Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Druid improvement suggestions

1- Shillelagh needs to apply to both weapons if you are dual wielding. Casting it individually on each weapon, especially during combat is ridiculous having to use up two cantrip turns just to gain DW functionality.

2- Shillelagh probably down the line needs to scale to weapon + enchantments to not fall behind. You can already see a steep fall-off after lv2.

3- Shillelagh needs to scale to the wielded weapon. This would help make staves worthwhile over 1h clubs, though not by much since staves either need to give a spellcasting bonus or an extra spell slot to be worth over 2AC from a shield. Hell, staves could provide spellcasting bonuses, like either concentration resilience, or extra saving throws ala Corellon's Staff.

4- Wild Shape needs to be a bonus action for both land and Moon druids; the functionality of shapeshifting as it currently stands encourages animal forms to not be used at all, especially by Land druids as you essentially waste a turn to be knocked out of form by the next because of the base stats of the forms.

In order to bring moon druids up to speed to be worthwhile over land's extra spells slot, baseline misty step, and spell restore (the least useful aspect), Moon druid forms should have improved stats comparatively to Land druid forms.

5- Animal forms need to adopt the humanoid AC if it is higher than their base AC. A humanoid form should never feel tankier than a bear or ox or badger while also having access to spells simultaneously.

6- Please implement the same shapeshift talking options to NPC's as well as companions instead of telling you you can't talk while in form.

7- Some spells need to be taken off concentration. Placing Flame Blade with Concentration is so ridiculously stupid; it encourages a playstyle in melee where you will be in the middle of enemy attention, only to lose your conjured blade off a single swing and losing a lv2 spell slot...

Same concept applies to Animal Speaking, it needs to be an action and not cost a spell slot, or it needs to not have concentration because wasting a spell slot because you can't use it alongside guidance to speak with animals is pretty silly.

Entangling Vines will never be used over Web if it retains concentration, and neither will Spike Growth because no niche utility spells are worth sacrificing Moonbeam, Flame Sphere, or Flame Blade. Please take a look at your concentration system, it's strangling many utility spells out of viability, especially utility spells that cost a lv2 slot and break so easily off concentration.

1) agree

2) disagree. The druid shouldn't always be a very good melee class. 3D6 (+1D8) looks pretty good to me.

3) not sure. We don't really know what items we'll have in the end but I think good staff could be usefull.

4) totally disagree. Land is probably not suppose to wildshape at all during combats and this is one of the most meaningfull difference between both subclasses.
On the other hand, maybe land should have a bit more spellslots ?

5) totally disagree. Maybe the animals should be better balanced and have a better AC, not sure about it... But every form shouldn't have 19-21 AC. The druid would just become (even more?) OP.

6) no opinion.

7) sorry but once again... I totally disagree. The concentration system seems broken and it's boring to loose concentration so often... But what I LOVED playing the druid is that you have to make meaningfull choices. You can't be good at everything at the same time and that's really interresting. You have to think about the situation and choose how to deal with it.
I think I made my only real "strategic choices" after 200+ hours in the game with the druid.

Animal speaking (/speak with the dead/...) could probably become something like ritual spells. I agree that it's boring to use a spell slot to use them and I'm not a fan of loosing all this gameplay/story elements if I don't have a druid in my party.

Entangling vines has a too short AoE according to me and it's way too easy for the AI to get out.
But yeah the concentration system doesn't really work. I 100% agree.

I'm generally in agreement with Maximuuus on all of this stuff, but have a few notes. I've only played a little since patch 4, so I'm mostly basing this on the assumption that druid implementation at least vaguely resembles the 5e rules.
Circle of the Land druids should definitely be able to wildshape during combat, but it's not their forte. This is why it takes more work (action to shift) for them to do it and their shape options are more limited (lower CR limitation). I really like that both kinds of druids can do everything to some degree, but each has an area where they excel. They're a great multi-tool.

With Natural Recovery, the effectively do have more spell slots. Plus, they get an extra cantrip and more options added to their spell list, so they are more versatile spellcasters than Circle of the Moon druids.

I assume this isn't actually implemented based on the 5e rules, but if it were, there would be some decent trade-offs between the two spells:
-Web requires level 2 spell slots, while Entangle only requires level 1 slots. In Larian's current homebrew, this isn't critical because you can long rest pretty much whenever you want, making spell slots meaningless. Hopefully this will be fixed.
-Web's initial save is a DEX save while Entangle's is a STR save. This means that you might want to use Entangle against fast, weak enemies while you use Web against strong, slow ones. The DC for getting free should be the same for both (and they both use STR checks to get free), so escaping one shouldn't be any easier than escaping the other.
-Even if you aren't restraining enemies with these spells, they are still really useful for creating difficult terrain to slow melee enemies down while you attack from a distance.

