Gunslingers, please elaborate on the shield! You use it or not? You die or not? Whats your loadout?

So the DVS seems like a fun weapon to use in phase 1, 2 and 4 of vanaduke. If I were to craft one, though, it would likely take the place of my snarby sword in my FSC loadout (currently: Voltedge, DTB, Gigawatt and Plasma cap).

As such, it would need to serve me well for taking down trolljans and the occasional wolver.

Obviously the BTB would be the blade of choice for wolvers, but I think the DVS should perform reasonably well here for the one room they appear in.

Help me decide which armor to upgrade to.
Helm: Sunset Stretson (UVS Freeze Low, Shock High)
Armor: Ash Tail Coat

The upgrade paths that I'm thinking about are these.
Pure Pierce (Skolver and Justifier)
Mixed: Sword Speed (Vog and Justifer) or Damage (Skolver and Nameless)
Pure Elemental (Vog and Justifier)

and if it helps, weapons:
Swords: Avenger, Dark Thorn Blade, Silent Nightblade
Guns: Gigawatt Pulsar (Almost a polaris! :D) Shadow Driver (Might replace this with Sentenza if ST becomes pure shadow) Magnus (My least used gun)

if there was an elemental catalyzer, would you use it over an alchemer or a polaris?

Silversix - Pure elemental damage, add an undead damage bonus
Argent Peacemaker - Pure elemental damage, add an undead damage bonus
Blackhawk - Pure shadow damage, add a gremlin damage bonus
Sentenza - Pure shadow damage, add a gremlin damage bonus

Those are the changes, but I want to know which i should pick.

My current Equips:
Wyvern Scale Mail & Angelic Helm
Twisted Snarb/Shockburst Bran/Toxic Cata/Sealed(soon to be avenger)/Lightning Cap/Super Blaster(not upgrading)/Arc Razor(Not Upgrading)/Antigua*
Boosted Plate Shield

There seem to be a bit of a lacking in terms of shields, not that there aren't some good ones to choose from, but you'd think that, since the shield is such an important tool to utilize in the game, that there would be more of a selecting you know? I'd love to see an elemental-shadow shield created some time. Maybe to go with the divine set?

im making a WHB (dont say it sucks plz i want it cause it looks awesome)
i like WHB (dont say get a DVS plz)

but what iv read about the WHB is that the 2nd attack (the wolver bite) happens a bit late or knocks enemy away or something like that so that if you want all your hits to land, full combo, you have to corner it or something like that. Is this true? and if so, how does it work and how would it differ from other cutter attacks?

for people who have used or seen WHB being used in game, how do you use it to its max potential effectiveness?

If you're a Bomber, you'll know that Gun Puppies & Wolvers are probably your Worst nightmare(Well, maybe to me, at least) so you'll be wanting an Owlite Shield...Except you're still vulnerable to Piercing Attacks. So, I've been skimming through the Wiki & found Dragon Scale Shield to be a great Shield...Except it doesn't offer Normal Defence. Is it noticeable & would you recommend it? Also, how far is the Push-Back you get from Shielding?

i just got a complete set of Drake scale armor and event though it seems to be better than what i had befor i seem to be taking more dammage in dyeing more so..
am i doing something wrong or .. did i misinterprete something..
cause i though Drake scale was better than Volt breaker..

the thwakers in Tier 2 are busting my shield in like 2 or 3 hits.. the Volt breaker could have stood up to that better .. am i missing something?

I was wondering what wep I should upgrade first. I have a Striker, a Tempered Caliber, adn a Sealed Sword. They all are LV 10 in heat, so I don't need to worry about that. I've got 300 CE, 7k CR (I used to have more, but I bout CE).