Best Insect glaive

[warrickbartley]

Hi was interested in learning this weapon after primary being a longsword/ duel blades user,
but want to get a decent one, is the new behemoth one the meta at the moment thanks,
or is there a better one, have got the KT level 8 para glaive from the event.

[Nine]

The Gae Bolg is unfortunately not good. The current meta IGs are Cane 'Ruin' and Grunge Storm.

[warrickbartley]

oh really so Gae Boig isnt worth it then, what bout the kinsect thing you get when you beat him?

[JPM岩]

Originally posted by warrickbartley:

oh really so Gae Boig isnt worth it then, what bout the kinsect thing you get when you beat him?

Kinsect is the best Dragon Element kinsect, and I think you can give it blast powder, but dont quote me on that

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by warrickbartley:

oh really so Gae Boig isnt worth it then, what bout the kinsect thing you get when you beat him?

Pros and cons. In terms of straight damage, it's obviously the best. 15 power and 14 speed, with only 1 heal, plus blast dust for max damage. You can find 15 speed kinsects, but those trade in some power, pseudocath III is your choice there with 12 power, 15 speed. I doubt the difference from 14 to 15 speed matters.

True Dragon Soul is Blunt, so there are pros and cons there. Blunt is PROBABLY better, if you want to cut the tail you can use your glaive for that, and the head is the most important kinsect target anyway (red extract), where blunt tends to do more damage in addition to KO buildup.

The downside of 1 heal is negligible especially when the alternatives are 3-ish, I doubt many people use kinsect healing all that much. Having blast dust instead of para though is kind of a big deal, you gain immediate damage for a loss of potentially better damage/utility down the line (triggering para from dust is very doable).

Also a couple other things to consider. One, you only get one Dragon Soul AFAIK. It's a quest reward, so you can't just craft a second one. That means that if you want to switch elements, you have to pay the cost every time. Two, because of the appearance, it's very hard to see which extract it's picked up for you. Something you can compensate for with skill and just "getting used to it", but I'd still consider it a drawback.

Originally posted by JPM岩:

Originally posted by warrickbartley:

oh really so Gae Boig isnt worth it then, what bout the kinsect thing you get when you beat him?

Kinsect is the best Dragon Element kinsect, and I think you can give it blast powder, but dont quote me on that

You can give it any element, it will have the same stats. It does come with blast powder.

[Stormsong]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

Two, because of the appearance, it's very hard to see which extract it's picked up for you. Something you can compensate for with skill and just "getting used to it", but I'd still consider it a drawback.

You could just look at what color the beetle icon on the HUD becomes.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by Stormsong the Fallen:

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

Two, because of the appearance, it's very hard to see which extract it's picked up for you. Something you can compensate for with skill and just "getting used to it", but I'd still consider it a drawback.

You could just look at what color the beetle icon on the HUD becomes.

True, but the hud is way up there and the kinsect is the thing I'm already looking at when I send it out. It's not an insurmountable problem like I said, it's just a small issue. We're talking about the difference of 4 points of damage from something that doesn't hit all that often, so if it affects your play ANY it might actually be more significant.

[jrubz]

Insect Glaive hits too fast to have a "best of" metaweapon. Having different boosts and elements on each could help bring one over the other in terms of situation too.

I would say that the Gae Bolg might actually be in direct competition with the Jho glaive for dragon element, depending on the weakpoint being weaker to physical (Jho glaive would probably win) or not so physically weak (Gae Bolg would win out from element)

as far as the best bug? Idk. I just tried IG for the first time a week ago. I just used the Sould of the Dragoon for looks. Your glaive will be your damager most of the time anyways.

[tag545]

considering how the insect glaive has a diablos tree then i would guess that it by default would be the best insect glaive for damage outside of a few specific monsters.

by my understanding, other than the dual blades, when we include motion values and other variables for melee weapons, raw damage beats out elemental builds for most monsters. for bows it would be the opposite and dual blades are at the middle ground.

for the meta dragon would be especially bad as most elders, which would be the toughest monsters, are pretty resistent to dragon and those who are weak to it like xeno and vaal have fire as a better option. especially vaal which is resistent to dragon until you break parts.

i wasnt really a fan of the new bug vs my original. since i use explosion powder, speed is far more important than any other stat as the number of hits and thus the number of explosives left on the field is the damage dealer for my build and not the actual bug.

[Linguistically Inept]

Originally posted by warrickbartley:

oh really so Gae Boig isnt worth it then, what bout the kinsect thing you get when you beat him?

