Just finished my Moon Druid playthrough today (a 100% run of at least all the quests/areas I know).
Really enjoyed this playthrough. Not sure if it's just because it's been a while since I played, but the graphical improvements stood out. There were tons of other subtle improvements all around and it overall feels much more polished.
I think despite some worry in earlier discussions, I found the Druid class to be very strong, but balanced. Though I wasn't really trying to break the game in any way. In fact, I played pretty sub optimally in terms of set-ups and pre-fight preps, and still breezed through it all. This being a 6th or 7th playthrough, I was just too lazy to care and mostly walked right into every bad situation rolling initiative straight. I think at this point meta knowledge of Act 1 is definitely affecting the difficulty for me.
Towards the end, I did find myself leaning on spells quite a bit more than wildshape in combat. My party was Gale, Lae'zel, and Shadowheart, and it felt like everyone was contributing pretty equally.
I just restarted my playthrough with a coastal land druid instead of moon druid. And, as you say, meta knowledge of whats coming made me better prepared for what was coming. Also i better utilized my assets because i now know what works. Breezing through it. Mirror image, and a shield make my druid very survivable.
Build so far:
High half-elf
Took blade ward cantrip as high elf ability
Took produce flame and shelleilegh
Later took thorn whip
Coast as my land specialty
Took guild artisan backround for persuasion and insight
16dex 14con, 18 int (circlet), 16 wis, and 12 cha
Use shadow heart for enhance ability cha and you can breeze through social interactions.
Mirror image and blade ward really help you survive.
Moonlight spell is crazy awesome, especially when positioned right.
Misty step helps alot.
Gale being able to learn every spell from scrolls is broken.
I focused shadowheart on tanking, cures, and inflict wounds. She actually has a tendency to hit with that. And it does a buttload of damage. I think 2nd level cast is 4d10 necrotic. Not sure if larian is using her dex to attack or spell attack. Either way, its working really good to drop those dangerous baddies right now. She hit that "enlightened ogre" for 37 dam yesterday.
Wyll is just good. He also has mirror image after i swapped a spell iut at lvl 3. Having every character with mirror image is crazy op.
