I am "underestimating" yes, because this comes with the cost of a Sustain action that I wouldn't need to pay with a druid or way to cast that battle form.
But the Druid pays 2 actions to cast it. So it takes quite some rounds for the Druid to "catch" up with the Animist in terms of action lost.
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I am "underestimating" yes, because this comes with the cost of a Sustain action that I wouldn't need to pay with a druid or way to cast that battle form.
This action is missing and just changing forms when convenient hardly makes up for it.
And how often is that third action ever particularly useful?
If you're already in combat then you can either strike/strike/sustain or strike/sustain/move.
If you're a Liturgist then that move becomes free (part of the sustain).
What are you doing as a wild shaped druid that is so useful with that 3rd action? third strike? Wow.
I think I've asked this before but I forget the answer. Have you personally actually played an animist from say level 3 to level 14+?
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2 rounds. This is the time needs to pair the action cost...
Look, being able to change battle forms between different animal forms every battle is cool, and being able to change elemental forms is also cool. But it's not worth it at all. It's as if you were Slow 1 all the time, because even at high levels you can't save yourself, since the Animist doesn't gain Effortless Concentration. So if you end up paying for something that won't even recover THP, it's just bad.
I understand the point that changing forms can give you some versatility in movement, but it hardly makes up for the loss of an action. No matter how fast you walk, you'll be limited to using a single attack action after that, and if you end up suffering some action-saving debuff like Stun or Slow, then you'd be done with your round. Even Slow 1 will be extremely penalizing.
As for Devouring Dark Form I agree, out of the water the shark form is rubbish, but at least at levels 1-2 you are not limited to Pest Form, as you gain a 1d8 reach + grapple attack which is pretty cool, and in fact when you get the Lurker in Devouring Dark you usually already do this planning by also getting another Apparition to compensate for the gap until you reach level 10 and be able to use the water elemental form, which can even be the Stalker in Darkened Boughs since at level 16 having both together means having access to all Monstrocities Forms via Monstrous Inclinations
This actually brings me to a curious topic. Because I don't know if you've noticed, but none of the forms provided by Monstrous Inclinations mention the special abilities provided by the Devouring Dark Form spells that allow you to use the sustained action to Strike and in the case of Darkened Forest Form it only gives access to phoenix, which basically makes changing forms at high levels impossible.
I am "underestimating" yes, because this comes with the cost of a Sustain action that I wouldn't need to pay with a druid or way to cast that battle form.
This action is missing and just changing forms when convenient hardly makes up for it.
And how often is that third action ever particularly useful?
If you're already in combat then you can either strike/strike/sustain or strike/sustain/move.
If you're a Liturgist then that move becomes free (part of the sustain).
What are you doing as a wild shaped druid that is so useful with that 3rd action? third strike? Wow.
I think I've asked this before but I forget the answer. Have you personally actually played an animist from say level 3 to level 14+?
Battle forms means that you are fighting melee this also means that you needs to move but you already have one action locks sustaining it so every time you need to move you will restricted to just use 1 Strike in that round.
Also move isn't the only action possible for these forms you still are able to use any skill actions like Demoralize (needs Intimidating Glare to avoid the -4) or Feint or simply to Stride/Step to keep an enemy flanked. Due the current action cost that Darkened Forest Form costs you have to sacrifice your second Strike (like the agile one that you mentioned) or one of these actions (or both if you need to move a lot).
2 rounds. This is the time needs to pair the action cost...
Actions are not all equivalent. You'll need much more than 2 rounds to pair the action cost.
I personally prefer Darkened Forest Form to Wild Shape. It's much more versatile, both because you can change shape in the middle of it but also because you can get out of it without paying an action. You also don't need to Sustain it as it lasts 2 rounds by default.
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I personally prefer Darkened Forest Form to Wild Shape.
I think they're very, very comparable myself (assuming you only get the temp hit points once from DFF), at least when comparing the Non L9 Liturgist with the druid. I think the L9+ Liturgist is clearly ahead.
I love the versatility of DFF but it doesn't come up all THAT often in practice. But it can be MASSIVE some of the times when it does come up. As in trivializing an encounter massive.
