Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-110.146.149.161-20150813074512/@comment-25555436-20150831231826

Only because the Grimm and the WF mooks she's fought are useless, except more or less the lieutenant, who kicked her ass, and then vanished like Houdini, evading the train crash (or not).

At least most Semblances can be combined with Dust, and it's pretty reasonable that the weapons they use can activate Dust independently as part of their functions, allowing even the biggest Aura/Dust-Noob to be capable of using it.

However, you don't need to use Semblance or a weapon to use Dust. Hell, if all you wanna do is make a cone of ice or a fireball all you should use is Aura, not Semblance. Glynda's Semblance is telekinesis, did she use it to create the hailstorm? Nope, she just used her Aura, no need for her Jedi powers. The same with Cinder, whose Dust is in her clothes and she doesn't use anything Semblance-like to create any infernal barrage or summon her sword and bow in accord.

Weiss, however, has needed to use her Glyphs for even the simplest "spells", if not just use Myrtenaster's Dust-Blade function. This means that she doesn't know how, or knows but lacks the skill to, use Dust directly with Aura without having to resort to a Semblance or her weapon. Maybe it's just an advanced class, or maybe she's just a noob in that area, which wouldn't surprise me, she is one of the characters with the least experience pre-Beacon.

At the least, since her Glyphs by themselves only move things, it's possible Weiss knows how to create fire, but not how to send it flying towards her target without using her Glyphs to move it.