Question about base wolf form abilities

[Grimknot]

Looking at doing a 12 ftr/6monk/2something build and have questions about 2 monk. According to ddo wiki Wild Shape gives the following;

Wolf
Your base attack speed is 30% faster, you gain a +3 bonus to attack while flanking, +1d6 sneak attack damage, and a +10% enhancement bonus to movement speed.
Your natural attacks do 1d6 damage, do both piercing and slashing damage, and critically hit for double damage on a roll of 19-20.
Form specific spells: Takedown, Baiting Bite, Harrowing Pack, Howl of Terror

Now I've been told by people in game that you don't get the 30% base attack speed until Winter Wolf. I know the ingame tooltip for the base wolf form doesn't say anything about attack speed boost. But when are those ever right? The character panel doesn't reflect the wolf form attack speed either.

I know that the TWF line of feats do not work with wolf form so if there is not a 30% attack speed boost then I'd probably go 2 rogue or something for UMD etc, but if I can get a 30% base attack speed boost I'll go druid.

So anyone know if the base wolf form gives a 30% attack speed bonus or not?

[moriedhel]

It's not an attack speed bonus per se, it's just faster attack animation
I don't see how it would be better than twf on your build though, with monk you won't go for shield mastery, with 2 levels of druid you won't get natural fighting, if you're not going to wear a shield in your off hand for the AC/PRR/doublestrike I don't see a point in limiting yourself to 1d6 x 19-20
You could stay in human form and use Ram's and Jump though, dunno if it's worth the splash

[unbongwah]

I don't see how it would be better than twf on your build though, with monk you won't go for shield mastery, with 2 levels of druid you won't get natural fighting, if you're not going to wear a shield in your off hand for the AC/PRR/doublestrike I don't see a point in limiting yourself to 1d6 x 19-20

This: the faster atk animation from wolf on a druid splash doesn't make up for the low base dmg & crit profile, the lack of TWF (or THF) feats boosting DPS, the inability to boost doublestrike w/Natural Fighting feats, etc. It's unclear to me if the +[W] modifiers from monk apply to animal forms; but even if they do, I don't see much point in doing in wolf build w/less than 9 druid lvls (winter wolf + Natural Fighting feats).