Note that in WoW, in order to be a kickass shapeshifter, you need to spec into Guardian (for bear/tank) or Feral (for cat/melee DPS). I haven't kept up with WoW enough to know if bear/cat form are locked behind those specs these days or if it's just that you need to take the specs in order to get your numbers up to the right point, but either way a Balance druid (ranged DPS) won't do much good in either of these forms. There's also a few Travel forms that all druids have: stag for land travel, seal for swimming, and eventually bird for flying.Yeah, wildshape was not great with the 2014 rules and is now substantially worse. Thanks to other properties, notably World of Warcraft and other RPGs, not to mention (checks notes) the official D&D move, Honour Among Thieves, the expectation of most younger players is that druids will be these awesome, kickass shapeshifters. It is inexplicable to me that WotC has been unable to deliver a compelling druid class.
If shapeshifting is your jam, you should see about getting your DM to let you change your subclass into Circle of the Moon. That's the subclass that's all about the shapeshifting and makes it a combat-relevant ability.To be honest, one of the main reasons I wanted to play the Druid was because I love the idea of shapeshifting. It's just that the way it's written (or the campaign we're in) seems to make it where my doing it is basically the worst option to choose in most of the situations. I can only think of once that I was able to use it in a way that actively helped the group.
We have a couple of skilled scouters, but 99% of the time they find some sort of trouble that would require my caster abilities rather than my sneak ones.
That said, it does sound like your DM has decided that this adventure has to be solved this particular way and taken steps to shut down any alternate way of doing it. That's generally considered poor form.