Destiny 2: The Witch Queen All Glaives Ranked and Explained

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Kody is our expert Destiny 2 and shooter genre writer. He lives in Oregon.

The Witch Queen launched with several largescale changes to Destiny 2. Void 3.0 presented the first overhaul of a light-based Subclass, weapon crafting turned God Roll pursuits on its head, and a very unique weapon type, Glaives, may transition how players approach gunplay.

The introduction of a new weapon type is an exciting but rare event in Destiny 2. With a wide range of weapons already available, you know that anything new is bound to drastically shake up gameplay.

Glaives may prove to be the most interesting and meta-altering weapons to appear in a long time. So, what makes this new weapon type so special? How do you unlock them and how many are there? Read on for everything you need to know about Glaives.

What Are Glaives in Destiny 2?

The Glaive is a hybrid ranged and melee weapon type that currently sits in your Special Weapon slot. Unlike random weapon pickups, such as the Scorch Cannon or Hammer from Season of the chosen—you run with this weapon entirely in the first person.

Along with being a hybrid weapon, it also includes defensive capabilities. When aiming down sites, you’ll activate a shield that can take on virtually any damage that hits it head-on. This will diminish rapidly as you use it and recharges from successful ranged attacks.

How Do You Get Your First Glaive?

Earning your first Glaive is incredibly easy and is directly integrated within The Witch Queen campaign. You just need to complete the first campaign mission and unlock the ability to access the Enclave. This will introduce you to weapon crafting and walk you through the process of creating your first Legendary Glaive.

All Glaives Ranked in Destiny 2 The Witch Queen

Every Glaive currently in the game can be crafted. They are all unlocked in different ways, and most of them will also drop from specific activities. So, which of these Glaives are worth spending hours upgrading and Reshaping with different Perks? Let’s rank them and find out.

1. Lubrae’s Ruin

A Glaive taken from the Darkness

Lubrae’s Ruin may be the most surprising drop from the Vow of the Disciple Raid. It honestly should have been the Exotic Glaive included with this expansion based on how it looks and plays. The base stats aren’t all that different from The Enigma. What adjustments are there to make this Glaive more effective from mid-to-long range with a slight hit to range in exchange for greater reload speed and aim assist.

What sets it apart is the available Perks you can roll and craft. These are incredibly well-rounded and make it easy to focus on PvP or PvE builds. Favorable combos such as Graverobber and Swashbuckler, Immovable Object and Unstoppable Force, or Graverobber and Vorpal are all surprisingly even more useful on this Glaive. The only detriment to this weapon is that it can be difficult to unlock at first, and unlocking the Pattern is a total grind.

How to Unlock Lubrae’s Ruin:

Random drop from the Vow of the Disciple Raid or craftable after completing five Deepsight Resonance extractions.

2. The Enigma

Your first Glaive experience

You may just want to stick with The Enigma once you get it. It’s that good. It encapsulates the flow of using a Glaive and has a diverse set of Perks, Hafts, and Mags that let you fine-tune it around how you tend to use the Glaive. The primary drawback is the reload speed and overall shield duration, which you’ll have to make a choice on (although you can equip Mods for reload speed).

The Perks you have access to, while not as deep as Lubrae’s Ruin, still make for some incredibly useful builds. It does include Unstoppable Force, although you’ll need to run Subsistence or Feeding Frenzy instead. The upgraded Impulse Amplifier is also worth switching to once unlocked to get a substantial boost in firing speed and impact.

This is truly the weapon to fine-tune. There are plenty of options and it’s worth experimenting to find your Glaive playstyle.

How to Unlock The Enigma:

Unlock the ability to craft this weapon after you unlock access to the Enclave.

3. Edge of Intent

Warlock exclusive Exotic Glaive

Edge of Intent lands as the best of the three Class-exclusive Exotic Glaives. Which isn’t saying much, since these Exotics are incredibly lackluster. Still, this Solar Glaive can prove to be useful thanks to the unique healing turret that can be deployed in place of its shield energy.

This does mesh well with Dawnblade builds, but it simply isn’t vital to making anything successful. On top of that, while it may have a slightly higher impact, range, and shield duration— it falls sharply behind the Legendary options in aim assist and inventory size. All of this makes for a slightly tricked-out healing weapon that isn’t any better than the Legendary Glaives but takes up your Exotic slot.

How to Unlock Edge of Intent:

Complete all seven Evidence Board Quests as a Warlock, or collect as a random drop from the Wellspring.

4. Edge of Concurrence

Hunter exclusive Exotic Glaive

Possibly the most interesting thing about this Exotic Glaive is how it encapsulates the teased trajectory for the Arc Subclass. The focus on projectiles and offensive quickness are all present in the lightning projectiles you send out once your shield is fully charged. However, this attack has limited range and is stuck traveling through the ground.

Meaning, that it’s not incredibly versatile and requires you to be surrounded to truly get any use from it. This does make some sense, since the overall impact, range, and shield duration are lower than the Legendary options. Reload speed, aim assist, and inventory size is boosted instead. It’s a weapon that seems interesting on the surface. But due to some overall stat changes and ability limitations is far lesser than the Legendaries.

