If the glaive melee is not going to get any benefits from melee-buffing perks, it should AT LEAST be considered an elemental attack when it comes to breaking shields or triggering elemental related effects like elemental armaments or path of burning steps, even if the damage buffs only apply to the ranged attack.
As it stands, performing a glaive melee is worse than a regular uncharged melee, which is really kinda silly.
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wait ....... its not ? granted I dont use them much unless I really need them, but I could swear it blows up shields when I was playing around with one