Help with Shields please

Hey gang, it's been two years, but I am back. I am suffering from a little bit of overload, to be honest. I've been watching CoH vides, reading the Paragon Wiki, scanning through some forums, and I've decided I want to level a Shield Scrapper between now and Issue 18 - one of my two big desires (WP being the first) before I left. But I'm actually at a bit of a loss as to choose what primary to work from. I can thematically justify just about anything - especially due to the cool shield types, but I can't really figure out how the sets work synergistically (is that even a word) with Shield.

So here are my questions. I hope you don't mind.

1) What primary or primaries work best with SD in terms of survivability? Specifically solo in high level missions.

2) Are there notable holes in SD's game that needs to be made up somehow, either with IO's, inspirations, team buffs, etc?

3) What is the best character builder to use right now?

Thank you!

1) Either Dark or Elec for scrappers, IMO. Dark gives you a self heal in your attack chain and is also top notch single target damage. Elec is probably the best AoE set and it has two AoE knockdowns of which one is a nuke similar to Shield Charge and the other is available every 10 seconds or so.

Elec is probably overall the better survivalist in a team setting where you go up against a mix of lieutenants, minions and bosses due to its insane AoE capacity. You can just wipe out all the minions and lieutenants in your first volley of attacks which greatly increases survival. Against single tough targets such as AVs, though, DM is head and shoulders ahead.

2) Lowish defense out of the box is the only thing I can come up with. IO yourself to softcap and enjoy godmode! If you can't manage to fit in Grant Cover lowish DDR might be perceived as a hole, but it's not that much of a problem.

3) Mids' Hero Designer. Available at www.cohplanner.com

Nothing much to add, but:

1) Fiery melee is not bad.. it hasnt got a heal nor the AoE compared to /elec, but the single tgt dmg is very strong and if you like flames... aaah

1) If you want one that has excellent single target damage and better survivability against harder targets. I would go with Dark Melee. I love my DM/SD scrapper and Siphon Life is awesome.

If you want an AoE killing machine. Like recommended I would go with Electricity Melee. Shield Charge and Lightning Rod are amazing. Then IF that is not enough AoE carnage for you, then you can always pick up Fireball through Epic pool to add that much more bang.

2) Leveling up there are some weak points. But nothing popping a purple insp here or there won't solve. When you get up there and levels and can IO the toon out. Soft capping his Melee, Range, and AoE Defense. It does feel God-Modish.

3) MID's

I am going to have to agree with Andferne, if you want extreme survivability I'd go with Dark/Shield. It is absolutely one of the toughest/strongest combinations in PvE.

Agreeing with everyone, I'd go Dark Melee for survivability. That said, my Fire/Shield Scrapper was small team (3 people) tank from levels 1-50, and I had plenty of survivability for the job. I did use cheap IOs, though. The point of Fiery Melee is that you have better AoE damage than Dark, which matters if you care about how fast you're plowing through those high level missions. Endurance can be an issue with Fire. A solvable one, but an issue.

I do agree DM/Shield will be more survivable, but I have a Fire/Shield who has soft-capped defenses but is not an expensive build. I had no problem "tanking" on the ITF with normal team support.

I run fire/sd with aidself and it is a very flexible build I can solo AV's I can do aoe with sc + fsc Love the build

/sd biggest issue is debuff resistance is not as high as /sr it can be gotten to those levels with a really high end recharge build but overall it is great

I think it's possible I might go with DM/SD, as suggested, as I've never personally enjoyed DM/DA (more due to DA than anything). Thank you, everyone! I really do appreciate your expert advice on this.

I acutally have a DM/Shield, FM/Shield and an Elec/Shield.

The DM and FM are at cap with the DM having been fully build and completed months ago. I haven't really played in 6 months, but the DM is still tearing it up even with the changes to Blessing of the Zephyr.

The Fire was in the middle of a rebuild, she has most of the sets I wanted at the time, she's actually not slotted or using IO's in some cases. Last night I ran her and while weaker then I'd like, she was still tearing it up.

Elec/Shield is 36. It was harder for me to enjoy at first due to the AoE vs single target that I prefer. However, there is something cool about build up - shield charge a group - lightning rod a second group.

My favorite is the DM/Shield. I never enjoyed dark melee before I built her. Had tried it, and tried it and tried it but never got one past level 10. However she's a blast to play, running the smite - siphon life - smite - midnight grasp attack chain.