I really like the insect glaive. I don’t play many weapons, so can’t really compare it’s performance to others. I use IG almost exclusively, but play the horn some with my buddies. Dabbled here and there with some other weapons but haven’t hunted with them much.
Anyhow, they added Kinsect Charge which consumes slinger ammo. If you’ve picked up ammo from the environment, the buff will double your Kinsect’s stamina, and also refill it’s stamina completely. If you got slinger ammo from the monster it’ll buff the damage your kinsect does. I prefer the environment kinsect charge, you can keep the kinsect attacking non stop by recharging its stamina.
They also added a new airborne move. Pressing R2 in the air will will do a descending thrust. The spacing takes some getting used to, but once you’ve got the hang of it you can use it to both gap close and do considerable damage. After the descending thrust your toon will also do a full attack combo ending with a tornado slash and marking the monster for your kinsect with the last hit. Landing right on their head also seems to stagger them pretty frequently as well.
Additionally, you can use the clutch claw while you’re in the air by pressing L2. Convenient way to get on the monster easily.
I really enjoy the glaive and like what they’ve done with it in Iceborne. It’s a ton of fun. The biggest downside, I think, is that it takes two Clutches to get a spot on the monster weakened. So there’s a lot of ramp up time before you really start laying down the damage. You’ve got to gather your three kinsect extracts, then get the part you want to focus weakened, THEN you start really laying into them. That said, playing with another player who does the weakening makes this much better. My brother plays the swag axe and he keeps shit weakened all the time, so I don’t have to worry about it nearly as much.