How to Unlock Edge of Concurrence:

Complete all seven Evidence Board Quests as a Hunter, or collect as a random drop from the Wellspring.

5. Edge of Action

Titan exclusive Exotic Glaive

The Exotic Titan Glaive may be the most disappointing of the bunch. It creates a defensive bubble shield once your Glaive shield is maxed out. But it doesn’t grant any buffs, lasts an incredibly short amount of time, and doesn’t synergize with any gear.

Since everything around this playstyle has synchronized so well with Void 3.0, it’s surprising that this Exotic didn’t do the same. On top of that, the stats are all over the place, with the base reload speed, aim assist, and inventory size being dramatically low. It just takes a generally positive trait for other equipment and makes it far less useful. And it’s attached to a weapon that doesn’t work as well as the Legendary variants.

How to Unlock Edge of Action:

Complete all seven Evidence Board Quests as a Titan, or collect as a random drop from the Wellspring.

How Do Glaives Work in Destiny 2?

The introduction of Glaives has seemingly been fairly polarizing. People are either really loving them or entirely frustrated with them. On the first try, I was definitely among the latter. The firing rate felt too slow to make for an accurate and deadly long-range weapon. The shield came off as odd and the recharge connection to attacks wasn’t very clear.

However, the more I used it, the more I fell in love with the Glaive. The method for using it became incredibly clear—it’s all about balancing the long and short-range attacks. Start by taking shots from a distance that kill or weaken an enemy. This charges your shield, allowing you to rush and activate it to take on damage. Then start stabbing away (ideally with a suppression benefit from the shot) to finish them and start the whole cycle over again.

It’s truly one of the most effective weapons for managing enemies and playing the mid-distance game. This made it incredibly useful for the Legendary campaign, where taking long-range shots, moving up, and the shielding was a regular strategy throughout.

Tips for Using Your Glaive

Using the best Glaives and knowing how to use the weapon is a great starting point for truly harnessing the power of this weapon. However, there are some interesting Mods, Void 3.0 benefits, and general best practices that can take your ability a step further.

Unlock and Equip These Mods

This Season’s artifact is filled with Glaive specific Mods and other augments that you should unlock and equip, including:

Suppressing Glaive: Every Glaive melee hit or projectile suppresses targets.
Suppressive Darkness: Suppressed enemies will also become weakened.
Glaive Dexterity: Faster ready and stow speed.
Glaive Loader: Increase reload speed of Glaives.
Glaive Scavenger: Glaives get bonus reserves when picking up ammo.

You may find that not all of these Mods are worth equipping at all times. It’s a bit of a balancing act to manage Armor Mods. You may need to focus on your other weapons or opt for the Unstoppable Glaive Mod for specific activities. So, be sure to focus on the Suppression Mods first—the rest are just bonuses.

Void 3.0 Fragments

Certain elements of Void 3.0 work incredibly well with the Glaives functionality. Be sure to explore attaching these Fragments and Aspects as part of your build:

Echo of Domineering: Increased mobility and automatic reload after Suppressing an enemy.
Echo of Harvest: Defeating weakened enemies with precision final blows will create an Orb of Power (Only works with the Suppressive Darkness Mod equipped).
Echo of Leeching: Gain 10 Recovery and trigger health regeneration with melee final blows.
Echo of Exchange: Increases Grenade energy with melee kills.

Keep in mind that you only have limited slots for Fragments and will not be able to use all of these. Additionally, the benefits from melee kills appear to be really hit and miss for Glaives. They’re still incredibly beneficial, but you may not see them work all of the time.

Using Your Shield

The last few tips here are focused on using your shield. I already mentioned how the basic cycle of this weapon is fire, defend and rush, and stab, stab, stab. However, there are some other nuances to the shield worth remembering.

For starters, when you aim down sites to activate it, firing your Glaive will increase the shield duration. Obviously, landing hits and kills will do even more, but it can be worth laying down covering fire even if you’re not actually hitting anything.

Second, your shield is a great defensive mechanism. When in close range or when you see incoming fire headed your way, pop it up. Try to use it to move out of harm’s way and then drop it to regain your full movement speed and hopefully retain some to use later.

Lastly, a tip not related to the shield. If you and your Fireteam are all running Glaives with Suppression capabilities, focus as much as you can on stabbing. You will be incredibly surprised how long you can keep an enemy down and how quickly you can take out a Powerful enemy. Plus, you get to recreate the bar scene from Shaun of the Dead constantly, so of course, you should do it.

Join the High Ground

Glaives have somewhat of a learning curve to successfully use them. However, once you get the long-range shot, shield, and melee flow down, it can prove to be one of your most effective precision and defensive weapons. Throw in a few Mods, specific Aspects, and Fragments, and you’ll soon find yourself consistently using and retooling your Glaives regularly.

Be sure to let your Fireteam know why they should be using Glaives by sharing this article on your favorite social channels—and sign up for our newsletter for the latest on Destiny 2.

Happy gaming!

Destiny 2: The Witch Queen All Glaives Ranked and Explained

What Are Glaives in Destiny 2?

How Do You Get Your First Glaive?