Arguably the merciless gladiator's spellblade is still better than this if it's socketed with 2 potent noble topazs (+4hit/+5dmg). The crit is a nice bonus but regardless, most casters still value +dmg over crit in most scenarios.
Stick in 2 10+ resil and youve got 2 more resil than the gladiators spellblade. Would be a good pre-pvp weapon, but youd probably sooner get the pvp blade anyway...