Wild Shape has more options (especially my favourite Plant Shape for a few particular levels). But it is more Feat intensive. For those few cases where it comes up the +2 status bonus is very, very nice. That +2 status bonus is less useful if you have a +1 status bonus from somewhere else.
Sometimes the 2 actions to set up Wild Shape is very cheap (for whatever reason, you have a round or 2 before things are in melee range), sometimes it is a real cost.
Sometimes the 1 action sustain is a real cost, sometimes its very cheap.
So, for me, Wild Shape and DFF are just about perfectly balanced. At some levels and for some builds and in some circumstances one is better, other times the other is better. And a LOT of the time the differences are quite small, small enough to not even be noticed in many encounters.
All of the above assumes that you only get temps once with DFF. If you get points every time you sustain then it is clearly more powerful.
I think they're very, very comparable myself
I have the same point of view, it's just personal taste to prefer Darkened Forest Form. In my opinion, they don't have the same use case: Wild Shape is if you want to turn into a Battle Form for the whole fight, Darkened Forest Form is interesting if you want to run your Battle Form on and off during the fight.
I personally don't see the point of turning for a whole fight outside some rare enemies that are immune to your spells. But I've played with many players who define their caster by their shapeshifting ability. It's rather weak in general but to each their own.
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I personally don't see the point of turning for a whole fight outside some rare enemies that are immune to your spells.
We're definitely pretty much in violent agreement but the other use case for me is when I'm trying to conserve spells for some reason. When there is a fairly easy encounter (Moderate or so) I'll often Wild Shape in the hope that I won't need to spend any resources on the encounter. And Wild Shape is OFTEN better than spamming cantrips and focus spells.
Plus, of course, its sometimes just fun to turn into a tree, use my Treebeard voice and hit people :-) :-) :-).
But for BOTH the Druid and Animist Wild Shape/BFF is just one tool in the tool box, to be used when appropriate and ignored when another tool is better.
We're definitely pretty much in violent agreement but the other use case for me is when I'm trying to conserve spells for some reason. When there is a fairly easy encounter (Moderate or so) I'll often Wild Shape in the hope that I won't need to spend any resources on the encounter. And Wild Shape is OFTEN better than spamming cantrips and focus spells.
For me, it's the exact moment Wild Shape can backfire nastily. You expect an easy fight, so you engage with a low resource playstyle. But if you somehow made a wrong assumption (either because of a wrong assessment or just because some unforeseen event turns it into a Severe encounter) you started low (and as such made it worse now) but you need to pay an action (maybe 2 as you are certainly at melee range, not an ideal position for a caster) to switch to your high impact high resource consumption playstyle.
That's why I never start low. When a fight gets to its conclusion, you can make a rather good assessment of its difficulty, but at the start of a fight it's much more guessy. And also I absolutely hate the metagame of it (as most of the time, you base yourself on player information to assess the fight difficulty as your character is mostly fighting for its life).
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We're definitely pretty much in violent agreement but the other use case for me is when I'm trying to conserve spells for some reason. When there is a fairly easy encounter (Moderate or so) I'll often Wild Shape in the hope that I won't need to spend any resources on the encounter. And Wild Shape is OFTEN better than spamming cantrips and focus spells.For me, it's the exact moment Wild Shape can backfire nastily. You expect an easy fight, so you engage with a low resource playstyle. But if you somehow made a wrong assumption (either because of a wrong assessment or just because some unforeseen event turns it into a Severe encounter) you started low (and as such made it worse now) but you need to pay an action (maybe 2 as you are certainly at melee range, not an ideal position for a caster) to switch to your high impact high resource consumption playstyle.
Maybe I've been lucky so far but every time I've had to Dismiss/Cast because things just got serious its come out ok.
While my Wild Shaping Druids aren't exactly tanks they have good AC and decent hit points so they've been able to stand up in melee for a round or 2. The 5ft that I often get as I shift from Large to Medium sometimes helps too.
I think the most common spell I've cast in that circumstance is a high level heal spell to get another party member back in the fight. And that party member often draws the aggro from me :-) (if at all possible I've delayed so that there are no bad guys in initiative between me and them)
But this is going to be at least partly influenced by party composition, how tough the encounter is, GM style, etc. Definitely a case of YMMV