SRSChaos

It would appear you are correct. I always thought that because in the class description the line about the PEN bonus was sandwiched between 2 lines about spirit form it also applied to spirit form. Apparently I never looked very closely at the tooltips when I was playing one, but I just loaded an old save and its definitely there.

The Helwalker/Fury is a very different beast than a single class druid. The OP didn't say anything about multiclassing the druid. Also, the extra +1 PEN isn't really that great. You only get it when shifted and when shifted you don't have a weapon equipped. That means for the best spells (relentless storm, great maelstrom, etc) you are better off not shifting so you don't lose Lord Darryn's bonus. Helwalker/Fury is a great glass cannon and one of my favorite characters, but if what you want is a druid (which is what the OP said) then an ancient is much better.

The difficulty of certain fights can really change if you are doing turn based or real time with pause. For example, in turn based some ship combats can be extremely brutal if all of the enemies target the same 1-2 people. It is very possible to lose people before you even get a chance to act. However, turn based mode practically trivializes Hauani because of how much easier it is to ensure disintegrate gets the last hit to prevent it from splitting.

I would definitely go with the ancient druid over the fury. The minor penetration and range bonus from the fury's shapeshift are, IMO at least, not worth giving up all rejuvenation spells. Also, there is nothing stopping the ancient from picking up the good elemental spells. If you've never played a chanter I highly recommend giving one a try in your 5th slot. If you want DPS I recommend a bellower, multiclass or single class are both great. There isn't much better than starting every fight off with an empowered Eld Nary for some really obscene damage (make sure you have sasha's singing scimitar of course).