On Destiny 2’s Glaives

Glaives are odd objects. In reality, a glaive is a long polearm weapon, with a 50cm-ish blade on one end and a whole lot of long stick. But at the same time, the name Glaive is also sometimes given to sharp, throwable discs that come back, a bit like a boomerang. While Warframe uses the term “Glaive” to be a throwable, bladed, circular weapon, Destiny 2 has gone with the more European option, which is a blade on a big stick. And also putting some sort of gun on it too.

Destiny 2’s Glaives look cool.

The Glaive weapon type came out alongside the Witch Queen update, and is used to show off the new weapon-building system located on Mars. As part of a quest, we are given a Glaive called The Enigma, and there are a handful of other Glaives. The one I use, Lubrae’s Ruin, is actually from the raid Vow of the Disciple. How Glaives work is quite simple: normal fire is a mid-range somewhat gun-like attack, but if you press your melee button, you can hit enemies with the pointy end of the Glaive. Glaives tend to use special ammo, and you don’t get a lot of ammo when you pick up a green brick. But luckily, you can still melee with the Glaives, even if you run out of ammo.

Could do with a buff.

Currently though, Glaives aren’t that powerful. There are no real mods to use on Glaives, and you can’t unlock a Champion-stunning mod until later on via the season pass. When you do unlock it, the mod is also really expensive, so you need plenty of mod space. But there’s also the side issue that, for more general damage, you can use all sorts of weapons. Energy Grenade Launchers and weapons like Fusion Rifles tend to do a lot more damage than Glaives do, and have about the same amount of ammo.

Even the melee isn’t that useful. The range is a bit further than Swords, and Glaives aren’t restricted to the Power Weapon category. But Swords also do a bit more damage and get more ammo. For Glaives, the melee attack is more of a “shit I’m out of ammo” sort of thing. Both Swords and Glaives though are almost always outclassed by a Guardian’s built-in powered melee attacks.

They resonate with me.

Funnily enough, I actually really like how Glaives work in Destiny 2, mostly because I use them in my own writing. One of the more common weapon types in the Phoviverse is the Gun-Staff. These work pretty much exactly like Destiny 2 Glaives, being staffs with blades and guns on the end. While also having more ammo. Gun-Staffs are mostly used by the bigger races, namely Rethavok, and are quite heavy.

Despite not being amazing, I still really like Glaives. Not for a good reason though. I just love stabbing enemies with my Glaive, because it actually reminds me of melee in Warframe. Warframe’s melee is far more spammy than in Destiny 2. Still, meleeing is still a bad idea, as well as a good way to get oneself killed. I’m not giving up on Glaives though. They’re a fun, new category, and, frankly, they’ll probably be buffed next season.

For now though, I am gonna keep on meleeing things. Particularly Primevals in Gambit. Because, for some retarded reason, my melee Glaive stats actually somewhat worked for once…