Yea Shield's in there current form don't have much use.I'm sad to see it appears they have removed the boon from blocking with a shield. Anyone that has done reenactment or martial arts probably have experienced how much easier it is to block something with a shield than parry with a weapon (at least that's my personal experience).
If they want to make it more even between parry or blocking they could always consider making blocking with a shield working as "active armour". So if you succeed with your block you remove, e.g. 5, damage from the attack instead of negating it completely.
I would prefer restoring Boon to parrying with a shield, maybe restrict it to Shield's get a boon to parry but only if used with say a "Shield" skill.
Because in their current form they more or less are just a parry stick, they don't even have that much more durability to make them worth it, the small shield has as much durability as a longsword and large shields only has 3 more durability than that, their only advantage atm is that they are cheaper.
Well they do let you parry a range attack, but even then I would like to see some form of buff to shield's