AndreaColombo

Not much. Going by memory it's a couple Darguls that you can make to attack your enemies (they won't do so automatically.) By the time you get the estoc, they'll already feel underpowered; so was my experience at any rate.

Why not use the IE Mod?

^ because of additional fixes and/or rebalancing of underwhelming encounters?

Thought the bug with Iron Wheel on naked characters had been fixed in 3.03?

Why 2/rest if all other forms have 1/rest abilities, anyway?

I believe Wildstrike belt is the only item in the game that carries over when you spiritshift; everything else is out until you're back to your normal form.

Ah, yes--hadn't considered solo play. In that case, it is indeed likely too short (I say "likely" because I lack first-hand experience with solo play.) In a party it's enough to steal the show from your dedicated DPS guys

With good INT, it lasts long enough to kill many enemies IME

All Druid forms attack at the speed of dual-wielding Average weapons with the exception of Cat/Stelgaer, which attack as though they dual-wielded Fast weapons: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86684-mechanics-the-big-attack-speed-conundrum/ As for the Stelgaer shape, we've already established that it offers no bonus to damage compared to Cat; can't test right now but I'm pretty sure it doesn't offer any extra Accuracy either.

Just checked myself. At level 16, Hiravias's base damage is 32-50 and so is the base damage of a hired Druid when spiritshifted into cat form

Well, mechanically it really is the same as the regular cat form; the changes are merely cosmetic (or so Josh said on SA way back, shortly after the game's release.) Not that cosmetic changes would be unimportant, mind you—I chose to use Hiravias over a min/maxed henchman precisely because I love how the Autumn Stelgaer form looks.

Updated the Tank of Pain build to reflect AlexDeLarge's suggestion to use Shatterstar instead of Sheathed in Autumn as the weapon of choice. It comes a lot earlier and offers the same +1 engagement slot perk with an extra +50% crit damage and more flexibility in choosing your own lash instead of being stuck with one given. @FluxWing — Confident Aim is a great ability and I will definitely be taking it with all my build variants after 3.04 lands. Recently I've been avoiding it because of the bug that makes it impossibly overpowered upon saving/reloading. Thanks for posting your build, by the way! It's always interesting to see other approaches to filling the same role in a party, and in fact there would be nothing wrong with giving it its own, dedicated thread with the fancy name

And you don't even need to min/max. Hiravias built as the Thundercat easily out-DPSs everyone in my party.

No orchestra; you only really need one scroll of Moonwell (or a Druid to cast the spell) to execute that strategy. Credit where credit is due, I got this whole idea from Boeroer's Chillfog build thread. My party composition is as follows: Glass of Pain protagonist (without Cloak of Tireless Defender, which my tank is using instead.) Tank of Pain (using the Cloak; could be replaced with any other build if you don't need or want a tank.) The Unfaithful Thundercat Juggernaut (more like a custom variant, really) The Last Unicorn (which is the cool-looking variant of Chillfog ) Glass of Pain has Constant Recovery + Rapid Recovery + Belt of Bountiful Healing + high MIG score + Survival healing multiplier bonus. Tank of Pain has the same as above + Cloak of the Tireless Defender. Juggernaut and The Unfaithful both have Veteran's Recovery; Juggernaut also gets the Survival healing multiplier bonus (I chose extra DR for The Unfaithful.) Thundercat is wearing Manhea's armor (+25% healing received.) Everyone gets Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits from The Last Unicorn, which is a high-MIG, high-INT Chanter wearing St. Borragia's Tears (+15% Healing done.) The Last Unicorn also has Veteran's Recovery. All the above + a scroll of Moonwell from The Last Unicorn means everyone heals the heck out throughout the fight. None of my men are ever in the red except when a dragon uses their breath weapon; then they're in the red for a short time before the healing gets them all back up to full Endurance. At level 16 you also get the +100% Healing chant which further amplifies the effect. Pair all of this with Champion's Boon + Form of the Delemgan (which effectively means +13 DR against most damage types) and you're practically immortal

None taken, and I agree—I was making a broader point rather than suggesting that approach to the OP

It doesn't by design, as it would make Spiritshift even more (over)powerful.

^ I wouldn't be so sure ... It is certainly possible to max out before fighting the dragons. Regardless, with the party I've been testing for my 3.04 playthough, from level 14 on it was possible to brute-force dragons and shrug their breath attack because extreme healing on everyone.

Bittercut's plagued by a bug whereby its blade takes your primary color instead of staying its natural color. Hence, if you pick a light-blue tint for this build variant and simply quit the inventory screen, you'll get a bluish Bittercut

Sure thing; thanks for notifying me

There won't be more of those either

Well, 3.04 is likely going to be the very last patch for PoE anyway so once you have it, that's it in terms of downloading updates.

I haven't built specifically around the Charge ability but the Glass of Pain variant replaces Shod-in-Faith with Frythr's Plated Greaves, which may better synergize with it. Granted, they come rather late, but so does Charge; you may wear Shod-in-Faith at lower levels and swap them when you get the Greaves. They grant a 1/rest ability that, going by memory, gives +3.5 move speed, +15 defense against Engagement, and prevents Engagement from stopping your movement. With it, you could quickly rejoin the rest of your party after charging priority targets, in case you had to protect a squishy or just wanted to be back within the priest's buffs' AOE. Other than that, as you can't really change the speed at which you charge, the ability is all about pumping MIG to boost damage, which the LoP already does

New dialog interface looks damn spiffy!

Try without the I.E. mod for good measure. It has odd behaviors with spells at times (such as AoE spells not affecting the caster, for example.)

I would do so hastily, as once 3.04 is out (and the plan, if memory serves, is to release it this week), no more patches will be released for this game and any unfixed bugs will stay indefinitely. Make sure @Sking sees it.