. Moreover, flame blade cannot be coated with consumables, which is like 50%+ extra damage currently in EA, so this fall off only gets worse.
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You think you're right on everything... But you're wrong on many things. You should open your mind a bit and try to play the class again.
I won't argue on everything but to give 2 exemples...
- You can coat flame blade with poison (which is a bit ridiculous, I hope they'll change that)
- The raven is nearly equal to misty step without the cost of a level 2 spellslot. You can wildshape for a bonus action, fly away without triggering AoO if you're engaged and do what you want with your action in the raven form or your normal form.
Anyway I could agree with a suggestion if its goal was to increase the difference between the 2 subclasses gameplay. Maybe the moondruid forms should be its main weapons to fight. At the moment they can be in the first part of the EA but it just becomes a (good) tool among others really fast.
Here you're just asking better melee, better spells, better forms for everyone... And I disagree. The druid is already powerfull.
-You can coat the weapon as per the tooltip, but the extra poison damage as per the tooltip doesn't actually happen. Try it yourself. The extra number instance of poison damage next to the orange number for fire damage does not happen.
-It is not nearly equal. For one, it locks you out of using other spells while eating up your bonus action slot; that's a pretty big drawback, as the whole point of misty step is to gain highground and then either land a spell with advantage or push an enemy off elevation with Thunderwave. Raven affords you neither, and is highly suboptimal in combat.
You keep stating it is a powerful class, but restating it over and over doesn't make a bad class good just like stating cleric is a good class comparatively doesn't make it true. There is a wide chasm between rogue/fighter and the rest of the classes currently in EA, and basically every non-rogue/fighter class in optimized solo viodeos essentially mimmicks the fighter/rogue playstyles either by abusing dual wield with consumables, or using a potion of hill giant strength with a surprise 2H attack coated with fire and poison.
The only particularly good druid spell at the moment is Moonbeam, and since it can't be adjusted in animal form, it completely dumpsters the use of animal forms as a result. Barkskin can't be used with animal forms to mitigate their awful base stats, because it interferes with moonbeam itself or conjured flame blade due to the atrocious concentration mechanic everyone keeps cheering the 5e about (the same kind of people who would even cheer even more restrictions on the ability to rest, ie make a terrible game that alienates most players except religious cultists of the DnD tabletop game).
Of course I am asking for better melee options, better spells, and better form implementation, because as it exists the druid class is simply mediocre and this will only worse and the max level is reached. Mediocre hybrids never end well in any game. And I would like to play my druid a different way than just spamming moonbeam or playing with conjure flame blade as just a worse rogue/fighter.
So I made the point about monks as to why staves shouldn't be reserved as two handers on the basis that staves are for magic classes, not about magical bonuses.
But moreover, the reason I refer to TT more positively isn't because I want the game to follow RAW for its own sake (I'm good with positive changes), it's because the game is balanced and works well under those settings. When lost, it is usually advisable to return to the last point you knew where you were. So if Larian has made changes that have hurt gameplay (most of your complaints are resulting from changes Larian has made, either by nerfing abilities, or withholding spells, or buffing other classes), I think it best to return to the point where things work, and then we can try to make improvements from there once again, rather than further dismembering what has been a balanced system and possibly making the game even more broken as a result.
edit:
I forgot to mention another Larian change making casters feel weaker, lowering AC and increasing HP, which reduces the percent of enemy health harmed by spell caster save spells (moonbeam, sacred flame), while increasing hit chance of melee attacks and therefore increasing net melee damage. This change in particular shows how seemingly sensible solutions (let's make characters feel like they hit more often), can actually have damaging effects on the entire bounded accuracy system. More tweaks are likely to further break the math that D&D is based on. While I respect there will be people who prefer DoS2 gameplay, D&D's bounded accuracy system (which underpins 5e and Larian is using as a baseline), makes minor tweaks to numbers have a very large statistical differences. So you can't just important things casually from DoS 2 and not expect major breaks in game mechanics, even if those same things worked in DoS2.
And while there may be people who would have preferred if Larian had actually decided to go about making DoS3 instead, imagine if they built that game by changing the rules to D&D 5e PHB RAW. That would be pretty frustrating to all the people who actually liked the DoS2 game design and mechanics. That is happening here to a large degree, calling it one thing by name, but trying to make it something else in practice, which is unfair to the fan base. I hope they do go about making DoS3 for DoS fans in the future, but I personally am not interested in that franchise, I am interested in the franchise and game system they claim to be working on right now, so I don't think it is unfair to want that system to at least be implemented properly, and that any changes being made not break the game math of the bounded accuracy system.
I wouldn't have been disappointed if Divinity used the garbage DnD combat system and not DoS, because I don't essentialize franchises to static rules.
I criticize a design. I would have been disappointed in DOS3 if it used DnD rules not because I liked DOS1-2, but because I think DnD combat design is ill suited for a videogame experience, and feels like awful design for a single player RPG. I don't like RNG in combat having such huge swings in combat outcome, period. And that's what the DnD system does. Very few people who enjoy videogames will enjoy a game where you miss nearly a third of the time, it feels like total garbage.
And I can tell because I notice the drastic difference in landing a frightening strike on Bulette/Ethel, or just landing a 3 projectile Ray of Fire on Ethel/Phase Spider or not, or missing an attack on a Redcap or Githyanki who subsequently proceeds to chunk one of my ~30hp lv4 characters for nearly all their life in a single turn.
The RNG is terrible, and I'm not alone in hating it or the resentment in going through 10 creatures' turns ala Total War:Warhammer's campaign turns, only to get to my turn and get a critical miss for the 2nd-3rd time in a row.
I am interested in DnD and DOS not because of the combat systems, which are always in an RPG second to the worldbuilding and immersion. I like both worlds, the lore, the aesthetics, etc. I cease to like either of both games if my interactions within that game become unenjoyable, which the casino fest gameplay and mess of racial imbalance in DnD 5e offers.
This isn't just combat either, but dialogue checks as well. Having my precious time stolen by having to savescum conversations because the dice decided to screw me with a 3 roll for a check of 4 has become really tedious and aggravating.
