Summary
Diablo 4’s Season of Blood introduced new vampiric enemies, but more importantly, new Vampiric Powers. If players can pass thechallenges necessary to unlock them, they can use these to customize their build further. The best part is that none of these powers are restricted to a class, creating dozens of potential new strategies and combinations, provided you have enoughpacts to afford them.
These new abilities come in two tiers (Major and Minor), with the most potent abilities requiring more investment but granting more powerful effects. These major vampiric abilities range from being must-haves to having only niche appeal. Ultimately, it comes down to two factors: versatility and raw power. If players choose the right abilities for their build, they can become a true terror of the night. To help with that choice, here’s how every Major Vampiric Power stacks up.
7Blood Boil
Not Worth Your Time Unless You’re Extremely Lucky
Blood Boil is perhaps the most underwhelming of the major vampiric powers. It’s primarily dependent on the character triggering Overpower to be useful (which is usually stuck at a 3% chance of happening per skill). For most players, the consensus is to avoid investing in Overpower in favor of areas more pivotal to your build, which unfortunately means there are generally powers to prioritize over Blood Boil.
Certain classes, likethe Werebear Druid, which can make Overpower more likely, may be able to find a use for it, but it’s safe to say almost any of the other abilities will usually be more beneficial.
6Call Familiar
A Big Investment For Just A Bit More Damage
While this power has many more opportunities to activate (considering the variety of skills that trigger it), it suffers from a flat damage output. This means that the damage doesn’t scale according to your current damage. This makes it good at lower levels, but it quickly gets surpassed by other damaging abilities.
A unique advantage of Call Famiilar is that it does include a 30% chance to stun, which can be a rare effect. While this can certainly be useful, isn’t enough to move this Power any higher in the ranking (although builds that focus on stuns may want to pick this one up).
5Bathe In Blood
A Barbarian’s New Best Friend
This ability is also fairly niche; however, classes like the Barbarian can get a lot of mileage out of it, making playstyles likethe Whirlwind Barbarian even better. This class is unique in having no ranged combat options at all, meaning they’re forced to be in the front lines and more than likely get hit by any attacks their opponents throw at them.
As a Barbarian, you never want to pass up some free damage reduction. This power increases this unrelenting warrior’s already impressive defensive abilities, and also gives them a nice damage boost into the bargain. It’s perfect for anyone wanting to get their hands dirty on the frontline.
4Flowing Veins
Great For Very Specific Builds
This power is a must-have for any player wanting to utilize a damage-over-time build. There aren’t many ways to get modifiers for these types of damaging abilities in the game, and this one is a 60% increase to boot. Rogues will get the most use out of this ability, but nearly every class has some way of dealing prolonged damage (such as thepowerful fire sorcerer build).
This is especially nice for those long, drawn-out boss battles where the boss absorbs blows like a wall. Make use of a few damage-over-time effects with this ability, and you’ll start chipping them down pretty quickly.
3Moonrise
Makes Quick Kills And Leveling Easy
More attack speed is something that, while not necessary for every build, certainly never hurts. This ability stacks with every basic attack, meaning you’ll quickly snowball to a cap of 20% increased attack speed. There’s more to it than that, though.
Once you hit the maximum boost, you’ll enter a blood rage, gaining more damage and movement speed.This means you’ll be one-shotting most standard enemies after a few basic attacks, making it great for leveling. However, at later levels, this power loses considerable versatility. In terms of practicality, though, Moonrise is more than worthy of the number three spot.
2Metamorphosis
Become Untouchable On The Battlefield
This ability allows you to avoid all enemy attacks for a short amount of time. It’s invaluable for getting out of tough spots like boss and area-of-effect attacks. It also provides immunity to crowd control and a small amount of extra damage as a bonus. Combine that with the evade’s shorter cooldown time, and a skilled player can use this almost like a get-out-of-jail-free card and become an untouchable whirlwind of swirling bats.
This power gets even more powerful when combined withthe Flickerstep boots, as it reduces your ult’s cooldown every time you evade. Any build benefits from avoiding hits, so this power is never a bad option.
1Accursed Touch
Not Very Flashy, But Extremely Powerful
While it may appear a little underpowered to be ranked the strongest Major Vampiric Power, the true potency of this ability comes from pairing it with the Prey on the Weak Minor Vampiric Power. This power applies Vulnerable to all enemies with a Vampiric Curse, and deals 16% increased damage to Vulnerable enemies.
This affords every character, regardless of class, the ability to inflict Vulnerable, potentially solving a long-standingcomplaint about the status condition.Combine this with the chance to spread your curse from enemy to enemy, and your character will soon be a tidal wave of destruction.
