Talk:Short Blade Blood Arts/@comment-210.186.55.254-20150316015511/@comment-1419424-20150316020657

Astral Dive is only really good if you can reliably land critical hits on broken weak points; plus, it's hard to aim.

Your best bets are either Blood-Splattering Dance or Hell Spiral, depending on whether you're willing to go for huge damage numbers in exchange for HP drain. If so, go for Hell Spiral; your damage will generally be in the range of 3k-5k a hit, but you'll lose HP every hit (you can't go below 0 though). If not, go for Blood-Splattering Dance; your damage will be far, FAR lower (depending on where you're hitting, anywhere from 400-1200 or so), but it won't drain your HP and is far easier to cancel out of (through dashing, combo devour, etc.).

EDIT:  It should be mentioned, of course, that Astral Dive can net you THE highest damage numbers in the game, higher than any bullet that can possibly be crafted (I've seen 78k off an Astral Dive to an Ouroboros' tentacles while in Blood Rage), but, again, it's really only viable under specific circumstances.