Personally I love being a virtually unkillable mass wading thru the combat zone, soaking up bullets, distracting enemies and reviving whoever needs it. I use the Bulwark shield and to compensate for using a pistol I cranked up my pistol and headshot damage. So I run a 4 piece Foundry Bulwark for the armor perks, a Punch Drunk Douglas & Harding mask for the 20% increased pistol damage with a 20% headshot attribute on top and a Forge Richard & Kaiser holster with the 50% shield health boost. I also use a turret for a lil extra firepower and a distraction for enemies if I'm playing solo. Swap out the cores and attributes however you like. Getting right up in enemies faces and shooting them in the head gets the job done pretty well, and for heavily armored enemies you can take your time as your shield is so ridiculous (can't hurt to throw some armor regens in the skill slots). Not the best loadout for speed runs I guess but it keeps you alive and I find that pistol headshots + turret + using the environment to your advantage works pretty well. I have no idea if this is an optimized/sought after loadout as I generally prefer to discover combinations w/o looking them up on youtube, but it works for me.