Morrowind talk:Short Blade

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Balance[edit]

Is it just me or are short blades extremely bad with no redeeming features? It appears nearly impossible to quickly murder out high-level mobs, even sneaking up from behind and successfully critical striking, simply because of the low physical damage. -D 10:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC)— Unsigned comment by 80.218.123.179 (talk) at 10:39 on 14 May 2010

Short blades are best used on a single target. Basically, if you hit fast enough, the enemy won't get a chance to retaliate. But against bigger groups they can be less effective (can't perma-bash them all), but still I don't see why the low physical damage is a problem. There ARE problems with short blades, however I think their high attack speed compensates for the low physical damage... --Kertaw48 18:42, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

In theory, short blades can do a competitive amount of DPS. But that's not how it works out in the game, because of armor - against well-armored targets, short blades simply fail to penetrate the armor, and even a daedric wakizashi ends up doing chitin dagger levels of dps. But it gets worse: One might intuitively assume that short blades are meant to be used in combination with the sneak attack / critical strike ability. But: Short blades do not appear to be given a special bonus to critical strike. Instead, they're actually the least effective weapon class for critical striking. Critical strike operates on the fact that if you successfully sneak up on your target, you get a triple damage bonus on your first hit. To make the most of critical strike therefore, you want a weapon with as much maximal damage as possible, as opposed to other factors like speed or reach. With a two-handed Axe/Blunt/Longblade, you can kill many an ascended sleeper in a single blow, if you pull off a critical strike (and have high strength and/or a powerful cast on strike enchantment) With a short blade on the other hand, the damage bonus from critical striking is so small (due to the low base weapon damage) that it's not worth the effort at all. -D 80.218.123.179 08:46, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Why would you expect a short blade to suddenly do more damage to an unaware target? Lets face it catching someone unaware and sticking a knife in them is still not as effective as catching them unaware and caving in their skull with a large blunt object. Video-gaming logic at it's worse. 65.5.232.202 01:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Clarification[edit]

I don't know if I'm the only person thinking this, but I believe that this page is sorely in need of an update. I doubt it needs to go as far as a total rewrite, but the current description of the skill doesn't seem to be a nearly good enough description. When the introduction states that the Short Blade skill allows the user to be better at utilizing, well, short blades, it fails to specify how. I myself am confused on the matter. Does the skill make your attacks with short blades more accurate? What about hitting harder? Are there any precise formulas to be found like some other skills? Above all else that can be done with this page, it needs clarification on these matters. AedraRising1 (talk) 01:12, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

The Morrowind section was set up before the modern writing practices. All the formulas are on Combat. The only thing increasing this skill does is increase your hit chance, I believe. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 01:47, 11 October 2018 (UTC)