Swarm of Flies

swarm of flies incantation elden ring wiki guide 200px
Spell Type Blood Incantations
FP Cost 14 Slots Used 1
item effects icon elden ring wiki guide 55px 18pxEffect
Releases a swarm of bloodflies before the caster

attributes required elden ring wiki guide 18Requires

Swarm of Flies is an Incantation in Elden Ring. Swarm of Flies spell releases a swarm of frenzied bloodflies that seek their target and inflict Hemorrhage

 

A Blood Oath incantation, shared from the Lord of Blood's power.

Releases a swarm of bloodflies before the caster to assault foes. The vile swarm deals damage and builds up onset of blood loss. This incantation can be cast while in motion.

The new palace of the Lord of Blood lies in a swamp of festering blood, and these flies are said to spawn from excrement in that land.

 

Where to find Swarm of Flies

Where to find Swarm of Flies:

 

Elden Ring Swarm of Flies Guide

  • Blood Incantation
  • Stamina Cost: 24
  • Deals standard physical damage and a small percentage of magic damage
  • Can be cast while in motion
  • Can be cast while crouching, and unlike other spells the player will remain crouching after this spell is cast.
  • This spell's Hemorrhage build-up was nerfed in Patch 1.04.

Builds with Swarm of Flies

 

 

ELDEN RING SWARM OF FLIES NOTES AND TIPS

  • Updated to Patch 1.10. See Patch Notes for details.
  • Use Swarm of Flies as a zoning tool to force opponents to either run away or toward you. 
  • If opponents try to run away from Swarm of Flies, take advantage of the distance between you and the opponents by using spells that have long wind-ups, such as incarnation buffs to force the enemy to take a more offensive approach. 
  • Use Swarm of Flies to reset frostbite and make certain enemies catch on fire. 
  • Other notes and player tips go here.

 

 
Elden Ring Incantations
Agheel's Flame  ♦  Ancient Dragons' Lightning Spear  ♦  Ancient Dragons' Lightning Strike  ♦  Aspects of the Crucible: Breath  ♦  Aspects of the Crucible: Horns  ♦  Aspects of the Crucible: Tail  ♦  Barrier of Gold  ♦  Beast Claw  ♦  Bestial Constitution  ♦  Bestial Sling  ♦  Bestial Vitality  ♦  Black Blade  ♦  Black Flame  ♦  Black Flame's Protection  ♦  Black Flame Blade  ♦  Black Flame Ritual  ♦  Blessing's Boon  ♦  Blessing of the Erdtree  ♦  Bloodboon  ♦  Bloodflame Blade  ♦  Bloodflame Talons  ♦  Borealis's Mist  ♦  Burn O Flame!  ♦  Catch Flame  ♦  Cure Poison  ♦  Darkness  ♦  Death Lightning  ♦  Discus of Light  ♦  Divine Fortification  ♦  Dragonbolt Blessing  ♦  Dragonclaw  ♦  Dragonfire  ♦  Dragonice  ♦  Dragonmaw  ♦  Ekzykes's Decay  ♦  Elden Stars  ♦  Electrify Armament  ♦  Erdtree Heal  ♦  Fire's Deadly Sin  ♦  Flame Fall Upon Them  ♦  Flame Fortification  ♦  Flame of the Fell God  ♦  Flame Protect Me  ♦  Fortissax's Lightning Spear  ♦  Frenzied Burst  ♦  Frozen Lightning Spear  ♦  Giantsflame Take Thee  ♦  Glintstone Breath  ♦  Golden Lightning Fortification  ♦  Golden Vow (Spell)  ♦  Great Heal  ♦  Greyoll's Roar  ♦  Heal  ♦  Honed Bolt  ♦  Howl of Shabriri  ♦  Immutable Shield  ♦  Inescapable Frenzy  ♦  Lansseax's Glaive  ♦  Law of Causality  ♦  Law of Regression  ♦  Lightning Fortification  ♦  Lightning Spear  ♦  Lightning Strike  ♦  Litany of Proper Death  ♦  Lord's Aid  ♦  Lord's Divine Fortification  ♦  Lord's Heal  ♦  Magic Fortification  ♦  Magma Breath  ♦  Noble Presence  ♦  O Flame!  ♦  Order's Blade  ♦  Order Healing  ♦  Pest Threads  ♦  Placidusax's Ruin  ♦  Poison Armament  ♦  Poison Mist  ♦  Protection of the Erdtree  ♦  Radagon's Rings of Light  ♦  Rejection  ♦  Rotten Breath  ♦  Scarlet Aeonia  ♦  Scouring Black Flame  ♦  Shadow Bait  ♦  Smarag's Glintstone Breath  ♦  Stone of Gurranq  ♦  Surge O Flame!  ♦  The Flame of Frenzy  ♦  Theodorix's Magma  ♦  Triple Rings of Light  ♦  Unendurable Frenzy  ♦  Urgent Heal  ♦  Vyke's Dragonbolt  ♦  Whirl O Flame!  ♦  Wrath of Gold



