for getting Brutal Malignant Hearts, we’ll list some details here.
The keyword you’re looking for is “Brutal”, and during Season 1 you can find “Malignant Elites” anywhere in the game. Some of these Malignant Elites will be “Brutal”, and when defeated they’ll drop “Brutal Hearts”. Interact with these Brutal Hearts to respawn the Brutal Elite, then defeat it a second time to obtain a “Caged Heart”. Don’t panic, this isn’t yet another arbitrary step in the process of farming Malignant Hearts, Caged Hearts are just the unidentified generic drop name for all Malignant Hearts. The exact name and stats of the Malignant Heart will be revealed when you look at it in your inventory, much like Legendary items.
(1 of 2) You can use Ichor to craft Brutal Hearts directly,
You can use Ichor to craft Brutal Hearts directly, (left), or you can craft Brutal Invokers, which you can use to spawn Brutal Elites from Brutal Overgrowths. (right)
While you can run around blindly and hope for the right type of Malignant Elite to spawn and for the right Malignant Heart to drop, this is hardly the most efficient way of going about things. The best place to farm Malignant Elites is in Malignant Tunnels, which are new dungeons that will spawn across Sanctuary. Even if you’re not having any luck with Malignant Elites, you’ll earn various types of Ichor in these dungeons (and in some locations elsewhere, but Malignant Tunnels are by far the best spot to farm Ichor). This Ichor can, in turn, be used at Cormond’s Workbenches located throughout Sanctuary to craft different types of Malignant Hearts and Malignant Invokers. You can also break down unwanted Malignant Hearts to gain Ichor for recrafting.
Should those two sources fail, you also have Overgrowths waiting for you at the end of each Malignant Tunnel. Like all things with Malignant Hearts, these Overgrowths themselves are either Brutal, Devious, Vicious or Wrathful, and if you use the corresponding Invoker on the Overgrowth, you’ll spawn a Malignant Elite of the chosen type (for example, using a Brutal Invoker on a Brutal Overgrowth spawns a Brutal Elite). The types of Overgrowths you’ll find in each Malignant Tunnel are random, so you can’t count on the specific type of Overgrowth to spawn each run, but it’s yet another method for potentially farming these Malignant Hearts. As for Malignant Invokers, these can be crafted at Cormond’s Workbenches, or they can randomly drop from enemies.
To get a Heart of the Decrepit Aura, you’re looking for the keyword Brutal. Brutal Elites, Brutal Invokers and Brutal Overgrowths, all of which will eventually yield a Brutal Heart. There are several types of Brutal Hearts, and any Brutal Heart may turn out to be a Heart of the Decrepit Aura, and if you run numerous Malignant Tunnels you’ll almost certainly end up with a few by the time you’re ready to move onto World Tier 3.
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