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The '''Short Blades''' skill denotes how adept your character is at using short bladed weapons. Although these weapons have the lowest base damage in the game, you can attack fast with them, and they do obscene amounts of damage when used for [[stabbing]]. This skill [[crosstrain]]s with the [[Long Blades]] skill.

Short Blades use [[dexterity]] instead of [[strength]] for their attacks.

{{skill aptitudes}}

==List of Short Blades==

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Name || Dam || Hit || Delay || Min delay || Hands || Size || Cuts Hydras?
|-
| [[Dagger]] || 4 || +6 || 10 || 5 (10 skill) || One || Any || No
|-
| [[Quick blade]] || 4x2 || +6 || 12 || 5 (14 skill) || One || Any || No
|-
| [[Short sword]] || 5 || +4 || 10 || 5 (10 skill) || One || Any || No
|-
| [[Rapier]] || 7 || +4 || 12 || 5 (14 skill) || One || Any || No
|-
|}

==Strategy==
Short Blades are good at two things:

*They receive bonus damage from [[stabbing]]. Great if your character has a consistent way to stab things. [[Hexes]] are the most obvious means to do so. Both [[Uskayaw]] and [[Gozag]] offer ways to stab things, even [[orbs of fire]].

*They attack quickly. All Short Blades have a mindelay of 0.5, and [[quick blade]]s attack at twice that speed. They are great with flat damage procs. [[Slaying]] gives you +1 damage per swing, no matter how how strong your attack is. So the faster you swing, the more you benefit. Other than slaying, [[auxiliary attack]]s and certain [[brand]]s ([[venom]], [[electrocution]], [[pain (brand)|pain]], [[distortion]], [[chaos]]) are flat effects.
: Conversely, enemy [[AC]] has the greatest impact to Short Blade damage.

Another positive is that Short Blades "require" less skill than other weapons; they are more accurate, and it takes less skill to reach mindelay.

To compensate, Short Blades have the worst base damage of all weapon types, and they are the worst against [[AC]]. For "fair combat", Short Blades are the weakest weapon types - but stabbers aren't playing fair. And, stabber or not, a [[quick blade]] of distortion can remain viable into [[Zot]]. If nothing else, you can use the crosstraining to swap to Long Blades.

An early [[dagger]] / [[short blade]] of [[venom]] can make the earlygame a lot easier, even at 0 skill.

==History==
*In [[0.29]], Short Blades now use [[dexterity]] instead of [[strength]] for their attacks. Except for [[dagger]]s, all short blades were reduced by 1 base damage.
*Prior to [[0.20]], the [[Captain's Cutlass]] still dealt slicing damage despite all other short blades dealing piercing damage.
*In [[0.16]], [[cutlass]]es were renamed to rapiers. Short swords and rapiers were changed from slicing to piercing damage.
*In [[0.14]], [[sabre]]s were renamed to cutlasses.
*In [[0.9]], [[knives]] were removed.

==See Also==
*[[Melee weapon#Short Blades|List of short blades]]
*[[Species#Melee_.26_Ranged_Combat|Table of species aptitudes]]
*[[Weapon_selection#Short_Blades|Short blades selection strategy]]

{{Skills}}
[[Category:Weapon skills]]
[[Category:Short blades|*]]

Short Blades - Revision history

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