Shortblades v. Longblades?

[NeonTerminus]

Which do you prefer and why?

[Waltorious]

I like short blades because I like playing high-Agility characters who focus on dodging attacks. Short blades work great for this because the Shank skill lets you use your Agility bonus instead of Strength bonus when attacking. Plus the new Rejoinder skill is awesome: any time an enemy misses you in melee, you get a free attack with a short blade. This happens very often when playing a high-DV character, so it's a great defensive skill to have. Being surrounded is no problem when the enemies keep missing you and you counterattack each time.

Short blades are also good offhand weapons because the Jab skill doubles the chance of an offhand attack with a short blade. With Dual Wield and Ambidexterity, this means an offhand attack every time, with a chance for a second (True Kin Syzygyriors start with those skills, so one can get a guaranteed double attack very early in the game. Recently, though, I've been playing mutants with the Triple Jointed mutation to boost my Agility even higher). It's also possible to find short blades in wristblade form (though rare) which lets one fill the arm slots with more short blades.

The main downside of short blades is that they have lower penetration and damage than long blades, so they're less good against heavily armored opponents. So short blade fighters need to come up with other ways to deal with those, probably with firearms / grenades or mutation powers.

I haven't used long blades as much, but they do have the different fighting styles which sound cool. I've only ever tried the Willow Stance, but the others sound like they could be good for other playstyles. I'm guessing Long Blades work well with shields. I might try a heavily armored, shield-bearing long blade fighter later, if I ever get bored of my short blade wielding whirling martial artists.

[Mehukannu]

Generally I prefer short blades when playing an agility character and long blades when playing a strength character.

Long blades are very versatile in that it can be effectively used with both agility and strength characters. Though I've yet to explore the agility side of it all that much. Long blades also have higher penetration values and damage than short blades and of course higher penetration means higher potential damage.
You can also use two-handed long swords if that is your thing, they have even more damage and penetration and if you like using shields, you can put a buckler on your arm, which are actually really good now since the recent shield ability changes (You can shield slam with bucklers now). Only problem is finding two-handed sword somewhere. The higher quality ones tend to be really rare (The ones past steel).

[neuropathos]

I prefer short blades because rejoiner is so fantastic for getting rid of garbage enemies without much hassle. You don't have to do anything because they practically fall on your automatic blades. That alone makes me favor them immensely.

[Waltorious]

I haven't played many strenth-focused characters but the sense I get is that it's better to use axes or cudgels rather than long blades for these characters because they generally have higher penetration. The main draw of long blades seems to be the many useful skills in the long blades skill tree, which I haven't played around with much.

And yes, rejoinder is awesome. I have a fear that it will be nerfed later on... right now my character rejoinders against EVERY attack, no matter how many happen in a turn, and can even rejoinder when stuck in a web, stunned, or frozen.

[Mehukannu]

Long blades also have easily the highest potential to-hit bonuses. Since you get +1 to hit with every skill you've purchased from the skill tree, not that hitting is evn a big deal, but it definitely helps when playing a strength focused character.

Yeah, rejoinder is really, really good ability right now. I can definitely see it being changed to work the same way like the shields are. (Can only get a certain number of free attacks per turn)