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?
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.
Did you know that there is an Engineer-based Holo-Shield that provides the same stats and 134 armor? Check out my item compendium.
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