Just to make a point to my LS, I decided to remove my shield for one of our runs at Ifrit and instead tanked him with just a sword. There are obviously enough factors that make it hard to compare one run to another, but the healer couldn't tell the difference between the two fights.

The ability to now use foresight also meant that I counted more parries during the run than shield blocks prior. In all fairness, My chat log couldn't display the entire fight and I could've missed some during the fight, but my main point is still there...

At least on harder mobs, the shield makes nearly no difference whatsoever. It's practically pointless now.