I agree the utility of the polar bear shape is limited. In my moon druid EA playthrough I only really found it useful for tanking at (iirc) level 2, and once I hit level 3-4, the extra HP were of limited use even with Barkskin, and I was as well using wolf for additional damage, especially with Flaming Sphere to trigger Pack Tactics.
I found that any moon druid options suffer from issues with the way EA handles concentration spells and very much hope that’s changed in full release, and that was my biggest problem with the class. I wouldn’t mind if the polar bear were made a bit better, but I actually wasn’t that fussed that it wasn’t always the best go-to option. I enjoyed working out how to best use the shapes we got in both combat and exploration so having incentives to mix things up was a plus.
I’ll be disappointed if the moon druid doesn’t continue to get some cool exclusive wildshapes as we progress. The Dire Raven at level 4 has some fun situational uses, but I think moon druids are hurting for a good general combat wildshape by level 5, so hopefully that’s what we’ll get for a subclass feature at level 6. But if we do, I think I’ll be reasonably happy with the early game wildshape progression of the moon druid.
