One of the first things you’ll likely notice when playing Diablo 4‘s second season, The Season of Blood, is that armor now has a new statline: “Pacts Granted”. Pacts heavily influence which Vampiric Powers you can equip, and since the aforementioned vampiric powers are one of the primary draws (and defining gameplay characteristic) or Season of Blood, they’re rather important. This page will explain what Pacts are, how they work, and how to add and remove pacts from armor.
(1 of 2) Armor found during the Season of Blood will possess a random number and type of Pacts.
Armor found during the Season of Blood will possess a random number and type of Pacts. (left), The total Pacts on your armor determine what vampiric powers you can equip. (right)
Pacts and Armor in the Season of Blood¶
Pretty much every piece of armor you find, regardless of quality, will have pacts on them… provided you’re playing a season character during the Season of Blood. Pacts are, simply put, the equipment requirements of vampiric powers. There are three types of Pacts, as follows:
- Pact of Divinity
- Pact of Eternity
- Pact of Ferocity
Different vampiric powers require different types and amounts of Pacts in order to equip them. For example, the Undying vampiric power requires x1, Infection requires x1, Hectic requires x3 and Metamorphosis requires x2 x2 x2. As mentioned earlier, almost every piece of armor you find will spawn with some Pacts on it, although the number and types of Pacts on each piece of armor are completely random. The vampire powers you can equip are determined by the sum total of the Pacts on all the armor you have equipped. For example, let’s say you have the following gear:
| Armor | Pacts |
|---|---|
| Helm | |
| Chest | |
| Gloves | |
| Pants | |
| Boots | |
| Total | x8x2x4 |
With the armor above your vampire power budget would effectively be x8x2x4. It’s also worth noting that while the number and type of Pacts on individual pieces of armor are random, the maximum number of Pacts each piece of armor can have is set in stone, depending on what type of armor it is:
| Armor | Pact Slots |
|---|---|
| Helm | 3 |
| Chest | 5 |
| Gloves | 5 |
| Pants | 4 |
| Boots | 3 |
| Total | 20 |
So the maximum number of Pacts you can have on your armor is 20, which isn’t too bad considering that you can only have 5 vampiric powers equipped. That said, finding armor with the maximum amount of Pacts for its type can be a chore, to say nothing of actually getting armor with the exact type and number of Pacts you need for the vampiric powers you want to use. On the plus side there’s some wiggle room here… at least for some builds, as there’s no correlation between the type and number of Pacts each vampiric power requires and their usefulness. Still, it’d be a shame finding a sweet new piece of armor (especially a legendary or unique) that just doesn’t have the Pacts you need it to have… fortunately, there’s a way to customize the Pacts on armor.
(1 of 3) During Blood Harvest events, search for Seekers Caches,
How to Add and Remove Pacts from Armor¶
Pacts as we’ve discussed them thus far are properties you’ll find spawned on armor, but you can also find stand-alone consumables that add one rank of a specific Pact to a piece of armor. These are, unfortunately for the sake of clarity, simply named after the Pact they bestow. A Pact of Divinity item adds one rank of Pact of Divinity to an armor, albeit with one caveat - this cannot increase the overall number of Pacts on a piece of armor than that armor’s maximum. For example, a suit of chest armor can have five Pacts on it - once such a piece of armor reaches 5/5 Pacts, you cannot add another to it.
Fortunately Blizzard has chosen to be merciful, adding a Cleansing Acid item to the game, which will remove Pacts from armor. By default, this item will remove all Pacts on a piece of armor, but if you visit an Alchemist, navigate to the “Refine Resources” tab, and scroll down to “Pact Alteration” you’ll find that you can fine-tune this acid to only remove specific Pacts. For example, the Cleansing Acid - Divinity item will only remove Pacts of Divinity from a piece of armor. You can also craft more Cleansing Acid - All for 100 Potent Blood! You can also craft Pacts via the Alchemist, but this will set you back a whopping 250 Potent Blood - that’s 10 rolls to unlock/upgrade vampiric powers!
There’s no need to spend Potent Blood on crafting these items if you’d rather farm them. As with most resources that influence the gameplay mechanics in the Season of Blood, the best way to get Pacts is to farm [Blood Harvest] areas, which will appear on the map after completing or skipping the campaign questline. Blood Harvests are similar to Hell Tides, save they only tend to affect one subregion, are marked on the map with a green coloration, and instantly move to a new area when the one-hour limit expires in the previous region. You also keep resources like Blood Lures and Seeker Keys between Blood Harvests, which is a good thing, since using Seeker Keys to open Seekers Caches is one of the better ways of finding Pact consumables. You’ll also find Potent Blood during Blood Harvest events, not to mention you’ll complete Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers and earn plenty of loot and XP, making Blood Harvests just great places to farm.
Now that you (hopefully) understand how Pacts work, check out the following pages to get your bearings in the Season of Blood:
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