Sure blade

[Francis]

What exactly does it do/is it useful?

[Megabass]

From Henzell's learndb. http://crawl.akrasiac.org/learndb.html

Spell that gives much higher to-hit but only works with short blades. A great spell.
+5 to accuracy, and then an additional bonus of +dur/2 or something close to +5 again, depending. Pretty close to +10 usually. Note, if you ever get it to light blue (long duration), then it is _more_ powerful.

[mageykun]

What this means in practical terms is that you almost never miss. This easily cuts the number of turns it takes to kill most things in half, and is especially useful against anything with high AC or HP. It turns things that you would otherwise chip away at forever into something you can kill in a few turns.

Basically, if you're using a short blade as your primary weapon, and you aren't a berserker, get this spell.

[galehar]

is especially useful against anything with high AC or HP.

Isn't it more useful against something with high EV rather than high AC?

[mageykun]

Maaaaybe. Although I don't really remember many high EV monsters, excluding my spriggan ghosts. Mostly it's the standard every hit has an n% chance to miss you're trying to overcome. The problem with high AC or HP things is you can't afford misses: if you're going to wear the thing down with your dinky blade, you need every hit. Especially since anything built like a ton of bricks has a nasty tendency to hit like one. :p

My benchmark is the skeletal warrior. When you first start finding them, a short blade is useless against them. You'll barely get one down to 75% health before he's knocked you down into the red and forced a retreat (not to mention his buddies in tow). With sure blade, you can take one in 3-5 mele hits, and without taking a beating.

I see it more a way to increase my damage per unit time when it really counts.

[szanth]

What this means in practical terms is that you almost never miss. This easily cuts the number of turns it takes to kill most things in half, and is especially useful against anything with high AC or HP. It turns things that you would otherwise chip away at forever into something you can kill in a few turns.

Basically, if you're using a short blade as your primary weapon, and you aren't a berserker, get this spell.

Why not use it in conjunction with berserk?

[dolphin]

mageykun is probably referring to Troglodytes, not those with the spell or amulet, especially since mageykun started the SpBe.