Druid's defense and build diversity

I went with Oracle and one of the near options is for incision. I tried some bleed stuff but it only works on basic attack and that one mark-trigger ability, since the rest are converted to cold.

The keystone passive of the oracle feels like a trap. I didn't realize how limiting it is until after I picked it, so I just re-speced into the unlucky passive. The ascendancy feels very "eh" sans maybe if you really want a specific build for the keystone.

The HP/Mana one is a trap. It reduces your hp and mana by 15%. For leveling, until mid-late game, these ascendancies don't really help me.

I feel like something is missing, the entire identity feels wrapped around cold on wolf attacks, when it could've easily had some bleed incorporated, especially since the passive is right there in the tree for oracle, but it's useless. I can't help but think this was meant for bear?

The small wolves you summon are absolutely useless, except for blocking me, which is already annoying in wolf form vs enemies.

I got to lvl 52 and the lunar thing is just bonkers. None of my damage is even close to that, to the point where I feel like I just stall for the cooldown.

The biggest problem is that my god I am squishy. I tried going more defenses, but am I the only one who can't really seem to make armor and energy shield work? I got tired of dying so I went full armor, which didn't seem to do much better. I'm capped on resistances, but I honestly just attack and get back, making fights take so long and tedious.

I'm not really sure what to do. I have 50% armor on tooltip and it feels like it doesn't do anything.

You are wrong. You can easily play plants and storm. No way you must do shapeshifting which i hate anyways. Plants and storms is very cool.