Platinum Shortsword

The stab used to fire horizontally and nothing else, which made shortswords close to useless. Now it goes wherever you point, including straight up at a bat and straight down at a slime chewing your ankles. The reach is still tiny. You are buying a fast poke that lands the instant you click, which beats a broadsword when something is already touching you and a wind up would miss.

Against anything you can outrun, use a broadsword. Against anything that closes on you in a corridor, the shortsword gets more hits in before it reaches your face.

Ignore anything that offers speed. Enemies get invincibility frames after each hit, so a faster stab does not connect more often on a single target, it just wastes swings. Godly and Demonic come out equal on average damage, so take whichever the Goblin Tinkerer shows you first and stop spending.