The HP buffer is actually the biggest liability. Sitting in wolf form, ate a crit from the ogre trio that sent my druid straight to death status. This woukd have been drastically less likely to happen sitting on my high AC humanoid form.
I don't see how extra HP is a liability. Crits are automatic hits regardless of AC. Being in humanoid form would have just meant you had that much less of a health pool, and might have died outright from massive damage bringing you to your negative max health (Does BG3 have that mechanic?)
And regular attacks, while they might have missed your high-HP humanoid form, will most often do less than the 18-30HP of your wildshape form.
I agree that wild shaping is incredibly suboptimal because you're sacrificing dealing damage for extra health (especially with Larian's concentration spells and polar bear multi-attack nerfs), and in D&D it's almost always better to deal damage. But the HP buffer of wildshapes will rarely make it
more likely for you to die.
