Fluff vs. Mechanics

[diplomancer]

This makes no sense to me. either they're using wild shape to bypass the stealth penalty that limiting their ability to use a form that's better in combat but they also lose all the advantages of said armor because most of the sneaky beast have low AC AND blowing their first round action to come out of wild shapes.

Also, any level 1 character in starting heavy armor is going to have 18 AC without a fighting style and 19 with defense. The druid starts with leather armor so maybe they will have 16 max(assuming at least a 16 in Dex) until they can buy better armor.

Getting OUT of wildshape is a bonus action, for any Druid. A relatively small cost to completely bypass stealth penalties and have 18 AC at level 2. To achieve that, a character has to:
1- be a high-dex character
2-wear a shield
3-have defense as his fighting style.

Druids can do it with dex 14 and a bonus action (yes, and 45 gp to upgrade his leather armor, which is not hard to have by level 2)