Scourge of the Skies: Path of Exile 2’s Most Disgusting Boss Yet

Path of Exile 2 Finding the Scourge of the Skies: Good Luck With That

Your journey to this delightful encounter begins when you take a boat from Kingsmarch to Shrike Island. Prepare for a scenic tour of frustrating canals and winding paths that seem designed to make you question your life choices. The island itself is the quest zone, and your objective is to simply “explore” it. Thanks, GGG, very specific.

Because Path of Exile 2 maps are procedurally generated, I can’t just give you a neat little map with an “X” on it. That would be too easy. You’ll have to wander around the Corrupted Nests, which is your main clue. When you stumble upon a checkpoint for this area and see a massive, suspiciously boss-arena-looking nest made of giant trees and rocks with only one way in… congratulations. You’ve found your feathered doom.

Scourge of the Skies’ Moveset: A Symphony of Gross

For a boss named “Scourge of the Skies,” this thing surprisingly stays put for a lot of the fight, especially if you have minions to distract it. Don’t get complacent, though. It has a limited, yet brutally effective, arsenal of attacks designed to make you miserable.

• Corpse Barrage: The boss rears its head back and vomits a disgusting volley of corpses that splash across the ground in a wide area. It’s as lovely as it sounds and hits like a truck.
• Feather Wall: It summons a curved line of spectral feathers that pop out of the ground after a short delay. Getting hit by this is a trifecta of suffering: it deals damage, inflicts a nasty bleed, and applies a 30% slow. Good luck dodging anything after that.
• Crimson Fire Spit: The Scourge will spit three lines of searing red fire. This is your classic “don’t stand in the fire” mechanic, but it’s fast and covers a lot of ground.
• Peck Attack: If you get too close, it will try to peck you into oblivion. It’s a standard melee attack, but you should still avoid it.
• The Plagueling Pounce: Just when you think you’re getting the hang of it, around the 50% health mark, a “Plagueling” bursts from the Scourge’s chest, complete with its own health bar. Remember Chetza, the Feathered Plague? It’s basically that all over again, because one annoying bird boss clearly wasn’t enough.
• Rain of Viscera: The boss flaps its wings and unleashes a continuous, tracking rain of blood and bodies from the sky. Just keep moving, and don’t look up.

How to Beat the Scourge of the Skies: Dodge, Dip, Dive, and Dodge

Mobility is your best friend in this fight. The Scourge of the Skies is all about layering area-of-effect (AoE) attacks to corner you and wear you down.

The number one priority is to avoid the Feather Wall. The slow and bleed combo is absolutely devastating. That five-second bleed feels like an eternity as your health globe vanishes while you’re trying to limp away from the next corpse-splosion. Keep your distance and be ready to use your movement skill the moment you see the feathers appear.

When it starts spitting crimson fire or regurgitating corpses, your best bet is to get to its side or behind it. While it will eventually turn to face you, this brief window is your prime opportunity to deal some damage without being directly in the line of fire.

Once the Plagueling spawns at 50% health, the fight becomes a chaotic dance. You now have two targets to worry about. Depending on your build, you might want to focus down the smaller Plagueling first to reduce the number of attacks you need to dodge. If you have strong AoE damage, you can try to cleave them down together, but don’t let the little one distract you from the Scourge’s much deadlier attacks.

The key to victory is patience. This isn’t a fight you can just brute-force by standing still and mashing buttons. You need to constantly be moving, anticipating its next volley of filth, and chipping away at its health whenever you have a safe opening. Stay on your toes, keep your health potions ready, and eventually, this avian abomination will fall.

Once you’ve finally put the Scourge of the Skies out of its misery (and yours), you’ll be rewarded with another piece of the weapon for “The Search” quest and, more importantly, the sweet, sweet satisfaction of having conquered another one of GGG’s infuriatingly well-designed bosses. Now go wash your hands; this fight was just plain unsanitary.