Monster Hunter Rise Insect Glaive guide: Best builds, weapon strengths, and more

Monster Hunter Rise, the latest in Capcom's long-running action role-playing game series, has finally made its way to PlayStation and Xbox consoles after being exclusively available on the Nintendo Switch and PC for more than a year.

Much like its predecessors, Monster Hunter Rise is chock-full of options for players to experiment with. From armor pieces to weapons to skills, players have complete liberty on the kind of build they want to pursue and how they want to shape their personal Monster Hunting arsenal. Every single weapon type in Monster Hunter Rise dictates a certain playstyle, with a host of skills and abilities tied to them.

With each weapon type being equally viable for hunting monsters, it falls on the players themselves to decide which weapon they want to use for their build and the playstyle they want to pursue for their monster hunting ventures in the game.

While all the weapon types feature some form of uniqueness in their attacks and abilities, the Insect Glaive might be the one that stands out the most. Here's a comprehensive guide on the Insect Glaive, its strengths and weaknesses, as well as the best builds that players can use with the weapon in Monster Hunter Rise.

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Strengths and weaknesses of the Insect Glaive in Monster Hunter Rise

The Insect Glaive, despite its size, is a very agile weapon and is easily one of the best weapons for players who want a balance between high DPS and mobility on the battlefield. The Insect Glaive excels at dealing elemental damage through the use of Kinsects while also boosting the user's mobility.

One of the key strengths of the weapon is midair attacks which, along with correctly timed combos, can allow players to basically deal a ton of damage to the monster they are hunting while juggling themselves in midair, keeping them away from harm's way. However, the weapon does have a few downsides, including some really hard-to-master combo inputs and a lack of any defensive options.

Here's a list of all the strengths and weaknesses of the Insect Glaive in Monster Hunter Rise:

Strengths

• High mobility and aerial attacks
• Very strong attack and defensive buffs from Kinsects
• Useful for quickly mounting monsters
• Highly offensive skills

Weaknesses

• Weak without Kinsects
• Hard to learn weapon combos
• Can lose sharpness very quickly
• No guarding (defensive) options

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Best mid-to-late-game Insect Glaive build in Monster Hunter Rise

This build is purely centered around countering most of the Insect Glaive's weaknesses and increasing the raw damage output via elemental attacks. Skills like Power Prolonger and Razor Sharp are crucial for this build as these add extra sharpness to the weapon, allowing it to deal maximum damage for a longer duration before requiring players to resharp the weapon.

As for the weapon, the choice for the build is Evening Calm, which is a fantastic and balanced Insect Glaive that players can craft using the following materials:

• 15x Nargacuga+ Points
• 2x Rakna-Kadaki Sharpclaw
• 1x Narga Medulla
• 42000 Zenny

For the armor and decorations, the skills to look out for are defense boost, weakness exploits, and sharpness boosts, which are instrumental in making the most out of the Insect Glaive and also provide ample defensive stats to go toe-to-toe with some of the most fierce monsters in the game, i.e., the Elder Dragons.

Here's a complete breakdown of the Insect Glaive build:

Weapon: Evening Calm

Decoration Jewel

• Enhancer Jewel 2
• Brace Jewel 1
• Steadfast Jewel 1
• Grinder Jewel 1

Talisman

• Attack Boost

Armor

• Zinogre Helm S
• Remobra Suit S
• Dober Vambraces
• Skalda Elytra S/ Spio Elytra S
• Golden Hakama

Armor skill

• Weakness Exploit Lv.3
• Stun Resistance Lv. 3
• Power Prolonger Lv. 3
• Dragon Attack Lv. 1
• Critical Boost Lv. 3
• Speed Sharpening Lv. 3
• Latent Power Lv. 2
• Flinch Free Lv. 1

The Insect Glaive is easily one of the most interesting weapons in Monster Hunter Rise. While its moveset and combo strings might not be very newcomer friendly, it is still a great choice for players that are somewhat experienced with the Monster Hunter games and want to try out a new and unique weapon type that, with the correct build configuration, can wreak havoc even in high-level hunts.