Insect Glaive Guide and Best Combos in Monster Hunter Wilds

The Insect Glaive is a very fast and mobile weapon in Monster Hunter Wilds. It is also the only weapon that has easy access to aerial attacks that allow you to quickly climb enemies. The weapon's special feature is that it comes with a small but very useful pet - the Kinsect. This fellow will allow you to extract buffs from enemies to further enhance your damage output and survivability, as well as enabling the use of higher damage abilities.

The ability to quickly use the weapon to launch yourself into the air at any time without relying on terrain or special mechanics, makes grappling enemy monsters incredibly easy. While your damage output in the air will be lower than when staying on the ground, you are also much less susceptible to damage this way. It is both a defensive tool and a great skill to use in group play, since your friends will be able to wear down your opponents while you ensure that the enemy is not using its most dangerous abilities - instead having to try and throw you off.

It is a weapon that requires a high uptime on enemies, as your individual abilities do not deal large amounts of damage with each hit. You will Instead hit enemies numerous times, and with the assistance of your Kinsect you can quickly build up status effects, destroy parts, and once you've mastered the Insect Glaive, you will have incredible high sustained damage against all types of foes while weaving between enemy attacks, chaining attacks together in a flurry of blades.

This guide covers everything you need to know about the Insect Glaive in Monster Hunter Wilds, from its mechanics and best combos to its strengths, weaknesses, and how to use it during hunts.

In the event you are looking for specific Insect Glaive builds, please click the link below.

Strengths

• High mobility – Combos can be chained while also dodging enemy attacks.
• Vaulting - The only weapon that allows you to launching yourself into the air at any time for easy mounting or to avoid attacks.
• Flinch, Tremor and Wind Pressure resistance for free.
• Great in party play due to its ability to mount enemies almost on demand.
• High skill Ceiling - Managing Kinsect and weaving between Aerial and Ground attacks makes for very skill-based gameplay.

Weaknesses

• No Guarding - Requires precise dodging and vaulting instead of blocking or countering to avoid taking damage. Parry is difficult to use.
• Extracting Buffs - Sometimes it can take a while to get all three buffs you need, if the enemy's hitbox for each buff is hard to hit.
• Close Range Combat - Being melee means staying close to land hits, which can be risky against certain monsters.

In many previous generations of Monster Hunter games, the question for Insect Glaive players all over the world that was asked by far the most, was whether they preferred ground-based gameplay or aerial-based gameplay. Historically, ground-based gameplay ended up putting out higher numbers, as Aerial abilities simply did not do as much damage as their ground-based counter parts.

Monster Hunter Wilds aims to rectify this issue somewhat, by returning the Vaulting Dance move set once again, and making subsequent Aerial attacks deal more damage the longer you stay in the air. Combined with the new wound systems, Aerial attacks have received a solid boost in the last open beta of Monster Hunter Wilds.

The reason for that is the way that Wounds interact with our Kinsect and our ability to extract multiple buffs simultaneously (more on this below). By using your Focus Thrust in the air, you thrust forward to attack and then flip back once again in the air. By itself this can be useful to avoid getting hit in a pinch, but more importantly, hitting a Wound will immediately extract all three buffs at once! Since the most powerful ability of the Insect Glaive consumes these buffs, being able to vault dance into another set of aerial attacks right after your Rising Spiral Slash, and then use your Focus Thrust to immediately recover all three extracts by hitting a Wound from the air.

With how much control vault-dancing gives while being fairly save from enemy attacks, this not only feels incredibly smooth, but also allows for very high damage using solely Aerial attacks - something that previous iterations of the weapon were missing.

One of the most unique aspects of the Insect Glaive is the Kinsect. It is like a pet that you can direct to attack enemies for low damage from long range, and when it returns to you it will grant you one of many buffs that further enhance your damage, survivability, and unlock powerful skills.

Collecting all of them will allow you to use a powerful finishing attack for massive damage, and you will want to have all buffs active simultaneously as much as possible. It is important to keep in mind that the Kinsect has a travel time, and depending on the type of Kinsect, this delay can throw you off a little at first.

The four Kinsect buffs in Monster Hunter Wilds are most often referred to by the color the buff has on your screen: Red, Orange, White, and Green. Which buff will be extracted depends on the location of the Kinsects attack, i.e. the Red buff is most often extracted by hitting monsters heads, while orange tends to be extracted from body hits instead. This is different for every enemy, and you will slowly learn how and where to hit enemies to get your buffs up as quickly as possible. Thankfully you can see which extract you receive by holding the button assigned to sending our your Kinsect.

