Is Anything Better than Keening?

[Smoking_Tiger]

Im talking strictly short blades, but I know keening rivals most other powerful weapons in the game. But I think the Fang of Haynekhtnamet does far more damage and drops the Wraithguard requirement. The keening effects could be custom enchanted onto your armor and such, effectively making keening's not as special as they're made out to be.

[Smoking_Tiger]

Think about this too- the Fang does more base damage than a daedric wakizashi (still a short blade, although slightly slower than the Fang). But, the Wakizashi can be custom enchanted with say absorb health 30pts on touch, then pair that with a shield that fortifies maybe strength to maybe 50... effectively letting you kill everything in sight with little effort (I'm talking killing most things in just a couple swings or less), and beating the dps of the Fang.

[AlexTheSkjegg]

Keening has an excellent effect that boosts Magicka, Health, Attack, Agility and Speed:

Magicka CAN be useful but not for everyone. Fortify Intelligence would be better here.
The health boost isn't that great.
Fortify Attack becomes more or less redundant as your Short Blade skill goes up.
Fortify Agility is a better all-round boost than Fortify Attack, due to increasing your evasion and stagger resistence.
Fortify Speed is also good for obvious reasons.

Keening's damage is quite low compared to other shortswords, but it has the same speed as a Dagger and if compared to other daggers it is very strong. Except when compared to the Fang of Haynekhtnamet.

The Fang has excellent damage and a potent magic effect that roughly doubles the expected damage output. It can be a liability against higher level enemies because a lot of them have varying degrees of Reflect. 100% Resist Shock would help but it can be hard to achieve without being a Nord.

A Daedric Wakizashi can be enchanted with a Cast When Strikes Fortify Strength 100pts for 2 seconds on Self. This means the effect is always active while fighting and it would be a very effective damage increase without ever having to worry about reflection. Absorb Health on touch is safe against reflection as well, but it isn't immune to reflection; so against enemies who have reflect it will effectively do less damage.