INTRODUCTION

Nine months ago I posted a simple guide to glaives in celebration of my 1,000th kill on my Enigma and as a way of shining a light on a weapon class with a lot of potential. I know DFP and likely various other content creators have cracked 10K kills on their glaives, I was still particularly proud of my achievement as a largely casual player and I'm sure I'm still among the few who still use them. Nine months later and glaives have received numerous nerfs in both the Crucible and PvE, we've been showered with new glaives every season and we've even had two new archetypes of glaives introduced. Since then glaives have seemingly become even less popular in both usage rates and popular sentiment. With a new Trials glaive hot on the market and another 1,000 glaive kills under my belt, I figured now would be a good time for an updated guide to glaives. And perhaps we can decipher why they're so despised, how effective they are in the current sandbox and if they're worth your time.

PLAYSTYLE

In case you missed out on my previous guide I will briefly go over the general overview of how to play a glaive. Fortunately we have also gotten more insight as to Bungie's design philosophy regarding their newest special weapons. Bungie has described the glaive as fulfilling a "riot shield" type of fantasy. Already we have a partial answer as to the derision that glaives can cause. People generally seem to hate riot shields in first person shooters because they slow down the gameplay and can feel frustrating to fight against. Nobody likes feeling like they are not doing the damage they should be.
All three special ammo archetypes of glaives kill in two projectile hits at 10 resilience as well as three melee swings. I will caution you to mainly stick to shooting, rather than poking. A shame, I know. It's also important to note that a glaive projectile is not hitscan and instead has travel time that is influenced by the range stat of the glaive. This means that the projectiles landing can feel inconsistent at times.
So the gameplay loop of a glaive involves building shield energy through landing projectile hits. This shield gives you 50% damage reduction at the cost of slower movement. Playing around your shield is the goal of a glaive, not stabbing with it. Carrying this damage reduction into the next fight can be a powerful tool and catch enemies off gaurd. This however means that landing the first shot of the engagement is crucial to success and highly punishing if you miss. I recommend aerial playstyles and sneaky movements to get the first shot off. The skill ceiling of a glaive comes in it's game of resource management. Positioning, shield energy, ammo, and health all command your attention in combat.

