Well even if you get myth faster. Doing those whole 9 books are pain in the ass, even worse than atma to me

For the shield i use the unweathered hoplon one, still trying to get a hand on the one in T8, it never drops lol.

The hoplon gives me a block strength of 41%, so basically to me it feels like a second sentinel. And when i Look at scob it's much more usefull to me.

T6 you don't bulwark that much.
T7 you can use it when you have one add and Melusine, great plus
T8 you have an extra Sentinel for the double tanking Avatar +DN
T9 great plus for the fourth ravenbeak in P1 (if you can't skip the 4th one)

Ofc i'll use the T8 one when it drops (been almost 2 months that i'm waiting for it ahaha).