First, to keep things in context, the shield is equivalent to a commando chest plate. That means it gets 5 armor points per level at rare, and even more on an epic or legendary. At 30, it's 144. At 60, it will likely be 294.

Also, if they were to release platinum shields (very likely), those would likely carry bonuses to %hit/%crit/%dodge. Would losing 5-10 damage be worth a 5% increase in your hit rate?

Quote Originally Posted by Kindread View Post
I agree with Register. I am not a fan of commandos and the pistola/shield combo. Besides the problem with the ability to hold aggro with the pistol, the commando loses out on the AOE capablities of the Heavy Weapons. I'm all about effectiveness. Yes it is nice to have an extra 144 armor from the shield which gives you a little more than 2 points damage reduction but who cares about damage reduction when most of the time, you're running in groups with an engineer? You're not going to notice the reduction at all when you're getting healed on a constant basis.

Instead you lose out on the damage output of an AOE heavy weapon which when combined with your crit boosting skill, probably clears house. I'm working on my commando alt right now and I'm loving the AOE of Heavy Weapons. When mobs are closer together, I'm damaging at least 3 at once. I don't have the crit boost skill yet but I'll bet it'll be fun.
The AOE weapon is nice, but for many battles, a rifle will work better. It is only single-target, but its min damage is much higher. That will cause your skills to do more damage. I'd say that the best advice is to use a gun suited to the situation.

Quote Originally Posted by GigaBits View Post
At level 30 my engineer uses a holo display. Cant check now, at work, but it adds more mana by 5 and less health than holo shield plus a handy +9 to int, IIRC. I feel it's a better choice for the discerning engineer. Granted the armor from shield is WAY better, I just feel that the display is a better choice for engineers, mainly because of + int.
Did you know that there is an Engineer-based Holo-Shield that provides the same stats and 134 armor? Check out my item compendium.