Here is a quick breakdown of what each of the buffs actually do:

• Red - 1: Having this buffs increases your offense, improving your active damage output. Having this buff active also allows you to charge up certain attacks.
• White - 2: This buff improves your movement speed significantly, and also improves your jump height. It also further improves the effects of Red and Orange buffs.
• Orange - 3:This buff improves your survivability. You take less damage while this buff is active, and are also more resistant to weak attacks that might knock you down or disrupt your attacks.
• Green: When your Kinsect returns with the Green extract, it does not provide any additional buffs, but heals you for a small amount of your health.

The extract effects, while powerful by themselves, get even stronger when you acquire multiple of them at the same time. Not only will each individual benefit be further enhanced, but once you acquire all three effects, Red, White, and Orange, you will enter the Triple Up state. While under this effect, you are significantly more resistant to Roars, Wind effects and Tremors, granting you Flinch resistance. You will also deal much more damage, take much less damage, and can use the weapon' most powerful attack: Rising Spiral Slash. This will consume the extracts, but it deals incredibly high amounts of damage.

Under normal circumstances your Kinsect can only attack once and then returns with a single extract. During Focus Mode, your Kinsect will automatically attack without you having to aim it, regularly returning to you with the extract they recovered. You are also able to charge your Kinsect harvesting ability, which will allow it to pierce multiple body parts and returning with multiple extracts at once. Mastering this to start a fight will allow you to immediately engage an enemy with the Triple Up effect! Your Kinsect is charged when your weapon begins to glow.

You will want to try and grab all three buffs as quickly as possible at the beginning of a fight. The Triple Up effect will only last 90 seconds, even if you grab more extracts during the time the duration does not refresh. While Rising Spiral Slash deals tremendous amount of damage, you have to send your Kinsect out again to recover the buffs, so don't just spam it every chance you get. At the end of the day, the Insect Glaive is a high sustained damage weapon, not a burst damage weapon.

Kinsects come in two different variations, dealing either Blunt or Severing damage. Blunt damage type Kinsects have an easier time stunning enemies, while Severing damage Kinsects have an easier time cutting off body parts. On top of that, there are many different sub-species that each apply a certain Dust effect when they hit enemies.

A Kinsect that hits enemies, will periodically leave behind Dust clouds. Hitting these with your Insect Glaive will explode the dust, causing it to apply one of many different effects. The different available types for Kinsects are:

• Healing: Hitting Healing dust clouds heals the player. The explosion does no damage.
• Poison: Hitting Poison dust clouds builds up the Poison status effect on enemies and its explosion deal medium poison damage.
• Paralysis: Hitting Paralysis dust clouds builds up the Paralysis status effect on enemies and its explosion deals low paralysis damage.
• Blast: Hitting Blast dust clouds triggers an explosion that deals high additional blast damage.

Kinsects also differ in other stats, like their flying speed, their stamina to attack independently alongside your attacks or how potent their dust effects are. Some Kinsects are better for extracting Green extract to heal the player, while others allow the Kinsect to harvest more Extract during certain attacks.

There are multiple ways to attack the enemy with your Kinsect. You can send it out manually to attack a specific body part, which makes it easy to quickly collect an extract you need. You can also mark an enemy, and your Kinsect will try to attack the marked location until it runs out of Stamina before returning to you - and leaving behind dust where it attacked.

During Focus Mode your Kinsect will attack automatically. It will return to you after a single attack, and return an extract as well. Once you enter the Triple Up state by collecting the Red, White, and Orange extracts, the Kinsect also gains empowered multi-hit attacks, no longer returning to you and instead attacking continuously from wherever it already is. The movement and direction of these attacks are based on the attacks used by the player with the Insect Glaive themselves, and optimizing not just your own damage but ensuring your Kinsect keeps dealing additional damage as well will be key to fully optimizing your DPS.

Vaulting is the player's ability to use the Kinsect Glaive to launch themselves into the air at will, to use Aerial attacks. While other classes have limited access to Aerial attacks without being launched by another player, the clever usage of terrain, or after being launched by an enemy itself, the Insect Glaive provides incredibly easy access to Aerial attacks as part of its core kit. Most abilities will be used with the same button presses, so don't worry too much about having to learn an entire new move-set!

While in the air you can attack the enemy with a different set of attacks, which will not only extend your time in the air, but will also allow you to potentially mount the enemy. Mounted enemies are solely focused on shaking off the player, which can be incredibly useful in group play to allow your teammates to attack much more safely - provided you have enough Stamina to not be thrown off once you run out of it. When successfully attacking the enemy while mounting them, you will eventually knock them prone, which is the single best window of opportunity to deal some massive damage to them. Mounted attacks themselves deal very little damage, so do not rely on this gameplay as your main source of damage!

Many enemies are much less likely to hit and damage you while you are in the air as well, and you can even launch yourself into the air simply for the purpose of dodging an ability that only hits close to the ground.