Moon druid is a pretty garbage class at the moment so I don't understand where this idea they're even close to OP is coming from. It can't even control its concentration spells while transformed, and its beast forms themselves are significantly weaker than they would be on TT and that spells problems.

1- "Druids shouldn't be very good melee". Druids should be good at what they invest in, otherwise you end up with a range of mediocre options and the class becomes useless as a result. Mediocre hybrids have never worked in this game, the obvious example being how much worse an Eldritch Knight is next to Battlemaster or why clerics are just Bless bots in the light domain using nothing besides Inflict Wounds, because hybrid design cripples them.


Besides, your opposition to bringing Shillelagh up to speed to enchanted weapons only hurts non-elf druids and further cements racial imbalance.

A wood elf won't care you leave Shillelagh weak because they can just use a shortsword+1 or the Flaming Axe.

Meanwhile my Tiefling, Human druids are absolutely crippled by your opposition.

2- Utterly absurd. If Land druids can't use shapeshifts in combat, what would they be used for? Misty Step virtually negates any benefit any form will have in traversing terrain. Sneak by for scouting in cat? Invis cantrip by Shadowheart already does that, assuming blessing of the trickster is not enough and you're too lazy to get invis pots.

The out of combat form utility argument is a complete gimmick.

3- This same tired argument over and over. Forms being good and survivable don't make a druid OP. They make the form actually useful for something besides a useless damage sponge.

Sometimes I ask myself why people insist on playing a game so glaringly suboptimally that they state bear form gives druid 60 HP.

Bear form CC's the druid into a useless low damage form that dies in a turn or two without access to healing others or repositioning moonbeam.

In humanoid form, I have 19-21 AC, with mirror images that's 28-30AC, and it's far better to avoid 17+damage hits consistently in humanoid than to facetank them in bear stalling out a battle pointlessly, doing no damage, offering no utility besides being a useless damage sponge.

There's a reason all the top druid solo vids are Land druids playing Martial or Moonbeam builds, not the useless form.

There's a reason battlemasters are playing with great weapons and not 1h+shield.

The best defense has always been and will always be a good offense. There is no mitigation equivalent to negating an enemy a turn of damage or CC by removing them entirely.

All you do by going polar bear form is to extend the fight beyond Lazael's Frightening Strike CC chain, ruin your opening burst, and open yourself up to further boss phases and barrages of 2-3 attack sequence boss turns like Bulette, Githyanki patrol, Kua Toa, Redcaps, or Ethel.

Let this silly meme about forms being useful in combat die. They're weak meatbags, and if you restrict them to mere meatbags, no other forms besides bear will be used anyways.

4- On the topic of melee enemy control by difficult terrain, the most dangerous melee enemies such as Bulette, Minotaurs, Githyanki patrol, and even the Spectator literally teleport/jump their way out of it assuming they don't easily make the saving throw, wasting your spell slots.

Even the regular melee enemies who get stuck in simply tend to throw a fire or poison bomb anyways that does more damage than their own melee strike.


Probably from the same people that strongly resist optimizing gameplay performance. They make the unproductive claim of "balance is impossible, so leave things be", except even when balance is impossible, the very least any developer should attempt is to narrow the gaps in performance as close to marginal as they can be in order so gameplay variety is an option that feels good to partake in instead of knowingly playing something you know is gimping you (like playing a non-elf/dwarf race at the moment due to the awful racials balancing).

If forms are basically a more cumbersome Arcane Ward, let us just have Arcane Ward instead if that's what you're going to reduce forms to, an HP shield with a visual representation. What terrible gameplay design.

- Druids are versatile and can be good in melee. Flame blade is a good weapon. The broken concentration is the problem, not the weapon.

- "Probably" is not an argument but anyway, you can wildshape during combats.

- The bear and the bird are usefull in combats and the bonus action add a lot of versatility. The wolf is also interresting in a group (critical hit).

Your image mirror can avoid 3 attacks. Such is the bear depending the ennemy, without spellslots, 2 times/long rest. Its damages are good for the first half of the EA. It become a meatbag after that, which is fine to me because you have all your spellslots to deal damages.

It will probably be upgraded at level 5. I think a multi attack will become necessary.

Battlemasters are playing with greatweapons because GWM is broken because of the so easy advantages.
I just ended a solo playthrough with a moondruid.

