So I want to stay Tae'dae for roleplaying purposes and I wanted to know how to make combat work for a Tae'dae. I know the lack of speed will criple me greatly but perhaps I could do something to get around that.

right now I am a bonecrusher. I want to stay that way despite what people tell me about bonecrusher being kinda of a bad Spec.

Honestly, unless you're really going to delve in to combat, its not going to matter.

In fact, tae'dae are utterly wonderful for hunting as a knight, just because you're amazingly tough.

Similarly, with bonecrusher, to get to the level where the strength/weakness of BC is going to matter is a long way and a lot of investment off.

And even if you DO want to dive right in to trying to get in to serious combat? In a group, the disadvantages aren't really going to cripple you save in an impossibly marginal way. You will still be useful to a group just by doing what you can.

So, play exactly what you want to play, and enjoy doing it, and don't sweat what the forum lynch mob is on about this week.

The mob is a liar anyway, half the time.

Tracking. Pits. Hopefully the tae'dae will make up for whatever DMP you'll be missing out on from Rituals or Totems. Don't bash gorgogs, they're made of death.

so Tae'dae are horrible 1v1?

That's an over simplification.

At its core, all knight combat is about outpacing wound curing. Speed helps you to keep ahead of curing, and a speed penalty means that you need to put more effort in to keeping ahead of curing than someone who is faster.

Since the last weapon stat adjustment, speed on the weapon itself is often pulled back into a balance with precision, favouring wounding over the faster balance, but retaining enough speed to threaten curing.

Tae suffer from a balance penalty that can be painful in that regard, though not like it once was. Honestly, look at Thul- granted he's a monk, and monks have a reptuation for taking a hammer to game balance, but he gets by.

But apart from that, what you do one on one depends on a myriad of factors more significant than whether or not you are a tae'dae. And honestly, its probably more viable to be one now, since the last changes, than at many other points in the game's history.

So, I'd go for it. You can always burn your reincarnation later if it doesn't work out, and no harm done. But at least you gave it a shot at being a race you wanted to be.

Furthermore, often when people say "this is bad", what it really means is, "I can't lame people into the ground as easily as another set up", or "this may have a great deal of potential in, especially group, scenarios that is not appreciated by the playerbase at large".

See: Shuyin taking tracking.

I hope your right about that. Hopefully I can make something work out of this even if it is just for group combat.

any tactics I should look into for 1v1 and group combat as a bonecrusher/tracker tae'dae that would help me start out.

Bonecrusher is doing you more harm than tae'dae, and the envoys will get to that eventually. I didn't find tae'dae warrior terrible.

Group's easy enough. Pits and springtraps. Springtraps and pits. Forced movement and a rather unique "you can't esacape and have limited options" ability.

Other than that, tracking has a lot of opportunity for versatility, if nothing else, with dart traps, deafalls, etc. I'm sure some of the good trackers about could give you solid pointers.

Pit decap (pureblade) is your only option, period. Your dex will be so low that your affliction chances are utterly horrible and your wound output will be so slow you'll never build wounds on anyone who can apply a health potion and read a scroll.

Pit decap, change race, qq, or accept having a horrid offense. Those are your realistic options.

I'm sensing some racism here, Thul. Gorgogs are wonderful bags of muddy cash that like to snuggle sometimes.

They swing with both fire and magic, which will come as a rather rude shock to any young tae'dae who's grown accustomed to his god-given tankiness. I'm racist against things which violate my right to stand in a room with 3 or more mobs hitting me without fear.

I used to hunt gorgogs without robes, with only my natural regen keeping me up. Then they fixed their fire damage and I have to sip now.

I used to hunt gorgogs. Then Pyromancers came out.