For me, the "worst" change is the extra movement lag + cost when above weight, especially since some forms can have strength of 16 or less (especially defensive forms) and you basically have to pretend you're a dex dodge warrior/melee and keep weight < 50%.

STSF has always been a nightmare for shifters though. I remember Quas's drow zerker used to straight own my Air/Offense shifters (one of like 20 I've played) face clean off. And that was in like 2010.

Edited to add: Why you gotta think about some outside-the-box tactics to kill those STSF warriors. Camel can blind (which is money for many reasons), you can always start off out of form with a wither/plague/crimson wand to try and make them drop their weapons (since STSF warriors usually need ~+12 in strength gear if they don't want to drop weapons in any sort of drawn out fight) if they aren't geared for tons of strength.

Of course, you can always die because you're an unshifted shifter (even with haste + partial shifts, regardless of what Kstats thinks) but yeah.