Diablo 4 Season 2 introduced Vampiric Powers, a way to power up your character beyond its normal limits. With a vampire infested Sanctuary, we received a new event called Blood Harvest, a randomly selected zone that’s being invaded by vampires.
In this guide, we’re talking about the best practices and going over some of the best early Vampiric Powers and how to get the most out of doing Blood Harvest.
Blood Harvest Event
Blood Harvest is an event that will spawn at random locations around the Sanctuary. It’ll be active for an hour before it switches to a new zone. Diablo 4 players might already be somewhat familiar with this event because of its similarity to completing Helltides.
Blood Harvest will be one of the best ways to stock up on Potent Blood, and Diablo 4 Items that help modify pacts on your armor. These are really important for managing and activating our Vampiric Powers.
You’ll notice that Blood Harvest also has its own special Whisper events to complete. Keep in mind: Whispers recently received a buff to experience points between 75% and 100%.
While inside a Blood Harvest event, you’ll have two new UI elements in the top right. One is for Blood Lures, and the other is for Seeker Keys. While defeating vampires and Blood Seekers, you’ll have a chance at getting one of these new Diablo 4 Items.
Seeker Keys are going to be used to open chests that randomly spawn in the region. 15 Blood Lures can be used to spawn Blood Seekers from Altars. Or, 150 Blood Lures can be used to activate Blood Harvest’s most rewarding event.
Throughout completing different objectives, you’ll receive something called Hunter’s Acclaim. These points will be used to get special rewards from the Hunter’s Acclaim Board, which is in various cities.
Different from Helltides, Blood Lures and Seeker Keys will persist even between events.
Best Ways To Do Blood Harvest
Now, for the best ways to do Blood Harvest.
Instead of rushing over to various objectives, I highly recommend taking your time and defeating every group of monster you come across. Because in this way you can accumulate a large amount of Diablo 4 Gold for later upgrades.
One of the key features of Blood Harvest is the mob density and the amount of elites found throughout these areas. This will also greatly increase the amount of Blood Lures you come across, which are absolutely vital to making the most out of this event.
Blood Lures have two use cases, either spawning 2 Blood Seekers from using a Sanguine Altar with 15 Blood Lures, or use 150 Blood Lures on the Blood Lure Pedestals located near the Blood Harvest Icon to start a massive event.
I recommend never using the Sanguine Altars, as the reward for doing this is just not enough. Blood Seekers are fairly common and spawn pretty much anywhere.
The event that uses 150 Blood Lures is really fun to do. You’ll go up against wave after wave of enemies, netting you a massive amount of experience points.
If you can, do this event with friends, as each pedestal can be activated by a separate person. So, if you have 2 other friends, you’ll only need to spend 50 Blood Lures each.
For Seeker Keys, use them anytime you see a chest. There’s really no need to hold on to these.
Chests in Blood Harvest are a great way to collect pact related items and Potent Blood. Some of the world events that happen throughout Blood Harvest regions are terrible to do. I completely avoid these altogether. There’s one event that spawns random blood circles on the ground, and this was the only event I really found worth doing.
So the recap is:
- Do Blood Harvest with friends to share Blood Lures.
- Save your Blood Lures for doing the main event.
- Take your time with groups of enemies for XP/hour.
- Be sure to complete whispers for another big chunk of EXP.
- Spend your seeker keys anytime you see a chest.
How Do Vampiric Powers Work?
Here’s how Vampiric Powers work:
- Open the Vampiric Powers menu.
- Spend Potent Blood located at the bottom to randomly activate or upgrade a Vampiric Power.
- Once activated, drag and drop a Vampiric Power into the sanguine circle.
At the top is our Pact Requirements. The left number is Available Pacts, and the right number is Required Pacts.
Each Vampiric Power will have its own activation cost. Equip armor to increase the amount of pacts you have available. You can use special items acquired from defeating vampires to modify the pacts on your equipment.
Best Early Game Vampiric Powers
Next, let’s talk about the best early game Vampiric Powers in Diablo 4 Season 2.
- Sanguine Brace. I believe it is one of the most powerful defensive Vampiric Powers in Season 2. Some classes in Diablo 4 use Legendary Aspects or Passives to achieve what this Vampiric Power does. And not only does this provide fortify, but it also gives critical hit chance, which can be really hard to get. This Vampiric Power is going to be great on any build, but even more so on any builds that utilize overpower.
- Anticipation is another great Vampiric Power. It gives you 20% cooldown reduction on your ultimate, which in the early leveling process is a massive benefit. You can tell the Diablo 4 developers really want people to give ultimates another try in Season 2. This Vampiric Power also has synergy with Damage Over Time builds, which has also been buffed this season due to the nerfs to critical strike and vulnerable.
- Hemomancy is one of my absolute favorite Vampiric Powers for the early game. The amount of wave clear and damage from this is just wild. It also is able to occur every 4 seconds. I really expect this Vampiric Power to be getting a nerf soon. The healing effect is just an added bonus. To be honest, it’s not that great. I expect everyone in the early game is using this Vampiric Power. I’m uncertain about how well it works in the endgame.
- Blood Boil is one that could be great, but only for overpower builds. If you’re a Pulverize Druid or a Blood Lance Necromancer, I highly recommend using this option in the early game and endgame.
Any of the Vampiric Powers that inflict Vampiric Curse paired with Prey On The Weak is a fantastic way for any class to apply vulnerable. This combination allows you to make an enemy vulnerable just from applying Vampiric Curse.
With the way that Vulnerable Damage was changed in the damage formula, Vulnerable still applies a 20% multiplicative damage bonus. This means that it’s still great to use Vulnerable. It’s just not as effective, or rather it’s as effective as additive damage bonuses.
If you can reliably apply Vampiric Curse to enemies, increased Vulnerable Damage from equipment affixes will be potentially best in slot for the endgame.