ARCHETYPES, PERKS & ROLLS

We now have available to us 7 different legendary glaives. 5 Adaptive Frames, and one for each of the other two families. While every glaive has different perk pools which can change their value, some have a more obvious PvE focus. I will discuss each archetype and rolls to look for. Let's start with the OG:
ADAPTIVES-
The king here is quite new. The new Trials glaive- Unexpected Resurgance. It has the best stat package, will be able to take adept mods, has a pretty stellar perk selection, and has a useful origin trait to boot. Second place here will be The Enigma- the first glaive. It can roll the most desirable PvP perks and has great stats as well. Any other Adaptive glaive is inferior to these two for the sake of the Crucible.
Perk selection on glaives is fairly homogenous unfortunately. There isn't that much that helps them find success, so the few feasible perks are essentials. With both of these glaives I have to recommend Impulse Amplifier. The increase to velocity is a must-have for consistency. Landing that first shot for the shield is so important, anything to help secure projectile hits is too good to pass up. In the other column things are more up in the air. I'd recommend Unstoppable Force. The perk gives a 20% damage bonus when blocking damage with your shield, which comes up quite often. This perk can ocassionally lead to hilarious multikills. However, there are other notable perks. Joltshot could be fun, Vorpal is likely undervalued as glaives are surprisingly already pretty decent at knocking out supers, Swashbuckler sounds great but you may not find success when going out of your way to melee. Same goes for the perk Close To Melee.
Speaking of, if you're trying to conserve ammo, the Adaptive family can use one projectile followed by one melee to automatically kill any guardian with resilience 9 or lower. Also worth noting that each archetype shares the same melee damage at 68 per swing. The projectile damage for this archetype sits at 132 damage per shot.
RAPID-FIRE-
Currently there is one glaive in this family- the new dungeon glaive, Greasy Luck. As the name suggests, it shoots faster with lower damage output. Each projectile hits for only 106 damage. So it can secure a two projectile kill at any resilience, but just barely. Overshields and healing may hinder this glaive moreso than usual. However, getting those shots off faster is quite the boon. Honestly, I haven't played with Greasy Luck much. I plan to and if I learn anything unique about it besides the new archetype, I'll be sure to update this guide. As it sits, the best PvP roll is the same as the Adaptive family's top contenders- you're looking for Impulse Amplifier and Unstoppable Force. There's some good PvE play here too with other perk combinations. This glaive seems unable to kill higher resiliences in one projectile and a melee, so if you're lower on ammo, be prepared to swing two melees after your projectile lands.
AGGRESSIVE-
Judgement of Kelgorath is the only available Aggressive Frame glaive currently available. And I have to admit I think I undervalued it at first. I was disappointed that the premier glaive perks both sat in the last column and I felt the extra damage wasn't enough to make up for the slower fire rate. I'll say now that I was wrong and this glaive offers some explosive play and consistency that some glaives don't. Each shot lands for 147 damage. The archetype as a whole can secure the one projectile/one melee combo on any resilience. And while I first turned Judgement of Kelgorath into a PvE glaive with Demolitionist and Incandescent, I now plan on pivoting not into either Impulse Amplifier or even Unstoppable Force in the last slot, but to one of the highest damage buffs in the game- Surrounded. This allows Judgement of Kelgorath to kill a full health guardian in one projectile. The only glaive to be able to accomplish this. I know being surrounded by that many gaurdians in PvP may not be very common, but if you've ever gone on a kill streak with a glaive, you know they can be explosive playmakers and turn fights around. On a close range weapon, it just makes sense. Use your first shot to instantly kill one of your opponents and you now have shield energy with a hard hitting glaive for the next couple of guys.
Now, I haven't much discussed barrel, magazine, and masterwork options, and I'll say it's largely dependent on the weapon I generally like to go for shield energy, especially since I normally have Impulse Amplifier. Since we won't for Judgement of Kelgorath, you may be looking for a combo of shield energy and range to increase that projectile velocity. The first main trait slot is users preference but Shot Swap is there for handling, then several perks to help with the slow reload, and a couple to help your shield's viability like Immovable Object or Tilting at Windmills. The Ambush origin trait is excellent as well.
MOD SLOT-
Honestly I'd love to do more testing as to the efficacy of speccing into Airborne Effectiveness on a glaive, but currently I wouldn't recommend Icarus Grip. Faster handling can always be useful but I actually normally go with Radar Booster which I find surprisingly uncommon.

