- Body size has huge impact on wrestling from what I observed. So for throwing sure, as you won't be able to even maintain grab on larger opponent from you.
- My hero dwarf once in dark fortress did enter combat trance, when chopping heads of 500 trolls on his way out, after defeating a demon. He become legendary in ax anyhow, but combat trance did not save him from becoming tired. I had to pause him from time to time, while giving time to trolls to advance into him instead. So what bonuses gives combat trance? Still no clue. Maybe my peasant hero was over skilled already in too many skills for this combat mood to make a notable difference.
-1 tick? Like 1.0 speed? In my first month I had my peasant dwarf permanently traveling non-stop at 1.7 jog speed. Though once in dark fortress, I opened that one door with 100 beak dogs piled on other side. Despite super-dwarven physical stats it took 2 moves for all this dodging to get him tired and collapsing unconscious into his death.
If you plan to fight Buggy-men, train wrestling to legendary, endurance to superdwarven (swimming under bridge was it?) and when grabbed or having your ax stuck just simply back off. Buggy-men die surprisingly fast to steel ax hits on heads like almost everything else.
The only impervious (was too fast) for steel ax head-chop, I found only demon lord in dark fortress. Had to constantly dodge him, while very fast scratching like a furious cat set on fire... For steel ax to even penetrate his cloths, I had to scratch them into rot and make them fall off. Nothing else worked on him for some reason. Not even, when I started chopping off small body parts out of him. Striking skill for wins