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    • Anonymous

      if you're not running at your opponent after casting this to give you some cover for your aggression then you just need to stick to offline

      • Anonymous

        PvP use tips: This is a slow-moving incantation with okay-ish range. It is a decent tool for annoying your opponent in enclosed spaces. It isn't recommended to use this in a large open area, as it can be easily avoided by running out of its range. It can be evaded fairly easily if one has a decent amount of stamina and isn't fat-rolling. It can be a decent pressure tool, for both pure caster builds and caster/melee hybrid builds, assuming you are following it up with different projectile based incants or are going at your opponent with your melee weapon while the flies are chasing them. Spamming this is effectively a waste of FP unless you are ganking or fighting an inexperienced player.

        • Anonymous

          i really dont see how people think its a great spell in the 1.10 world. i use it on a 70 Arcane Dragon-Caster and its really useful for pvp but in pve it just isnt worth the mana compared to the standard workhorse Black Flame. i can get much more out of a Mohgs Spear or Rivers of Blood Ashe of War. its wild how little damage it deals for me and often takes 2+ casts to trigger Bleed. its still useful for sure but seems awkwardly over nerfed for me.

          • Anonymous

            "the new palace"

            If it's the 'new' palace, then there should also be the 'old' palace, right?Otherwise why specify that it's new. So Mohg has at least two palaces. Huh.

            • Anonymous

              People keep saying it got nerfed, but it really didn't xD its cool tho, if that means less people use it, that's cool :) (:

              • Anonymous

                Fought a guy named "Mr Cage" who just spammed this and Fire's Deadly Sin. I laughed harder then I should have.

                • Anonymous

                  There is a case to be made that this is the defacto best PVE Incantation in the game. There is almost nothing this spell doesn't have.

                  Strong tracking and relatively slow travel speed gives it potential as a combo tool and also breaks dodge AI, while also inflicting arguably the strongest status effect in the game, while also being chargeable to benefit from Godfrey's Icon, while ALSO dealing just enough fire damage to work as a Frostbite reset tool.

                  It almost doesn't matter that it's been nerfed because there's too many different fundamental things that make it busted.

                  • Anonymous

                    This thing is disgusting on every level. One cast against most mobs proccs bleed. And if an NPC forward rolls out of it you can roll-catch them and procc bleed that way instead.

                    • Anonymous

                      Only Blood Oath incant I don't use because it's disgusting af you're basically throwing ****-covered flies at people

                      • Anonymous

                        Wiki says it's physical damage but when I use it against giant plants they light on fire and start freaking out lol

                        • Anonymous

                          "And so, she lived in fear. Of the dark, of the things that gnawed at her flesh.
                          And yet! The Abyss hath YET to produce any such creature!"

                          • Anonymous

                            Equip Malenia set, then this spell when on a bleed build:

                            "I am Malaria, blame the mosquito, and I've never known vaccine"

                            • Anonymous

                              Does the bleed build up actually scale with arcane when using the Dragon Communion Seal? I'm really sick of finding out weapons and spells don't actually scale with arcane...

                              • Anonymous

                                Still a favorite of mine. Would be interesting to get one that doesn't track but does good damage with bleed build-up.

                                • Anonymous

                                  Love, love, looove this spell. Finally rolled an arcane-based character (well, technically, arcane with a splash of faith) for my most recent journey. It's been very satisfying thus far, and also a definite change-up in my playstyle after my first two characters (one a high-level pure strength/no magic whatsoever, and the other a mid-level strength/faith).