BUILDS

SUBCLASS & STATS-
Generally speaking I notice that glaives do best when paired with highly mobile builds that add in elements of healing or overshields. This automatically makes solar and void my favorite subclasses to pair with a glaive. Healing grenades on solar are fantastic and throwing one right at your feet when you're low and coming back out with full health and a your glaive shield up is highly potent. Then with void you can get overshields or devour going quite nicely. I'm sure arc hunter with blink and arc titan with a thruster are good alternatives, but they lack safety from healing. I stray away from Stasis and Strand with a glaive but I'm sure there are specific builds and exotics you can pair with any subclass to give them some glaive viability. Before we move on to specific exotic armor that pairs well with each class, I'll also recommend the chest piece mod Lucent Blade on any build to help the glaive with shield energy.
With a glaive build I lean into recovery with some resilience, while I treat both mobility and strength as dump stats to lower as close to 1 as possible. Mobility matters a little less (unless you're a hunter) and I'm being slowed down by the shield anyways. Strength is less valued because you cannot use your powered melee with a glaive equipped. Discipline and intellect can be adjusted freely for different builds.
TITAN-
Titans don't have many exotics that directly tie into a glaive playstyle, and the ones that do mostly buff the melee. Pretty useless in PvP. So, instead we look to any number of useful neutral game exotics. One Eyed Mask since you're blocking damage anyways, Anteus Wards to help guarantee the first shot for shield energy, Crest of Alpha Lupi for quick healing, ACD0 Feedback Fence to help out with anybody who gets too close, etc. The options are limitless, I'd be interested to hear any other ideas for a Titan's glaive build!
HUNTER-
Hunters have access to the only glaive specific exotic in the game- Triton Vice. Too bad it doesn't seem particularly great or useful. I'd actually rather go with Wormhusk or Bakris for conventional, everyday use. However, I will say that I could have fun pairing Triton Vice with the Hunter specific exotic glaive- Edge of Concurrence or an Incandescent or Volt Shot glaive for extra explosions, plus since you're encouraged to match the glaive and subclass element, you would be on arc with Edge of Concurrence so you could use blink as well. Unlikely to be overwhelmingly efficient though.
WARLOCK-
My main class. So I speak with the most experience here. Again, neutral game exotics are going to be most appealing, though it's hard at times to reject the allure of posion melees with Necrotic Grips... but no. I recommend going with Transversives with any subclass because the sprint speed to close the distance or run with a close range weapon is valuable, and the auto reload actually saves my skin constantly believe it or not. Alternatively, Wings of Sacred dawn for extra damage reduction and to throw off your enemies with aerial play is surprisingly good, hilarious fun. Lastly, Astrocyte Verse blink with a devour focused build is absolutely nuts at times and I need to use it more as I have a hard time leaving solar and icarus dash alone.
WEAPONS PIARINGS-
While glaives are fairly versatile and can reach out and touch mid range, I wouldn't highly recommend rocking anything too close range. SMGs and Sidearms are largely off the table (though you can make it work, a lot of SMGs also touch mid range anyways). Instead bows and scouts offer some appeal but the main draw here is hand cannons and pulse rules. If we're talking straight up usefulness, it'd be hard to ignore how good High-Impact pulses specifically are. No Time To Explain, The Messenger and numerous others will serve you well. Lately I've personally been trying out Randy's Throwing Knife and it's been a blast. Most good glaives also don't take up the exotic slot, so the world of exotic primaries is open to you. I personally also scored hundreds of kills with Lumina while using my glaive, and the damage bonus is substantial.

EXOTIC GLAIVES

We now have access to 5 exotic glaives. Three class specific glaives, Vexcalibur and the heavy slot glaive- Winterbite. We will briefly review them.
EDGE OF ACTION-
The Titan exotic glaive. Functioning as a normal glaive, the unique function is exchanging a fully charged glaive shield into a mini-Ward of Dawn. While absolutely hilarious and amazing, it's pretty bad.
Though it has some PvE utility since it works with Helm of Saint 14 now, it isn't useful in PvP. And I'll just go ahead and say that all three of the exotic glaives are pretty bad and it's mostly because the trigger to the unique function of each is full glaive shield energy. Not only does this mean that you must land at least 4 shots to fully charge your shield, but it also means that you cannot even use your shield energy because you're so busy consuming it for the special function. I'm sorry, but I'd rather use my entire shield to fight than to pop a small and short lived Ward of Dawn.
EDGE OF CONCURRENCE-
This might be the best class exotic glaive for PvP (which isn't saying much at all). This one at least offers an interesting choice between your defensive natured shield energy and your offensive natured exotic ability to shoot a tracking bolt of lightning at someone. I could see this one making some fun clips with limited utility, but let's be honest, if you can make this glaive work then you could make most legendary glaives work better.
EDGE OF INTENT-
I want to love this glaive so bad. I use Lumina and Boots of the Assembler so much, so the idea of using a healing glaive is so appealing. But it's just not good. In fact, it's downright terrible. In exchange for full glaive shield energy you can deploy a healing turret that shoots allies. Even with it's buff, I've never seen it used. Not in PvE and especially not in the Crucible. This might be the worst glaive in the game.
VEXCALIBUR-
What a fun, unique exotic. I have limited use with it in PvP and I must say I like normal glaives better just for the added range and longer glaive shield, but I could see some potential here. The Vexcalibur shoots 5 pellets like a shotgun with limited range. Each pellet does 29 damage for a total of 145 damage if they all land. The shield is then also quick to drain, but grants an overshield instead. Melee kills refresh and extend your void overshield. This could have potential with void specific builds. All in all this is more of a PvE weapon, but I will be keeping my eye on it and upgrade it further soon to see it's full potential. If all pellets land the Vexcalibur can indeed pull off the one shot/one melee combo against any resilience.
WINTERBITE-
The first heavy glaive. So I actually had no idea as to how this thing worked in PvP until I started doing testing for this write-up. Turns out it seems pretty fun and surprisingly potent. So without any ammo the Winterbite actually still retains the standard 68 melee damage per swing. Not insanely useful but it's already doing more than any other heavy weapon without ammo. With ammo, the exotic perk gives it added melee damage which allows it to kill in two melees instead of three with each swing doing 101 damage. Each heavy brick give only one ammo (like a rocket launcher). This projectile is better than I thought it'd be. It's a little slow but seems to find it's target well enough and does a whopping 381 damage. I'm unironically going to rock this glaive more in PvP.