TDS is the best kinsect for purely essence gathering (basically a better psuedocath)... its also probably one of the better ones for purely boop return spamming (and nothing else); but thats basically a no damage playstyle ( i suppose it doesnt require many skills... but its definitely not something id want to see in multiplayer hunts)

you basically never want to set it to auto attack (pheromone shot/sweep) because its natural stamina regen is abysmal (heal level); so you cant really make use of its dust... the stamina is manageable if you boop return constantly (because recalling the bug gives stamina) but then you're doign ♥♥♥♥ all damage... its stamina is more than fine for grabbing double/triple up essences when needed (and its speed/power make it good at that) though; which is the preferred playstyle

but if you like setting your bug to auto attack (and utilise dust) then its pretty bad (though i think auto attacking kinsects work best on ele boost glaives; so stuff like cancadaman or bullshroud that have naturally low power but can sort of make up for it with elemental damage; whilst having decent heal levels) because your uptime will either be lessened or you will have to micromanage more (meaning less attacking with your glaive)

TL;DR, its a good kinsect; the 'best'... but depending on your playstyle it might be subpar to other options

[Shinzawa]

Originally posted by warrickbartley:

Hi was interested in learning this weapon after primary being a longsword/ duel blades user,
but want to get a decent one, is the new behemoth one the meta at the moment thanks,
or is there a better one, have got the KT level 8 para glaive from the event.

im an IG main and I hope my suggestions would reach you.

for sustained white youd like to have styx from luna x xeno.

for the highest raw dmg, the best one is grunge storm from jho, if you can cancel out its affinity and add white sharpness to it, it hits like a truck.

most versatile one for me is the catastrophe light from nergigante. blue stays almost forever, high raw damage with high elderseal.

i mainly use TGB or True Gae Bolg from behemoth just for support against monsters who are weak against dragon element (behemoth for example) since it has high dragon element, and jewel slots which are pretty convenient. also I occasionally use this if i want to see a lot of crits cuz yea the crits are just so yummy to watch.

[Shinzawa]

Originally posted by warrickbartley:

oh really so Gae Boig isnt worth it then, what bout the kinsect thing you get when you beat him?

TGB isnt that bad but its just that there are other IGs that are a bit better than it with just a little tweaks. mainly my issue with TGB is that it needs at least 4 handicrafts to get it to white sharpness. if it can get to white with just one jewel like jho, it'd be the best.

with regards to the dragon.ish kinsect you get from behemoth, its blunt with high dmg and blast dust which is pretty good but id still prefer the pseudocath 3 cuz of the speed difference.

pseudocath has 15
the dragon has 14

which is pretty noticeable if you've been using IG ever since, but i think its fine for you since you're starting.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by JRubz:

Insect Glaive hits too fast to have a "best of" metaweapon. Having different boosts and elements on each could help bring one over the other in terms of situation too.

I would say that the Gae Bolg might actually be in direct competition with the Jho glaive for dragon element, depending on the weakpoint being weaker to physical (Jho glaive would probably win) or not so physically weak (Gae Bolg would win out from element)

as far as the best bug? Idk. I just tried IG for the first time a week ago. I just used the Sould of the Dragoon for looks. Your glaive will be your damager most of the time anyways.

Sadly that's wrong. While elements are strong with IG, the raw damage just wins out with Grunge Storm over Gae Bolg. They can get really really close, but grunge storm always wins when similarly-optimized, even in the best-case scenarios for dragon element.

[Shinzawa]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

Originally posted by JRubz:

Insect Glaive hits too fast to have a "best of" metaweapon. Having different boosts and elements on each could help bring one over the other in terms of situation too.

I would say that the Gae Bolg might actually be in direct competition with the Jho glaive for dragon element, depending on the weakpoint being weaker to physical (Jho glaive would probably win) or not so physically weak (Gae Bolg would win out from element)

as far as the best bug? Idk. I just tried IG for the first time a week ago. I just used the Sould of the Dragoon for looks. Your glaive will be your damager most of the time anyways.

Sadly that's wrong. While elements are strong with IG, the raw damage just wins out with Grunge Storm over Gae Bolg. They can get really really close, but grunge storm always wins when similarly-optimized.

seconded. Ive tried both TGB and GS and GS just out DPS TBG easy.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by Linguistically Inept:

Originally posted by warrickbartley:

oh really so Gae Boig isnt worth it then, what bout the kinsect thing you get when you beat him?

TDS is the best kinsect for purely essence gathering (basically a better psuedocath)... its also probably one of the better ones for purely boop return spamming (and nothing else); but thats basically a no damage playstyle ( i suppose it doesnt require many skills... but its definitely not something id want to see in multiplayer hunts)

you basically never want to set it to auto attack (pheromone shot/sweep) because its natural stamina regen is abysmal (heal level); so you cant really make use of its dust... the stamina is manageable if you boop return constantly (because recalling the bug gives stamina) but then you're doign ♥♥♥♥ all damage... its stamina is more than fine for grabbing double/triple up essences when needed (and its speed/power make it good at that) though; which is the preferred playstyle

but if you like setting your bug to auto attack (and utilise dust) then its pretty bad (though i think auto attacking kinsects work best on ele boost glaives; so stuff like cancadaman or bullshroud that have naturally low power but can sort of make up for it with elemental damage; whilst having decent heal levels) because your uptime will either be lessened or you will have to micromanage more (meaning less attacking with your glaive)

TL;DR, its a good kinsect; the 'best'... but depending on your playstyle it might be subpar to other options

Didn't realize that kinsect "heal" affected the stamina. Just went and tested a 15 heal vs TDS at 1. I'm pretty sure they drain at the same rate, but the 15 recharges to full in just 12 seconds. I stopped timing the TDS after 30 seconds, it recharged about a quarter, it was still recharging for most of the time it took to type this.

[Malakith`4f]

I use Taroths Para glaive. It might not do the highest damage overall, but it has decent sharpness and you'll paralize the monster multiple times within a fight. Solo you might even stun luck them for a whole with it. Really decent weapon.