Out of all the oversized, powerful weapons in Monster Hunter World, the Insect Glaive is the best weapon, hands-down. It’s an advanced, yet satisfying weapon to use; since its combos flow so smoothly and it’s unmatched in aerial combat.
As somebody who’s used the Insect Glaive an honestly frightening number of times, I’ll give you the rundown on this majestic polearm.
General Info
To start with the basics, the Insect Glaive is essentially a massive spear that can somehow be wielded by a seemingly-normal human. Additionally, it comes with a robotic insect called a Kinsect, which has to be controlled manually by the Hunter. It is essentially a weapon in two parts.
The Insect Glaive strikes some resemblance to the Charge Blade, which relies on gaining various power-ups to unlock the weapon’s true potential. In the case of the Insect Glaive, a Hunter must use the Kinsect to gather four different types of essences from a monster’s body parts.
- Red: Increases the amount of damage dealt & changes the basic Insect Glaive combo. (Obtained by attacking either the head/arms of a monster) Lasts for 90 seconds.
- White: Increases the speed and height of the Insect Glaive’s vaults. (Obtained by attacking the legs/wings of a monster) Lasts for 120 seconds.
- Orange: Increases the defence and knockback resistance of the Hunter. (Obtained by attacking the body/tail of a monster) Lasts for 150 seconds.
- Green: Restores a small amount of health. (Obtained by attacking the tail of a monster)
“Wow, how did you guess that the Insect Glaive is my favourite weapon?”
The Good
Aside from its power-up ability, the defining feature of this weapon is its affinity for aerial combat. The polearm allows the wilder to take to the skies and bounce off monsters with a variety of spins, slashes and thrusts. It’s possible to never touch the ground during a particular Insect Glaive combo if you so wish. On top of this, the Insect Glaive has amazing reach, makes mounting monsters easier and has fast, rapid-fire attacks. Not to mention that the Kinsects can deal damage, trigger environmental hazards and create elemental and explosive clouds.
How does the food always look so good?
The Not-So-Good
On the other hand, the Insect Glaive is rather complicated to use, since a Hunter has to focus on so many variables during a hunt. (Kinsects, essences, sharpness, monster attacks, dodging, etc) It is also considerably worse without any of its buffs. Everything is weaker and slower than its charged state. This weapon is a hindrance without any essences; meaning that it has almost nothing going for it outside of that.
Not every weapon is perfect, not even the Insect Glaive…
Techniques
Depending on which state it’s in, a Hunter must decide which combo to use. There are just two: Standard Attack and Strong Attack. Additionally, they can be chained together and applied to both ground and aerial combat.
Below, I’ve listed the most important techniques for the Insect Glaive:
- Kinsect (Harvest): Shared between the forms. Spends the Kinsect to gather essences.
- Kinsect (Recall): Recall the Kinsect back to the Hunter, allowing them to buff the Insect Glaive.
- Kinsect (Fire): Fires a blast of honey that sticks to the monster. The Kinsect will continually attack this point until it runs out of stamina.
- Vault: Shared between both forms. Allows the Hunter to jump high into the air. From here, they can utilise air combos.
- Standard Attack: Mainly consists of light-hitting, fast-sweeping arcs.
- Jumping Slash: A mid-air attack that lunges at the monster.
- Mid-Air Evade: A dodge that can be performed in the air.
- Strong Attack: Mainly consists of slower but heavier attacks that deal more damage.
- Strong Attack (Red Essence): Fast, high-damage slashes, ending with the extremely potent, Tornado Slash attack.
- Strong Jumping Slash (Red Essence): A rapid attack that hits the monster several times whilst descending.
- Jumping Advancing Slash (Red Essence): A mid-air spinning attack that strikes the monster multiple times. Bounces the Hunter up if the last hit connects, can be repeated until the Hunter runs out of stamina.
- Descending Thrust: An attack that can only be performed in the air. Rapidly sends the Hunter downwards, hitting the monster several times and finishing with a sweeping slash that marks the monster with honey.
If in doubt, head to the Training Area. But remember that fighting an actual monster is much better practice!
Kinsects
Despite them not being as lethal as the actual polearm, the Kinsect is extremely important. As a result, it’s integral to select the correct one, depending on the monster you’re taking on.
Every Kinsect in MHW has six stats that determine how useful each one is.
- Attack Type: There are two types: Sever and Blunt. Sever refers to slashing damage and Blunt refers to heavy damage.
- Dust Effect: This will determine which effect the dust cloud leaves behind. You can choose from Blast, Poison, Paralysis or Heal.
- Power: This dictates how much damage the Kinsect deals.
- Speed: This dictates how quickly the Kinsect moves and returns to the Hunter.
- Heal: This dictates how much of the Hunter’s heath the Kinsect restores.
- Element: This references which element the Kinsect has. You can choose from either Water, Dragon, Fire, Ice or Thunder.
Ever seen a Kinsect up close before?
Aside from all of this, a Hunter must also take note of their Kinsect’s stamina bar. The companion uses up stamina when they leave the wielder and then regenerates it when they cling to the Hunter again.
Skills & Decorations
These are fairly situational and personal, as it depends on how you want to play the Insect Glaive.
As for me, I recommend most of the generic endgame ones, like Critical Boost, Power Prolonger and Attack Boost. These allow the Hunter to deal high damage without having to constantly reapply essence buffs. On top of this, you should equip skills like Weakness Exploit, Jump Attack and Constitution. These increase affinity for elemental damage and air attacks, whilst allowing the Hunter to unleash multiple attacks without having to land.
Get used to this interface, you’ll likely be seeing it a lot…
Conclusion
There’s a reason why I have so much playtime on this weapon. I simply love the Insect Glaive. It requires a bit of know-how to utilise and is extremely rewarding to play once you fully understand it.
And with that, I hope I somewhat convinced you to learn how to play the Insect Glaive too.
(Credit goes to RageGamingVideos and Cons OA for the video and images)
