Diablo 4’s second season, Season of Blood, brought a brand-new overworld activity known as the Blood Harvest. This horrific, vampire-filled curse conveniently moves around at the top of every hour, and it contains a rather unusual obelisk: the Vampiric Syphon.
What Are Vampiric Syphons in Diablo 4?
Vampiric Syphons are marked on the minimap using the same icon that appears for all notable objects, like prisoners to free or structures to destroy. Unlike those, though, they aren’t linked to any specific quest or activity: rather, think of them like standalone events you can utilize alone or with others. Syphons appear at random, and I’m usually lucky to find one per Blood Harvest or so. You can see exactly what they look like in the image above. To activate a Syphon, simply click on it and do not leave the red circle that appears on the ground.
The Syphon will drain a larger and larger portion of your health consistently as you stand near it, while waves of enemies and, eventually, Blood Seeker NPCs appear to remove you from this mortal coil. Why would you ever put yourself in this situation? Because the constant flow of enemies doesn’t cease unless there aren’t any players left in the circle. This means Syphons are a great place to farm loot, experience, Seeker Keys, and Hunt Board progress.
Of course, I probably wouldn’t recommend this optional activity to Hardcore players, given the fact that it’s very likely to end in your death unless you’re paying very close attention to your health globe. The key here is to chug potions, pop barriers and defensives, and stay on your toes (as long as those toes don’t fall outside the circle too early).
I find using Vampiric Syphons especially useful in completing the Whisper of the Dead (Tree bounty) that tasks you will killing two Blood Seekers, since they like to show up a little ways into the gauntlet of foes that appear. If you’d like to learn more about filling out your bounties quickly, check out your Tree of Whispers Guide for Season 2!
Published: Oct 27, 2023 03:54 pm