How to get Baneful Hearts & summon the Blood Maiden in Diablo 4 Season 4

Baneful Hearts are key to unlocking the biggest dangers within Diablo 4 Season 4's Helltide areas, as you'll be able to summon the ever-dangerous Blood Maiden.

They prove rather tricky to get ahold of though, and you'll need to obtain three in-game if you've got your sights on the Accursed Ritual and all of the horrors that it entails.

Here's where you can find Baneful Hearts

Baneful Hearts can only be obtained through opening a Tortured Gift of Mysteries, which are unique chests found throughout the Helltide region.

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You'll need to spend 100 Abberant Cinders in order to open these chests, and there's no guarantee that you'll find a Baneful Heart inside, as the loot is entirely random.

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It took me until my fourth Tortured Gift to get a single Baneful Heart, and you'll need three to make any real use of them. Your best bet is to grind away at enemies within the Helltide and raise your Helltide Threat level so that you have a greater chance of gaining Abberant Cinders. Make sure that you're always on the move inside the Helltide too, as that'll allow new enemies to spawn and let you know where all of the Tortured Gifts are.

How to summon and fight the Blood Maiden

You'll need to insert three separate Baneful Hearts into the Altars at an Accursed Ritual spot within the Helltide to summon the Blood Maiden.

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You can find an Accursed Ritual on the map by its icon, which is a devil-like figure with a chipped left horn. The Ritual itself in the world is three small stone altars and a demonic symbol carved into the ground. In my experience, it isn't found that near to the markers for the Blood Maiden, so don't worry if you can't locate it around there.

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Once you enter the final Baneful Heart into the third Altar you will be swarmed by an ambush of demonic monsters. The Blood Maiden will appear once you have cleared this ambush, and will likely prove an incredible challenge to even high-level players. I haven't managed to fight the boss yet as Baneful Hearts have been eluding me, but I can only presume you'll want to give it everything that you've got to win.

Make sure to check out our Diablo 4 homepage to stay up to date with Season 4, as you won't want to miss out on Ancestral Tempering, the best Necromancer build, or our full class tier list.