Understanding how the Insect Glaive, your Kinsect, and its combos work is important if you want to keep up damage and stay on the offensive. The Insect Glaive is all about smooth, continuous weaving of combos, that work from both the ground and while you're in the air. Familiarizing yourself with the Basic Combos is just the start, as you will want to combine these into a natural flow, while avoiding getting hit by your enemies, for maximum damage output and the fastest and smoothest hunts!

Rising Slash Combo → Reaping Slash → Double Slash
The most basic combo, where the first two attacks can be replaced with a side-stepping slash, by holding a directional button as well as pressing the listed button.

1. Rising Slash Combo: Press / / .
2. Reaping Slash: Press / / again.
3. Double Slash: Press / / again.

Wide Sweep → OVerhead Smash
Your alternate Basic Combo that just uses two attacks.

1. Wide Sweep: Press / / to finish.
2. Overhead Smash: Press / / to finish.

Vault → Mid-air Evade → Jumping Advancing Slash
This is the combo that lets you move a large distance while in the air, to avoid enemy attacks or mount monsters.

1. Vault: Press both + / + / + .
2. Midair Evade: Press / / with any directional button at the zenith of your Vault.
3. Jumping Advancing Slash: Press / / at the end of your Midair Dash

Kinsect Mark Target → Vault → Jumping Advancing Slash
An easy combo to detonate your Kinsect dust clouds. You do not have to Vault immediately, but can wait for multiple dust clouds to have overlapped with one another first.

1. Kinsect Mark: / / to mark a location on the enemy.
2. Vault backwards: Press both + / + / + while moving backwards.
3. Jumping Advancing Slash: Press / / to strike down from the air and hit the cloud.

Once you got the basics down, it is time to step up to more advanced combos. They can be tricky to pull off, as the Insect Glaive allows you to mix and match your Basic Combos at certain parts of the combo. While some of these may seem like they simply are another combo entirely, hitting your buttons at the right time allows you to keep attacking while skipping some of the longer build-up swing animations.

As an example, your basic / / combo only has three attacks. However, you can then add a / / to immediately get an Overhead Smash, without requiring the previous attack of the Overhead Smash combo itself.

• The first and third hit of / / can combo into the final hits of / / .
• The second hit (or the first and second hit if combined with a directional button) of / / can combo into the first hit of / / .
• All hits of / / can combo into Backwards + / / .
• All hits of / / can combo into regular or directional / / attacks.

Make sure to Combo as many attack patterns as you can for maximum damage, and to use directional buttons where possible to avoid getting hit by enemies while keeping your Combo going or to keep hitting weak spots of moving targets!

The other major aspect to properly using Combo Attacks with the Insect Glaive is to successfully use charged attacks whenever you have the Red extract active. With the Red extract you will be able to hold down the / / button to charge up your weapons, up to 2 times. Your weapon will glow slightly when you have fully charged a stage. The first stage simply changes the ability to the charged version, with a -25% damage, while the second charge-stage will deal full damage. Charging in the air is faster than on the ground.

• On the ground, this allows you to use Descending Slash. The first hit of this can offset enemies, which can knock enemies of balance if timed correctly against their attack!
• In the air, your attacks will turn into Descending Thrust instead. This will cause your Kinsect to attack alongside you as well, and marks the enemy monster, which can be very useful to apply Dust to weak spots that are high up in the air.

After using either of these Charge attacks in Focus Mode, you can then press / / again to perform Rising Spiral Slash, the strongest attack of the Insect Glaive. This ability hits multiple times, consumes all your extracts, and leaves you in the air to continue vault dancing.

Combining all this knowledge, you can end up using a combo such as this, which combines the weaving of different combos, charged attacks, and the Kinsect extracts to its fullest extent:

1. Rising Slash Combo: Press / / .
2. Reaping Slash: Press / / again.
3. Leaping Slash: Press Forward + / / .
4. Strong Descending Slash: Hold / / to charge and release when charged.
5. Rising Spiral Slash: Use / / again while Focus Mode is active.

If you have fully mastered the Insect Glaive, you will then be able vault-dance after the Rising Spiral Slash, charge your Kinsect to quickly collect all three extracts at once, and keep weaving together attacks to decimate your opponents in a flurry of strikes.

The Insect Glaive in Monster Hunter Wilds is perfect if you like a fast, skill-based and high mobility playstyle. With two separate move sets on the ground and in the air, additional combat enhancement through Kinsect extracts, and powerful charging finishing moves that can fell even the strongest of beasts, the Insect Glaive is the perfect weapon for those who prefer a fast-paced combat experience to weave and chain attacks and combos for some truly astonishing looking takedowns and hunts. Masters of the Insect Glaive will duck between enemy attacks with relentless flurries of attacks from the ground and the air, and played well it can boast some of the highest damage output in the entire game.