danr wrote:So I'd take venom, poison, draining, distortion, pain or lightning on short blades.
venom isn't very good at all past early game, so I stay away from it unless there's nothing else.
draining's damage is multiplicative, and therefore kind of bad on short blades; prefer speed.
distortion is great, but too much of a pain for normal games; use on games where you need to get things out of the way more than kill them.
pain is splendid with good necromancy until extended game.
elec is good until late game, too; just about everything gets rElec at some point, though, so don't bother with it as your primary brand then.
Speed itself is also good (on sabres, at least), but really, though, if I don't have pain, distortion, or stabbing skill and a nice way to make things stabbable, short blades are just too much of a bother for me, what with requiring so many keypresses to kill things.