                                  Anyways, my first impression of the spell was definitely not good. I didn't like the way it moved, I wanted it to do more damage/blood-buildup... Just really didn't click at first. After giving it more of a chance and doing some experimenting, however, it's become one of my favorites that I always keep a spell-slot open for. The fact that you can move while you cast it is quite crucial, I've found, as well as the ability to cast multiple swarms fairly quickly. The icing on the cake is the FP cost. Once you become a bit more proficient with it, that low cost is a God-send.

                                  There's something immensely enjoyable about approaching some chonky, bleed-prone enemy from behind, casting one of these, and then almost being able to sense the enemy thinking, "what the hell is that horrifying sound coming from behind m-," right before you do a running attack with a Bloody Helice that perfectly syncs-up with the flies actually making contact!

                                  • Anonymous

                                    Respecced my character just to use this against Godskin duo and... it's friggin useless. It does hardly anything to them. Awesome.

                                    • Anonymous

                                      I'm so happy I cloned my original Steam copy of the game at v1.02. Obviously it can and should only be played offline and you miss out on some of the cool things the developers buffed, but damn is it fun to be able to relive the glory of some really fun weapons, abilities, etc. Although I am definitely enjoying the v1.08 online with friends.

                                      I think it would be a lot of fun if you could de-patch or un-update your games in an offline only mode that did not allow you to gain trophies or achievements, no cheating or any shady stuff, but just allowed players to see how the game evolved in a sort of developer mode. Many of my friends just got this game for Xmas and have no idea how crazy things were the first few months. I wish I knew how to make version copies when I was younger, I would love to play a completely fresh launch day edition of Dark Souls 3. I never got to experience it.

                                      • Anonymous

                                        The confusion over the damage typing probably has something to do with this being in the same category as the other Blood incantations. It probably does pure physical damage, but the Blood incantations probably also have the "Bloodflame" tag on them regardless of whether or not they actually have fire damage attached to them, hence the big hands freaking out when hit.

                                        • Anonymous

                                          Think the comments about this are confused on whether this deal fire damage or not because of some of its interactions but to clarify, this does not deal any fire damage as testing this with the fire damage tear had no effect at all. This may be the game registering it as a fire spell causing the hands to react to it as such but using any fire damage modifiers seems to do nothing. So no, this doesn't actually do fire damage.

                                          Maybe a mistake in the code though and this originally was supposed to be a fire spell?

                                          • Anonymous

                                            Don’t let the damage distract you from the fact that the tarnished can create relatively complex biological life out of nothing for this spell. Like yeah lasers, fire, and lightning are cool, but just spawning organisms on a whim is literally biblical.

                                            • Anonymous

                                              If you want to always dodge this with no buildup, roll the nanosecond you feel the controller vibrate. You'll get no bleed and no damage, pretend your meter is high to get a cheeky trade in too.

                                              • Anonymous

                                                This is really good against Malenia, and a little cheesy if you use it with Mimic Tear. I'm hardly ashamed.

                                                • Anonymous

                                                  Well. All these comments, the whole page about the spell but missing a few pieces of information that would be important, at least for me.

                                                  What's the buildup per tick, what's the damage of the spell and how does it scale?
                                                  You gave this information on the Grand Heal page or for Bestial Vitality. Could you please add this information?

                                                  Does the Dragon communion seal scale this spell? This information is missing as well, but is present for https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Bloodflame+Blade

                                                  Thanks in advance.

                                                  • Anonymous

                                                    Ok so does this do fire damage like the other blood incants? The wiki description says physical with a bit magic like it says for other physical incants

                                                    • Anonymous

                                                      It seems to stop working after chain casting it too many times. Tested on troll knight he stopped bleeding after second bloodloss no matter how many times i spammed it. To confirm he dont gain increased resistance to bloodloss I used dual bleed bandit curved swords at 99arc and every jump attack inflicted bleed on him.

                                                      • Anonymous

                                                        Tried this on an Albinauric at the farming spot at Moghwyn place. New game plus, 99 arcane, 80 faith, dragon communion seal, and it took 5 of these. Not to proc bleed, but to kill it. It didn’t proc bleed. I don’t know these guys’ resistances, but that seems ridiculous.

                                                        • Anonymous

                                                          Currently bugged in MP, If it hits you while in I-Frames it will look like it activates but instead it will become invisible and continue to chase.

                                                          Does not happen 100% of the time but seems pretty consistent.

