Path of Exile 2: Is Ravenous Swarm worth building around?

Ravenous Swarm is a new persistent buff Skill Gem in Path of Exile 2 that spawns insects that fight alongside you. While active, a swarm will spawn every six seconds and will deal physical and poison damage to enemies within four meters. The skill is different from other minions, as no one can target the insects, making them immortal. However, there is a default limit of three.

Undying minions sound like a great pick to build around, especially when they can poison enemies to bypass energy shields, but are they actually effective for dealing damage and worth building around? The short answer is no, which we will explain in the following section.

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Damage and scaling for Ravenous Swarm in Path of Exile 2 remains a mystery

Ravenous Swarm remains an enigma (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

Ravenous Swarm is an intelligence-based skill that can be acquired using a Level 4 Uncut Spirit Gem. It reserves 30 spirit and spans a bug swarm every six seconds. The base duration of one swarm is 8.6 seconds, but you can increase it with support gems to around 12 seconds.

While you can have three swarms active at a time, the availability isn’t as big an issue as their damage. At the moment, the skill description does not reveal how much damage the bugs do. The stats window for the skill only tells you the limit, duration, Aggro Radius, and what minion modifiers it is using.

After testing a Level 14 gem in a level 51 area, the numbers don’t impress. The skill was taking forever to defeat regular enemies. The bug skill may be bugged or require some changes to make it viable, but at the moment, it should not be a primary damage source in your build.

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How to use Ravenous Swarm in Path of Exile 2

Use Ravenous Swarm to poison or break enemy armor (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

As mentioned, support gems and minion damage nodes can help increase the number, but the scaling is still a mystery. A more effective way to utilize Ravenous Swarm would be to use it as a support for a different build if you have enough Spirit.

The swarm deals physical damage with hits, allowing you to use the Armor Break support gem and passively break the boss' armor during the fight. Additionally, you can also use Corrosion support for the same purpose, as the bugs also poison the enemy. That isn’t to say you can scale your build around Ravenous Swarm. The skill may perform well during the campaign but will struggle in the endgame.

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Check out our other guides and features:

• Path of Exile 2 Meta builds in 0.3.0: Best endgame options for each class
• Path of Exile 2: Great White One boss guide
• Path of Exile 2: What to do with the Shark Fin (Tribal Medicine)
• Path of Exile 2: Azmadi, The Faridun Prince boss guide