Anyway looks like you want to argue. I don't and I'm tired.
Good night and good luck with your suggestion

Web from spider form can be combined with another aoe, since it seems to be an ability and doesn't require concentration. I've been using spike growth > Shift spider > web a lot with my druid. Spike growth needs tweaking, though, because it's very easy to kill your party or neutral npcs after battle, as they just walk through it.

As for shapeshifting, I don't like the raven form. Moving around doesn't feel like your druid is flying, but rather like they are jumping around like an angry chicken. If there was no way to implement flying, they could have given the druid some other form with enhanced mobility.

Generally, I agree with this take.

But on issue (2), don't we still benefit from the magical qualities of the club/staff when using Shillelagh? For example, if we are using a +1 staff, wouldn't it still be 1d8+1+wis modifier? I thought the spell just changed the weapon die to d8, and let you use your wisdom modifier instead of strength for attacks and damage. So as long as we get magic clubs and staves, I don't see why any change to the spell would make sense. Our clubs and staves could still be magic on their own, Shillelagh is focused on the damage die and the ability score we depend on to attack and damage.

And that kinda follows with (3), where Shillelagh should not be what makes us decide between which weapon to use, the magic qualities of each would determine that. Got a nice club + shield, use that. If you got a magic staff that lets you cast a spell you like, you use that, the cantrip is just an extra, but the weapon qualities themselves would determine which we decide to use. I'd be generally skeptical about letting a cantrip increase magical attacks/save DCs, those should be qualities reserved for the weapons themselves. I don't want a cantrip to invalidate magic items we receive.

I do however, think that staves need to be versatile weapons, per PHB, so that druids can still use them with their shield. Then Shillelagh would be used to increase the one handed d6 back up to a d8.

Edit:
On animal forms, while I do disagree with your changes, I also think the problem you are trying to resolve is valid, as a result of Larian nerfing the combat ability of the animals that we can shapeshift into. The wolf and bear forms should already have multiattack, and so the damage they deal is subpar. While I do think some of the changes you advocate for would be negative (ie, you should have a lower AC while you get free extra hp in a form), I think the forms should be returned to their TT power level.

They cannot be good in melee if the weapon they can use, which is 1h clubs and staves unless you are an elf race, does not scale well with Shillelagh because while the rest of the classes can use +1 enchantment weapons and rares, your Shillelagh compatible clubs cannot. Moreover, flame blade cannot be coated with consumables, which is like 50%+ extra damage currently in EA, so this fall off only gets worse.

- They are not useful in combat. You are literally wasting an entire turn turning yourself into a target dummy and prolonging the lifespan on your enemies so they can pepper your team with more crap. Misty Step is a streamlined raven. The only remotely useful form you mention is the Wolf, if it manages to live more than a single turn considering the damage Bulette, Githyanki, Redcaps, Ethel, Specter, or even the Gnolls or Goblin temple fight puts out.

- Avoiding 3 attacks with 30 AC is more damage mitigated than bear form will ever mitigate, and then I'm left with a 19-21 AC humanoid form to boot, that can keep doing actually meaningful damage and heal my teammates on top. It's not even comparable. It is not fine to transform animal forms into basically useless meatbags. They just become more inconvenient to use arcane wards and completely waste your specialization and class mechanic. Stalling is a suboptimal strategy, I don't know how else this can be spelled out for you. You mitigate far more damage bursting down threats than you do trying to tank them.

- Battlemasters are not broken with GWM; I am legit always speccing Lazael NOT into GWM, and she's still the most reliable CC application member in the team due to CC spells sucking ass in accuracy even from high ground while Frightening Strike from backstab has a minimum landing chance with Bless of at least 80%, and it does 14-24 damage noncrit to boot. Does Halt do that with its pitiful 60% hit chance? Of course not, and it costs a far more precious spell slot while not even doing damage. Then there's the fact I can slap a wyvern poison, or any basic poison for that matter, dip the weapon into fire, and get with action surge 2 hits for well over 60 damage total on 105 HP lv5 bosses far more reliably than any spell can besides Magic Missiles, which even at lv2 with the necklace does less damage than a Lazael burst. Won't even mention rogues, because sneak attack is dumb.

The other classes just are WEAK as are their mechanics.

I'm glad you finished a playthrough on a moon druid. I also finished one as a Kelemvor Light Cleric, a far inferior class as clerics are crippled in design even worse than druids. But completing the EA is not proof that a class's kit is well designed and properly balanced to the others.



The problem is there's not a single club usable by a non-elf druid that is +1 enchantment in EA, and staves are bad.