                                                          • Anonymous

                                                            My favorite part of the game is having a host spam swarm of flies on the boss as i try and melee it, it really makes you FEEL like a blind person.

                                                            • Anonymous

                                                              Does this deal fire damage to certain enemies? Every time i use this on the giant hands they seem to burn

                                                              • Anonymous

                                                                Ive been having success with it so far. Running dragon communion seal on a heavy arcane build. Its a guaranteed blood loss on anything it hits. If not it can be easily topped off by a bleed weapon, bloodboon which is also really handy. Or just casting this again.
                                                                This might be useless info but The game seems to consider the spell as fire damage. Or it just removes frostbite for some reason. So in theory, you could cast this. Use dragon ice to proc frostbite while the flies are traveling. Then as you prepare the follow up breath the flies should have hit Removing the status while rapidly applying bleed to a most likely stun locked enemy. Causes blood Loss to trigger more stun. Just in time for the follow up dragon ice to reapply frostbite. Netting you a guaranteed 45 percent loss of max health on whatever you hit plus whatever damage dragon ice dealt. Nasty nasty stuff. Not sure about the effectiveness on npcs or invaders. But bosses or mid to large sized enemies. this should work with the right range.

                                                                • Anonymous

                                                                  Gne gne gne, From, bleed too op! Pls nerf!1!

                                                                  How many useless human being have cried on this? How much do their butts hurt after being hit by this? Play pve, and don't ruin others' games. Thanks.

                                                                  • Anonymous

                                                                    Gne gne gne, From, bleed too op! Pls nerf!1!

                                                                    How many useless human being have cried on this? How much do their butts hurt after being hit by this? Play pve, and don't ruin others' games. Thanks.

                                                                    • Anonymous

                                                                      This move is such cancer to deal with against people that really stack bleed. To help counter bleed, you use boluses, to use boluses, you need to create some distance, you create some distance, they use this. They should nerf the tracking at least so that it can't do a complete 180 and come back at you if you dodge it.

                                                                      • Anonymous

                                                                        As a player with only 17 Arcane I can get a bleed proc about every other cast post nerf. It's fantastic at staggering and stunlocking enemies like knights and omen. Leaves them wide open for jump attacks. It's not broken anymore but still a great incant.

                                                                        • Anonymous

                                                                          Bleed players really upset this got nerfed when they're still the best builds in the game. Like oh no now you need to get close to annihilate bosses for free. It's still good aswell what's the issue

                                                                          • Anonymous

                                                                            I like how all the top comments before the nerf are all "must have for bosses, helped me DESTROY Malenia" and then post nerf its somehow pvp's fault.

                                                                            • Anonymous

                                                                              This thing apparently does fire damage…? I cast it at a Miranda flower and it burst into flames as if I had hit it with a pyromancy spell.

                                                                              • Anonymous

                                                                                all these salty pvp players are ruining my solo game i tried going for a blood build and everything is getting nerfed so now i gotta constantly change every update

                                                                                • Anonymous

                                                                                  Glad it got hit with the nerd bat. Now I go I to pvp and it isn't a three-man squad just spamming this at me. The game is more fun, for me at least. Besides, faith already has the best toolkit in the game, it literally has a hard counter for every situation in pve. This wasn't needed.

                                                                                  • Anonymous

                                                                                    For all the "yep, this is in a good place now" people. What exactly is the point of this incantation now? At exactly which point, do you imagine, should I choose to dedicate a slot to a slowly floating pile of itch that unceremoniously floats over to a target to do a small poof and do absolutely nothing, over say - I don't know - any other direct dealing damage spell like lightning spear, black flame, flame sling, stone of gurranq, etc? Please, riddle me this one.

                                                                                    • Anonymous

                                                                                      Yeah it was pvpers that got this nerfed, not people cheesing every boss including goddess of get stunlocked.

                                                                                      • Anonymous

                                                                                        I love how people talk about bleed as if it's some kind of exploit and not a mechanic that has been in the series since Demon's Souls. Y'all just salty that someone one-shot you in pvp and you can't pretend to be a sweaty god anymore.

                                                                                        • Anonymous

                                                                                          wiki description should include:
                                                                                          "Now nerfed to hell even in PVE due to crying PVP players. Thanks FromSoft."

