Speaking about shields, I think the problem is not just their defensive stat is inadequate, but also that they heavily gimp your offensive output:
1. Your auto-attack now costs 2 AP as opposed to 1. That's a 50% reduction in damage per turn from normal attacks, folks.
2. Many of the warfare school of skills cost 2 AP. By having normal attacks that also cost 2 AP you are often left with an awkward 1 AP that you have to save for next turn instead of finishing off the enemy with 1 hp left.
3. AFAIK there isn't a taunt skill that allows you to aggro enemies into focus firing your shield-wielding fighter in order to maximize the benefit of having a shielded, high defensive stat teammate.
Some solutions I think that might work:
1. Fix it by buffing the defensive capability of the shield. Bring back blocking %. Introduce a taunt skill that require a shield (ie: aggros all enemies around the fighter in a set radius and make them go berserk into auto-attacking him for one turn etc).
and/or
2. Fix it by lowering the offensive penalty the shield brings. Removing the AP usage penalty straight up might be imbalanced because then there will be no reason to go 1H no shield. Perhaps introduce a talent that removes the AP penalty so people can spend one precious talent point to achieve damage parity with a pure 1H build? Still might be too much of a gimp so a combination of 1 & 2 is probably necessary.