My other problem with your suggestion of making staves versatile is that it only exacerbates the problem of making shields mandatory for anyone but great weapon or DW martial classes, and quite frankly holding a two handed staff with a shield just looks so dumb. It's not the iconic look of a caster. Which is why the benefits of a staff should go toward being a desirable weapon for classes that want to cast. There should be viable, competitive alternatives to using a shield. I certainly don't enjoy kitting all my casters in medium armor proficiency with shields because 19-21 AC over 14-15 AC with mage armor and a staff that provides no benefit is too good to pass up. The only time you consider otherwise is going Warlock initiate on Wizard to try to get slightly more damage with Ray of Fire+Hex than Magic Missiles Rank 2, but at the cost of being far more unreliable in accuracy (imo not worth trading off 4+ AC).

Granted, the latter argument is more of a commentary on how awfully implemented casters are in this game, and how the Concentration mechanic on top of the limited spell slots is crippling their gameplay. Someone has to be on mushrooms to believe that spamming Eldritch Blast as a warlock because you got 2 spell slots and one is reserved for Hex happens to make for an engaging gameplay experience.

So it sounds more like a weapon itemization issue than a need to rework Shillelagh. Instead of changing the bounded accuracy system, I think it would it would be better to advocate for better itemized clubs and staves, which still might be added either in EA or later down the line.

And considering aesthetic is so subjective (I disagree with your opinion here, I've seen one handed stave/shield look good depending on the appearance of each), I don't think this is a reason to change the RAW 5e rules of spears and staves as versatile weapons. I generally prefer more options here where it makes sense, rather than less. Especially because there already is going to be a reason why casters don't use staves + shields, in that many casters aren't proficient with shields (wizard/warlock/sorcerer/lore bard). And if staves were versatile you could dual wield them with another item (weapon or otherwise), if that second item had a magical attribute more desirable than a shield, so Druids aren't any more stuck with a shield than any other class. Again, this is more an issue with magical weapon design, since Larian is making their own rather than using established items from the DMG. I don't mind them making their own, it's just harder because they haven't been play tested or designed with the ruleset in mind.

Also, staves aren't always caster items in D&D, Monks often use them one-handed, so they can make unarmed strikes with their offhand. So I don't think limiting staves to two-hands for "caster feel" fully takes into account all the ways in which staves are going to be used.

The good news is that as the player progresses past lvl 4, casters have more and more spell slots, and more powerful spells, so caster gameplay seems artificially weaker now with the lvl cap. It also hurts casters that they are getting spell damage according to the PHB spells, but martial classes are given a whole bunch of items that make their weapon attacks deal way more damage than they would in TT. Larianisms are more beneficial to martial classes (no class requirements on spell scrolls needs to be fixed before launch, the +3 weapon oil is super strong, potion of giant's strength + extra weapon attack from speed potion, easy advantage from backstab to negate lowered accuracy from great-weapon fighting, weapon dipping), so playing a caster like a caster feels weaker in comparison, especially before the more powerful high level spells can be accessed. Even warlocks, which are meant to be a more simple spell-casting class, could become a lot more fun once more eldritch invocation options are added (and obviously everyone is hoping for the hexblade subclass, but that probably won't be added before launch).

And while I don't see anything wrong with making a "caster form melee druid" in theory, it will be harder to keep that approach effective at higher lvls, once martial classes get extra attacks, and the druid is stuck with 1 main-hand 1 off-hand attack. I assume the reason Shillelagh doesn't affect both weapons is to reserve the value of the two weapon fighting style for Rangers/Fighters (otherwise no attribute modifier on offhand damage), although I'm ok with your change seeing as the druid isn't going to keep up with either of those classes in martial damage anyway. I say play what you want, but I also don't think the game should make every class equally good at every role. "Balance" in a team based RPG is more about making sure each class has their own niche to excel at, rather than making sure that each class always feel as strong at each aspect of the game, at least this is how D&D is designed (if they didn't agree with this, why make a D&D game).

I also saw you mentioned Clerics above, and I do think that part of the reason they feel so weak is that their most important offensive spells haven't been put into the game. The ability to do aoe damage with spirit guardians, +bonus action damage with spiritual weapon + regular weapon damage, would really add up, and can last for an entire combat using just two spell slots. Right now, we're just stuck with guiding bolt and inflict wounds. So I'm hoping most of these problems are just resulting from the fact that they haven't caught up with all the spells and abilities for casters in the PHB, because so far most of the problems are self-made by changing the game design from the TT rules, and then failing to rebalance properly.