THE META

My last guide had an entire section dedicated to glaive counters. Glaives have been hit with repeated nerfs in PvE and PvP since then. So instead of only talking about specific counters, I figured I could wrap things up by talking about the history of glaives and their place in the meta as a whole. As far as counters go, I don't feel the need to point many out specifically because you don't need anything specific to counter a glaive. Even with 50% damage reduction, in all likelihood you will kill any glaive used with your special weapons or plinking away with a primary. When glaives dropped with Witch Queen, glaive shields carried a hefty 75% damage reduction. While still not topping usage charts, they were actually very potent in this state. They were kept at bay by the underwhelming ammo economy. You would only gain one ammo back per special brick. Given that it takes two shots to down a guardian, this annoyed players and steered them away. However, with the starting ammo reserves of around 4 shots, I actually found this to be the healthiest glaive meta. They were absolutely explosive playmakers that could wipe out entire teams, but you had to be very careful with your ammo. And this is a point I need to iterate that I believe many fail to consider: half the ammo means half glaive shield buildup. Not only does more ammo mean more potential kills, but it's also double the glaive shield buildup and it's far less punishing to miss a shot. This also made the one projectile/one melee combo to be "canon" and legitimately useful when low on ammo, truly leaning into the hybrid firearm/melee fantasy.
When they doubled the amount of ammo received per brick to 2 and the community was starting to really talk about damage reduction in PvP more, Bungie got scared and nerfed glaives several times before usage rates even got high. Now, I will admit, glaives were very powerful when they first changed the ammo economy. But the nerfs we received were numerous. Ignoring the many PvE nerfs, they still nerfed projectile damage, Unstoppable Force's damage bonus and of course reduced the 75% damage reduction from the shield to 50%. One or two of these changes were warranted. But all of them combined lowered the utility to nothing. Glaives are not good in the current meta. I find some success with them, but it's through building into them, practice, and doing everything I can to trick and outsmart my opponents. I play on console. I've done some PC lobbies and can also guarantee that it's even more difficult to make work against opponents on mouse and keyboard. I've seen reaction times that kill me in the time between my projectile landing and my glaive shield coming up. And special weapons just chew through the shields regardless.
My thoughts on buffing glaives in the Crucible would be either reverting many changes including the ammo economy changes. Higher damage reduction with special ammo bricks only giving one shot. Alternatively, if they're going to do less damage, with less damage reduction then other aspects of the glaives should be changed. Perhaps faster strafe speed at base to move easier from cover to cover. Perhaps a base velocity or range buff for all glaives or even converting them into hitscan weapons. Perhaps more melee damage. It's Bungie's world and we just live in it. Speaking of, where's my stasis glaive with chill clip, BUNGO?!

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Glaives offer one of the most unique and involved playstyles in Destiny 2. While not the most effective in the Crucible, they have a high-skill ceiling that can be fun to climb. They draw the ire of many in the first person shooter genre and will guarantee twice as many hate messages and t-bags. Despite it all, they stay glued to my inventory and are my favorite weapon class. I hope that this write-up made you consider taking a glaive for a spin for one or two matches and maybe even changed some hearts and minds. If any information I provided is inaccurate or you have counterpoints, I welcome discourse. I don't often do stuff like this but I noticed a distinct lack of glaive information out there and wanted to bring some attention to the weapon type I most wanted to master. I'd love to hear or see your favorite glaive moments and plays. Build ideas, weapon pairings, and perk combos I didn't mention are all welcome. Thank you so much for reading and I hope to cross paths or cross glaives. - Lupus_Bellator

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