>>As far as balance goes a forged short sword has much better balance I believe you can get reasonably and mod puncture on a short sword the best balace you can get on a katar is dismal but you can get it with either mod impact or mod slice if I'm not mistaken and if I am I'm sure someone will correct me. There's my 2 lirums<<

Can't get reasonable balance and mod puncture on a forged short sword at the same time without special metals. You can get one or the other, but not both, unless someone's been coming out with some amazing mixes that I don't know about. F/L/P W/P fairly sturdy at like 12 stonesish, or M/L/P P/F at 24ish? Not sure exactly on the suitability for the mod punct short swords.

Katars will get either Fair slice and mod impact, or mod slice and fair impact at 39 stones with dismal balance and a good bit of suitability.

-Wighten

>>Puncture LE are pointless unless you can backstab.<<

And forged puncture LE's are pretty much useless even if you can. Far better off just going with a stout short sword from Dirge, one of those finely-balanced tagos, the kastneth, or that niftly little mod puncture LE/reasonable balance briquet from Merelew.

-Wighten