Some fair points, but my issue with the warlock wouldn't resolve because you're just changing the single spell you spam for a different one. And people here tend to use Larianism as a pejorative, but I find caster gameplay in Divinity far superior. For one, not being limited to a single action or hamstringed by the concentration mechanic means spell weaving and surface/elemental combos make for far more interesting gameplay rather than hoping my 67% backstab Eldritch Blast hits (and if I'm lucky, hits for more than 9 damage) or that I don't waste a lv2 spell slot only for Ray of Flame to miss one third of its missiles and deal about the same damage of an eldritch blast using a limited resource.

Nerfing melee would do nothing to make casters feel any less garbage, and saying "It's OK to be a boring, steaming pile of crap for the entirety of Act I, because it might get better if we follow the tabletop game". And that's fine, I don't mind some inspiration from tabletop settings, but I don't want a 3D tabletop game unlike many people here. I believe feverish zeal for trying to fit the square into the triangle socket is wasteful and produces a bad game, because the fact is tabletops are a social experience with specific context to mitigate the completely unserious RNG, no waiting 5-10 seconds per creature turn in between single action turns that may or may not hit.

Besides, if staves give spellcasting bonuses, it doesn't detract at all from the fact a monk might use it in the future. They could simply address that with a class passive, but for the rest of the casters, a staff should be their signature weapon, not a mere companion to the crown jewel of a shield.

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.

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.

-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.


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.

The bottom line is the implementation of animal forms just isn't fun. You go from having numerous choices in combat to transforming and having one special ability and a weak form that basically limits you to swing away. It just feels so pointlessly limiting.

You said ?




Is that exactly what you mean but using 2 spellslots ?



Anyway, restating it's a bad class don't mean it is a bad class... especially if you missed very interresting things.

If moonbeam is so powerfull it's only because it's buggy or because it's implementation is bad.
Don't know if it's intended or not but it should never do 4D10 damages on the same round
(sources : https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-april-2016).

Anyway I agree that the moondruid forms should probably be more viable in combats instead of being tools like in the video... But I totally disagree that it's a bad class and that it should be more powerfull.
This class is probably one of the most interresting in the game because of its versatility and because you really have to make tactical choices (mostly due to the concentration mechanic).

It is a very valuable class in a party or in a solo playthrough.

If rogues and fighters feels so powerfull, it is mostly due to easy advantages and all other cheese.
It's not related to D&D classes, it's related to Larian's mechanics and their bad balance. That's another thread.

Either the first screenshot is having poison on the offhand club trigger the damage, or I've been encountering bugs, because testing the poison damage proc on stationary objects to measure damage does not proc the poison damage when coated on a single wielded flame blade (tested with just flame blade mainhand equipped on a nearby chest with enough HP to not break in one hit, no offhand equipped).

In the following video you gave, you essentially sacrificed your animal form and its associated form ability access just to land thunderwave within the same turn, in other words the equivalent of eating up another spell slot. Doesn't really help my point that the animal combat performance has been completely sidelined to be either a convoluted arcane ward or misty step.

The concentration doesn't make you make tactical choices whatsoever. The choice is always for whatever spell will net you the most damage and kill the target the quickest. In this case, Moonbeam. You nerf Moonbeam, people will go flame Blade instead, and if you nerf that, probably Spike Growth or Flame Sphere. But that won't change the fact one spell will completely eclipse all the other concentration spells. I am completely unconvinced by your weak claim that the tactical choice imposed by concentration is anymore compelling that the tactical choice of combining Entangling Vines with Moon Beam or Flame Sphere's fire field or Moonbeam with Spike Growth. Concentration complete removes the tactical choice of spell combos.

More plainly stated, name the times Barkskin or Entangling Vines will be used relative to the times Moonbeam/Flame Sphere/Flame Blade is used. Name the times a cleric may use their concentration for Bane instead of Bless. Name the times a druid will use Faerie Fire. Close to almost never.

Using consumables or surface to coat weapons is not cheese, and even not doing a backstab from melee range, melee attacks hit more often than spells do, particularly melee CC spells like frightening or Pushing Strike. These are not exploits, merely questions of balance.

You keep saying the class is versatile, which is just code for "I play Eldritch Knight because they're versatile, and you're just not playing it right if you think Battlemaster is better". You say the druid is very unique, but nothing you've shown highlights how they're doing something another class can't do better, and that's ultimately what it comes down to. In a party play based system, where each teammate fills a combat niche, being the hybrid doesn't bring much value. The ability to do a task really well does.