!The Vile Apothecary is one of the Wrathful Hearts that Rogue players can get their hands on as they enter the World Tier 4 content phase. While this item is not as God Tier as The Barber, it is still a very good item that Rogue players can use for their build - if they so desire. If you’re wanting to build your Rogue around The Vile Apothecary, then here’s everything you need to know about synergies with this Wrathful Heart, and how to farm for it.

Everything you need to know about the Vile Apothecary in Diablo 4¶

View Full-size

If you want to have synergy with your Imbuements, then the Vile Apothecary could be an excellent end-game heart for you to farm. Image via Blizzard Entertainment.

So, The Vile Apothecary is a Heart that grants a small chance on every attack you make to trigger all three Imbuement skills at the same time. This can be good for builds that use several Imbuements at the same time, typically as seen best on the Penetrating Shot build. But, Twisting Blades players are also starting to do the same thing too. Moreso, if you combine this heart with the alchemist themed legendaries, then you can create lots of explosions, adding more shadow, cold and poison damage to bosses or packs of elites and mobs. The list includes:

• Icy Alchemist’s Aspect
• Toxic Alchemist’s Aspect
• Aspect of Noxious Ice
• Aspect of Corruption

Using any of these legendary aspect effects when you have the conditions met from The Vile Apothecary means that you can get free triggers for these legendary aspects, despite having limited cooldowns from your regular Imbuements.

In addition, opting for this build has more synergy with the Unique, Penitent Greaves. This unique footwear for Rogues adds a chilling pathway as you move around the map. Enemies that hit this Chilled path will become Chilled. Combining this with the Aspect of Noxious Ice means you have even more chill synergy with your Poison Imbue procs, granting more slows, and Frozen which ramps your poison damage up. So, it means that when your Alchemist heart procs, you will have an immediate DPS and Chill boost. It will come in handy with high level mobs in Nightmare Dungeons and have even more damage multipliers to take on very hard, yet easily controlled packs on one of the game’s squishiest classes. Of course, this is just one of many possibilities you can utilize to your advantage using Diablo 4’s The Vile Apothecary Heart.

How to Farm The Vile Apothecary in Diablo 4¶

View Full-size

Most Malignant Tunnels have several Corrupted Elites you need to beat, offering a few guaranteed Heart farms per run. Some of them can be Wrathful if the stars align.

If you intend on farming for the Vile Apothecary Malignant Heart, then, you will need to know a few things before you can get it. The first thing is that this item is a rare World Tier 4 Wrathful Heart. So, not only is it part of the rarer heart type, but it is also even rarer by being a World Tier 4 exclusive. It’s something to keep in mind if you intend on dumping your farming efforts and resources into looking for this item.

Now, there’s a few things you can do once you’re in World Tier 4. The first is to spend your Smoldering Ashes on improving your drop chances for the rarer hearts. Capping it out grants around a 15% bonus, removing how weighted these hearts are somewhat. The next is to go into World Tier 4 and start running some Malignant Tunnels. It really doesn’t matter which one you do, as most of them contain around three Corrupted Malignant Elites, and each one has a small chance to spawn as a Wrathful threat. This is by far the most efficient Malignant Heart Farm for Wrathful Hearts, as its naturally mobbing, map clearing, and resetting, which you can do infinitely.

The next method is to dispose of the Hearts you don’t want at a Malignant Research station and get the Ichor from the hearts. These will continue to stack up until you are ready to try your luck on either the Uncertain Hearts, or Uncertain Invokers. By far the best method to try your gamba luck on is the Uncertain Hearts. These are more resource efficient, and, because you have the season blessing for the better heart drop rate, you are slightly more in favor of grabbing the Wrathful heart types. Of course, it’s still hard to get the exact one you want, but that’s RNG for another time, as the total Malignant Heart list comes to 32.

If you want more control over which Wrathful Heart you want, then, you can always try your luck on Uncertain Invokers. However, the RNG of getting a Wrathful Invoker is very low, and you have no RNG boosts for getting this, unlike the Hearts. So, it could be a heavy resource investment. But, if you do get the Wrathful Invoker and use it in a Malignant Tunnel, then the odds of getting the exact heart you want improves significantly, probably towards 1/5 chance to get the heart you are looking for, presuming the super rares are not weighted.

So, if you want to farm The Vile Apothecary in Diablo 4, then, you will want to employ a mixture of these methods over the course of your World Tier 4 journey.