So, I kinda feel you. I decided to play a wizard build and was real annoyed with the dodge mechanics specifically at first. mostly because i often am moving forward which means back dodge will not work only left or right really. biggest thing is upgrade your armor. find the ones you can get from quests and chests that are higher tiers for uniques to use as stopgaps til you can upgrade the armor/weapon you actually want to wear if you don't have the stuff.
also, your build and weapon loadout. I am going mostly frost/force but I carry 2 wands and 2 seperate grimoire's though the grimoir's and wand's really changed the most over time to just be the best i had but im nearing end game on that and run with a main loadout of whisper of exiles/auroch's skin grimoire and secondary of cruel command/eilara's grimoire I am 26 right now and the plan is to add the last 4 points in the picture of the build to fill out secret of rime and blizzard. I run with yatzli and giatta at this point, but early used kai and giatta for kai's taunt. but, mostly I like to go aoe frost stacked with fire and pull of eora type stuff. plus i have extra aoe damage and frost damage on gear. frost helps with the dodging too because you can freeze stuff. i carried a grimoire for a while while i was leveling that had a bunch of shield spells so i could use them one was a frost but the fire one was nicest as it just ripped them to shreds while i chased them with various magic while the big aoes were on cd.