Facebook
Reddit
Email
Everything you need to know about Insect Glaive in Monster Hunter Wilds, including its basic combos, Focus Strike, and more.
Insect Glaive, like the Long Sword, is a highly technical weapon. While the basic combos of the Insect Glaive are fairly straightforward, managing your Kinsects and their elemental properties is where the complexity of this weapon lies. Unlike other contemporary melee weapons, the Insect Glaive isn’t reliant on raw damage.
Instead, the bulk of this weapon type’s damage comes courtesy of the buffs provided by the Kinsect. The Insect Glaive in Monster Hunter World wasn’t nearly as powerful as other melee weapon types. Although you could make it go toe-to-toe against some of Iceborne’s end-game challenges, it was still a heavily skill-driven weapon. To make Insect Glaive effective, you essentially had to craft specialized builds.
In Monster Hunter Rise, however, Insect Glaive received a substantial buff. The Insect Glaive in MH Rise was much easier to use compared to MH World. Furthermore, the weapon also received buffs to its raw damage, making it viable even for newcomers. Those trends seem to continue with MH Wilds. Here’s everything you need to know about the Insect Glaive in Monster Hunter Wilds.
How To Use the Insect Glaive in Monster Hunter Wilds?
The Insect Glaive requires a fair bit of dexterity to properly use, even with the improvements made in Monster Hunter Wilds. It’s one of the few melee weapons in Monster Hunter that offers aerial combat capabilities.
The Insect Glaive works in two parts. First is the Kinsect, which harvests extracts from monsters to provide you with temporary buffs. Unlike in the case of the Hunting Horn, the buffs provided by the Kinsect are limited to the Galive-wielder only. Furthermore, there are four different extracts that you need to be mindful of – red, white, orange, and green. Depending on the extract’s color, you gain different buffs, which can be stacked, albeit up to a limit.
The second part is the Glaive itself. Using the Kinsect, you can vault in midair during most of the Insect Galive’s combos. Furthermore, the weapon also has combos that can be performed while you’re airborne. You can also use the Kinsect to mark a specific point on the monster where you want to focus your attacks. Although the weapon doesn’t have any defensive skills, its agility more than makes up for that. Here are the basic combos for the Insect Glaive:
| Combos | Button Combinations (PlayStation/Xbox) |
|---|---|
| Rising Slash Combo | Triangle > Triangle > LS+Triangle/Y > Y > LS+Y |
| Wide Sweep | Circle/B |
| Kinsect Harvest Extract | R2+Triangle/RT+Y |
| Charge | R2+Hold-Triangle/RT+Hold-Y |
| Kinsect Boost | Triangle+LS(up) (after Charge)/Y+LS(up) (after Charge) |
| Kinsect Recall | R2+Circle/RT+B |
| Kinsect Mark Target | R2/RT |
| Kinsect Fire | Hold-R2+R1/Hold-RT+RB |
| Vault | R2+Cross/RT+A |
| Jumping Advancing Slash | Triangle (while jumping using Vault)/Y (while jumping using Vault) |
| Jumping Slash | Circle (while jumping using Vault)/B (while jumping using Vault) |
| Midair Evade | Cross (while jumping using Vault)/ A (while jumping using Vault) |
| Charge (Extract) | Hold-Circle (with red extract)/Hold-B (with red extract) |
| Descending Slash | Hold-L2+Cirlce > Circle+LS (up) (after Charge)/Hold-LT+B > B+LS (up) (after Charge) |
| Rising Spiral Slash | Hold-L2+Circle (with three extracts)/Hold-LT+B (with three extracts) |
Insect Glaive Offset and Focus Strikes in MH Wilds
Initially, the Insect Glaive in Monster Hunter Wilds lacked a dedicated Offset skill despite it being a major aspect of the weapon in MH Rise. However, in the full-release version of MH Wilds, the Insect Glaive’s Descending Slash combo will serve as its Offset Attack.
The Offset Attack lets you counter a monster’s attack while also dealing a good chunk of damage back to it. Furthermore, Offset Attacks also let you topple a monster, granted you have invested in Slugger skill. In addition to that, the Insect Glaive also has a Focus Strike – Leaping Strike. The Focus Strike not only deals a ton of damage to the monster’s wounds, but it also lets you harvest red, white, and orange extracts.
As such, the Focus Strike is something you want to keep an eye out for while using the Insect Glaive. Also, you can initiate a Focus Strike while airborne, albeit with some limitations depending on the monster and the wounds created. Here’s a look at the combos for the Insect Glaive’s Focus Strike:
| Combos | Button Combinations (PlayStation/Xbox) |
|---|---|
| Leaping Strike | Hold-L2 > R1/Hold-LT > RB |
The Insect Glaive is an incredibly fun weapon to use, which, with the right build, can dish out incredibly high amounts of damage. The only downside to the Galive is its steep learning curve. Although with Monster Hunter Wilds, Capcom has streamlined the weapon, it still demands a lot of practice before you can fully grasp all its nuances. As such, it’s not a good choice for beginners. However, if you’re experienced with Monster Hunter’s combat system and haven’t tried Insect Glaive out yet, MH Wilds does offer plenty of incentives to do so.
We will update the article as we learn more in Monster Hunter Wilds or MHW. Meanwhile, you can check out the following Monster Hunter articles:
