I am basing my arguments on situation when both archer and thief have possiblilty of z/sfd- not just 1v1.
But as you want, lets see when archer and thief go solely 1v1..
If archer uses ice shield instead of sfd/pro he will not gain defence buff bonus and to 60-100ac archer this means roughly 11-14k damage from single opponent shot, even a scratch from ex kills at this level- for example 2x critical ice shots can kill (even 1 shot if thief has vigilante symbol 2x force rares 1dist rare and lg knife)
Same time 1v1 thief using ice shield gains 30% damage reduction to his 200ac and if it is soley 1v1 neither of them do not have z.
This means that even if archer drops thief ac by 25 (hitting 5 shots of ac drop in row) and manages to land a full ex afterwards, he will not kill that thief.
In mass battle archer using ice shield means that he is getting in - 15-20k normal/double slash from warrior , 15-20k ex from thief... and 99% probabilty to get stunned by wiz not to even mention that priest can LD all his hp with 1spell.... someone said before that he would like to see 1spell that does 150k damage.. well we have 1spell that does around 50k damage.
To be honest if i did not get stun all the time i would even use that since getting twice as much hurt gives me still more chance to survive than just being f*** by pepsi
Force rare is limited at g20 and this is obtained regardless what symbol you take. Additionally the ex gain does not work on blue rare, this means that for example a thief that has 2force 1ac (200ac) set has more advantage to gain than full force g20 archer(in terms of % damage increase).
Taking force symbol is just choosing g4 extra rare effect over g7 rare effect. If you learn about thief and archer symbols you will see that actually thief gains not just same force symbol as archer but additionally same amount of distant rare effect.
Also about the fire bow, its resistance is nullified by BR rares but in the other hand shield ac drops spell damage and BR damage giving them same overall defence vs fire spells but additionally shield protects also from other types of elemental damage like lightning/ice.
Comparing defence to attack power: we have ac mantle witch is 20white ac and attack mantle witch is 30-48 damage
If you compare shield to bow increase the difference is 34white ac to 30damage....
And to be honest i belive these constant pepsi battles are not just ruining my gameplay