If you play your cards right ...
You can get druid around 120+HP (3x 30hp bear + your own) per fight ... that is quadruple compared to others, and you are still able to heal yourself ... is that not enough for you? O_o
No, because as you describe it my wild shape is basically a STALL button and nothing more. I selected a moon druid so I could use my wild shapes for combat, yet all they're for is to absorb 2-3 hits while doing basically no damage and being unable to adjust your moonbeam or any other spell that requires concentration.
You're not using your wild shapes for anything more than as disposable HP points.
Which is pointless because at 19 AC with shield+ necklace that gives me shield of the faithful for 21 AC total in humanoid form, going into bear form is completely inefficient as I can instead actually do damage with moonbeam and shilleighlah for far more damage and area control while avoiding most damage in the game and being abl to also heal my allies.
If I wanted to spend 90% of the time in a far better humanoid form, I would have gone Land druid.
And 120 HP is not that impressive when you're doing 7-8 damage a hit to a single target and eating 17-25 damage per turn because your AC is pathetic against lv4-5 bosses/fights. All you achieve in this game by stalling is getting your casters killed, because the enemies will just pelt Wyll or Gale and proceed to bum rush it while your bear form just sits there blowing wind at enemies.
I don't give a damn about some fanboy obsession with a tabletop's ruleset. I enjoyed DoS 2 caster combat far more than this snoozefest of Eldritch Bolt Warlock and Moonbeam druid.
Imbalanced against fighter? Lazael is hitting for 17-25 damage, while being tankier than my bear, having greater mobility than said bear in between jump and her base battlemaster reach, while doing 12+ damage from a bow, and all her attacks can exploit environmental surfaces with dip not to mention poison coating.
Fighters are BROKEN in this game. They have the most sustainable damage, the greatest baseline safety, and because they have the HP and AC to support backstab chasing, they don't rely on a clutch like Misty Step sucking up a spell slot just so they don't miss half their skills.
You try the Githyanki camp without cheesing barrels and without Lazael in your party and get back to me.
The bear's durability would be balanced by the fact the polar bear does 8-11 damage while Lazael does nearly double that with access to other bonus actions than a mere taunt.
Again you are missing my point and showing unnecessary hostility. The reason things are unbalanced is because Larian is blending 5e and DOS.
You seem to like DOS combat, why stop now? Go nuts with barrelmancy and multiple actions per turn. You will be able to cruise in this game.
Not missing the point. You just have no response besides restate Larian does cheese, as if playing Dice-A-Rama with wet noodle spells that hit for nothing assuming they actually land, consume a spell slot, and can't be weaved for combos (because of concentration, say good bye to the thought of entangle into moonbeam) doesn't make casters feel like hot trash.
And more to the point, what's the use of Shadowheart if she can't layer buffs and debuffs? With the +1 mace she is hitting for a pitiful 4-7 damage with usually a 78% chance to hit from backstab. Or maybe you're referring to her permanent 50% chance with Sacred Flame that usually does even less damage than her pitiful melee and fails saving throws 24/7. Can't use her divinity skill without removing bless, and the only reason to bring her is to be a bless bot. 60% chance to dome some good damage with Inflict Wounds at the cost of a spell slot, too bad it's melee and Lazael has 75-90% chance to hit foor the same damage with her regular melee that doesn't eat up limited resources.
There's a reason everyone and their mother abuses Lazael for the tougher fights, and why Shadowheart needed to be "buffed" and still ends up being among the least used companions, or replaces one of the mages to slap Bless again on Lazael.
The class with no finite resources and highest baseline survivability and movement should not be eclipsing classes that rely on finite resources to do damage.
I don't even know how you can laud DnD rules if you even bothered to do the Goblin camp fight against 10+ goblins.
Spend 80% of my time waiting around for enemy turns to just get to cast a single spell that may or may not hit if I don't abuse height teleport tricks. And for what? All that wait doesn't even pay off, the single ability you use per turn is the same as always, and does unremarkable damage. Meanwhile my mage in divinity was already weaving elemental combos to control the battlefield and do damage in one turn in exchange for being natively squishy. Here the mages are squishy anyways, barely have any meaningful aoe damage, can only CC or damage, but not both, and most of the time their CC spells fail to land anyways even from elevation while eating up a spell slot that you then can't use for damaging spells.
