Druid - Wild Shape - Animal Companions

[ElterAgo]

I have recently been seeing several players (including myself) and even a few GM's overwhelmed on these items.

I think some people are getting paralyzed by the multitude of choices. So I thought I'd ask you more experienced tree huggers to point out some of the better choices available. That way people won't have to keep in mind all of the possibilities. Then we could group all of them into general categories.

Wild Shape
Maybe the list just 1 or 2 forms in each size category that are pretty good at fighting. Obviously there are forms better for certain specific roles (capturing someone in the ocean seems like a squid rather than rhino task). But if the druid is just changing shape to generally kill the bad guys, what are good choices.

Animal Companions
Similarly what are 1 or 2 pretty good choices for the animal companion. But rather than size we have different categories. Most roles seem to fall into melee/tank, combat mount, mobility mount, and flying.

What are your suggestions?

[Eigengrau]

There's several guides out there for answers to those questions.

For levels 1 to 5 the beast to turn into for melee combat was the Leopard but now I think the Digmaul has it beat with 4 attacks and slightly better damage.

[Chess Pwn]

it's hard to go wrong with dinos

[Grandlounge]

Elementals are always good for wild shape. They have a good balance of utility and defenses.

For animals the go too of wolf, tiger, and Allosaurus are go toos for a reason.