                                                                                          • Anonymous

                                                                                            There's literally no difference with the bloodloss build up since the "nerf". People being childish as always :)

                                                                                            • Anonymous

                                                                                              I find it extremely funny people complaining about bleed as of bleed doesn’t work as intended blood loss does kill you quickly…

                                                                                              • Anonymous

                                                                                                Still a great spell, but was nerfed enough for me to justify not using it because I didn’t like leaning on it so much. So yeah, as a str/arc Mohg Spear user: thanks for nerfing this and buffing Bloodflame talons.

                                                                                                • Anonymous

                                                                                                  Oh no, now you might actually have to learn to play the game as intended! Hopefully they nerf bleed completely.

                                                                                                  • Anonymous

                                                                                                    lmao to all of those anonymous comments who downvote and frown upon who's using this thing. The spell is far from unusable, it's still a viable choice if you lack bleed arrows and still triggers bloodloss pretty quickly on high arcane builds. I bet you're running moonveil+comet of ****ery to oneshot bosses and show off in the beautiful and balanced pvp section of this pve-based game.


                                                                                                    Casuls.

                                                                                                    • Anonymous

                                                                                                      yeah now we have to fight late game bosses that are gael on crack because they nerfed this
                                                                                                      good job nuking it FROM
                                                                                                      why don't you nuke bleed like ds3 and make it not viable for the rest of its life too?

                                                                                                      • Anonymous

                                                                                                        I simply don't understad people. At first they complain about this skill being too OP but whent it got nerfed they start to complain about this skill being nerfed.
                                                                                                        I mean... what?

                                                                                                        • Anonymous

                                                                                                          despite what any complainer says the spell still has an extremely powerful role. it just isnt the complete best choice in every situation. if you so deeply desperately want it to be broken again just uninstall the game and load it up without updates.

                                                                                                          • Anonymous

                                                                                                            I love it how Fromsoft nerfs everything that needs a slight adjustment and gives it the nuclear treatment.

                                                                                                            • Anonymous

                                                                                                              Honestly I just used it to kill the dragonkin soldier in Lake of Rot at lvl 20 with zero weapon upgrades post patch, still works super good for spamming at bosses. I know that's not a super hard boss but its end game and all my damage came from that or a +10 Lhutel the headless summon and I killed him 3rd try pretty easy.

                                                                                                              • Anonymous

                                                                                                                instead of turning this into Swarm of Turds, they should have buffed the other blood spells. Now the only viable ones are the bloodflame weapon buff and bloodflame Talons

                                                                                                                • Anonymous

                                                                                                                  Still ok for its stagger potential on certain enemies; just no longer an instant bleed on command button. Surprised this got nerfed; and yet Rivers of Blood is sitting pretty with its broken @ss. Miyazaki and his love of katana. . .

                                                                                                                  • Anonymous

                                                                                                                    For Arc primary builds (60-80 Arcane), the nerf doesn't seem all that substantial. I'm guessing the nerf will affect people who are barely exceeding the base requirements.

                                                                                                                    • Anonymous

                                                                                                                      The nerf is here. Looks like the 2-3 quick bleeds that you get from casting AND attacking are gone. As someone said there’s now a cool down that doesn’t let enemies/bosses bleed multiple times quickly from this. At least so far what I’ve noticed.

                                                                                                                      • Anonymous

                                                                                                                        Malenia: I am Malenia, blade of Miquella. I have never known defeat.

                                                                                                                        Bunch of red flies: ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?

                                                                                                                        • Anonymous

                                                                                                                          This spell unfortunately got nerfed. They put a prolonged bleed cooldown on this spell.
                                                                                                                          The way the nerf works is kinda strange, but if this spell bleeds proc the 15% max health damage. It will put on a pretty long cooldown which during about 3 seconds enemy will not receive any bleed build-up from any source. (Think of the enemy is bleeding (poison) during that 3 seconds.)

                                                                                                                          But this cooldown will not happen if this spell builds enemy 99% build-up and you use another bleed source to proc it. It eliminates the chain bleed you see in a lot of youtube videos where the enemy bleeds 2 - 3 times from one blood flies cast.

                                                                                                                          • Anonymous

                                                                                                                            Clapped as of 1.04.

                                                                                                                            Does half as many hits. Took three to four casts to proc bleed once with Dragon Incant Seal, Arc 60, on Fort Faroth dragon.

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