Shapeshift

Shapeshift is the druid's basic Hero Power.

Strategy
This Hero Power offers a combination of offensive and defensive benefits.

Shapeshift grants heroes a temporary point of Attack, allowing them to directly attack enemies, essentially granting them a weak weapon until the end of the turn. This is most useful for finishing off enemy minions, trading Health (or Armor) for board control, often in combination with friendly minions or spells. It can also be used to simply chip away at enemy heroes. Shapeshift can also supplement the power of other Attack power sources to increase killing power for the single attack allowed that turn. This Attack power is usually from spells but can also include equipped weapons, since Shapeshift is not itself a weapon - although it is extremely rare for a druid to have one.

Since Armor stays and can stack, this Hero Power also acts as a 1 point heal (or more accurately a pre-emptive shield) for your hero. This can slowly build up protection from future attacks, or absorb some of the damage taken when hitting a minion.

Against other Hero Powers
Shapeshift is a hybrid of offense and defense, and excels at neither; it also exposes druids to damage by forcing them to attack minions directly. However, it is one of the three "deal one damage" powers, enabling some card-efficient board control and discouraging opponents from playing 1-Health minions.

Hero Powers can be compared "one on one" assuming a clear board state and no other cards involved, although this is mostly academic since cards drawn and played tend to have a much larger effect on the game than any player's Power.


 * Shapeshift can keep up with Armor Up! or Steady Shot, although the opposing power will determine which direction Health/Armor totals go: both heroes either gain 1 net Armor or take 1 net damage per turn depending on the Power. However, Shapeshift offers far better board control versatility than either.
 * Lesser Heal is in the same boat as Armor Up! without minions on the priest's side, with the drawback that Health (unlike Armor) cannot be built up indefinitely. On the other hand, in combination with minions it can heal more damage than the druid can dish out.
 * Totemic Call may be Shapeshift's worst matchup, as it takes multiple uses to take down most Totems, and if Healing Totem is produced the druid will not be able to kill any totems without card assistance. Stoneclaw Totem can even block the druid from attacking more vulnerable targets. One upside would be the steady stream of Armor accumulated from using Shapeshift, since most Totems have 0 Attack.
 * Shapeshift can break even with Reinforce, spending both Armor and Attack each turn to pick off Silver Hand Recruits as they come for no net change. However, if multiple Recruits are allowed to be built up, the druid can only eliminate a single new one each turn and will need assistance to catch up to the existing attackers.
 * Shapeshift beats Fireblast and Dagger Mastery one-to-one, its Armor neutralising the incoming damage while its Attack bonus allows the druid to deal some damage of their own. However, Fireblast is potentially better for board control by avoiding exposure to counterattack and bypassing Taunt, while Dagger Mastery has better tempo by enabling two attacks per Hero Power use instead of one.
 * Life Tap is too variable and context-dependent to easily compare, but as a rule, with few cards in hand its additional card draw each turn will usually provide greater utility than Shapeshift, although once the warlock's deck is exhausted Shapeshift will clearly win out.
 * If two druids attack each other in a mirror match, each side will eliminate the other's extra Armor each turn for no net effect.

Trivia

 * The artwork for this Hero Power comes from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game "Through the Dark Portal" series, for the card.