User blog comment:Zippertrain85/Mage, Warrior, or Thief/Assassin?/@comment-1992639-20130618120213

I use a warrior, who almost always equips a shield. I find she can ward off arrows with the shield just fine and with shield bashing she can keep foes at bay, scattering them enough to fight them one by one. Shields also work great to block dragon's fire, while you close in and start to slash away, or to fall back until you can hide behind something while minimizing your damage. The greatest threat for my warrior is magick attacks, as they sometimes tend to ignore the shield to an extent. Using the environment to get close and attack works against them for me, or rushing in once their magicka runs low.