Here's my problem. I love Tae'Dae. Hands down my favorite race. But I also love PK, and don't want to reincarnate just to end up not being able to kill. Right now I'm a Shadowsinger Faeling with a +15% damage rune.

So, question time. Just how big is the level 3 equilibrium malus? Is it going to be absolutely crippling or just sub-optimal? Numbers would be awesome, if anyone happens to have them!

The mighty blow to int mildly worries me as well, though from what I remember from being a bard years ago, bard damage is based more from Charisma.

Right now I'm an Ecologist. What I tend to do is go for bleeding with desert smudges/CrowCaw on smaller opponents, and go for an 8p chord followed by two minorsixths on beefier folk. Will the equilibrium malus prevent me from successfully chaining CrowCaws or fitting in two minorsixths during the chord stun?

Thanks a ton!

I'm so confused. Didn't you find your main account?

The malus is really really really bad.

The level 3 EQ malus would ad 21% to your base speed. It's been awhile, but I think base minorsecond speed is like, 3.5s, so you'd be slowed down to 4.235s. Just do the rest of the calculations and you'll see the downward trend.

I was a tae'dae bard for a few IG decades during my time as SS GC. (Still tae'dae now, just not bard.) You're obviously going to notice it bigtime if you're changing from shadowsinger (which imo has pretty much the best stats you can get as a bard). Not optimal even if you stretch the definition of optimal until it snaps. Bard damage is half int, half cha, so you'll notice quite a significant drop in damage. Bleeding from smudge is fixed, so that's not going to be affected. You're not going to be able to fit two minorsixths under the stun, no. One's doable though (keep in mind the eq cost from the chord itself is extended!)

The biggest thing you're likely to notice has to do with earwort balance. Instead of blanknote, two aurics, blanknote, iirc you won't be able to do the second auric and get eq back in time to blanknote truehearing before they cure. So you're going to have to wait after just one action. Time needed to re-enemy people when lust tics is extended also. If you tumble, the offbalance time is extended for a bit after you arrive in the other room. Mana drain from contort and focus become easier to notice, especially if you decide to go glamours.

You also have to realise that since dex ties into acrobatics dodging effectiveness, dropping from the 20ish dex as shadowsinger to a 10 or so buffed as tae'dae is going to matter too, though I'm not sure how much after the recent change to pvp dodging.

As far as killing goes, I either bursted squishy people down via dchord combo, or deathsong (groups, or from a lucky herbbane streak)

@Xiel - is it still -21%, or did it get raised to -30% in the last racial overhaul (in which tae'dae got hit with the nerfhammer)?

TLDR - doable. Just very suboptimal in terms of damage output, which is what you seem to have been going for.

The bal/eq malus/bonus were changed from 10% to 7% in the last racial changes, iirc. So -3 eq/bal would be 21% slower speeds for both.

I'm pretty sure mugwumps got faster and tae'dae got slower (various forum posts about the slower races also give this impression). So... other way around? (Anyone remember if it was in an announce newspost?)

It's +/-7% now instead of +/-5%.

Edit: Found the post.

Ahhh, my bad.

That was me I think

Ah, right.

In general, pretty much all of combat is based around speed, with a few exceptions. Unless being Tae'dae increases your damage substantially (You are a warrior), there isn't usually much point to the race pvp-wise. I wouldn't suggest the change, because of earwort balance. The only really viable class as a Tae'dae (IMO) is a warrior, pureblade. Other viable combinations tend to be flukes.

Monk is doable too, actually. But then again, that's monks.

You will have an -extremely- hard time as a Tae'Dae Bard, IMO. I played one on the old test server for a while and well.....

Maybe I am just so used to Merian awesomeness, but yeah. It was not nice.

The thing one must really take into account is that Bard class generally needs a +eq race. Not sure on the actual numbers here, but try comparing the +2 to eq from some races compared to -3 from Tae'Dae. The difference in speed is insane.

If you want to know what a Tae'dae bard would be like, just talk to Raeri. He was a bard forever, and his race is Tae'dae. He is pretty friendly, so he will probably answer any questions you like.

Monks get a damage bonus that scales with increased wounds. Strangely enough, strength has a major impact on monk wounding (more so than dexterity). Although pursuing a heavy affliction output isn't really viable, the outlier strength opens options for damage kills... especially if you can effectively build wounds and whore prone.