just started using it tonight, and it was a big adjustment. It's obvious you have to be very strategic about when to use the dome shield, but I can't answer when that right moment is. The problem is that you're safe in the shield, and it lasts quite a while, but you can't shoot out of it. And enemies can penetrate it, so if you just put it up where you're cornered, you still run into the problem of things like Hive Knights just running in to melee kill you anyway.

I had *mild* success using it as a decoy, popping it right in front of the Strike Boss characters, in the open, so that character just shot at me endlessly, freeing my teammates up to move around. That worked sorta okay, but while that happened I just stood there and contributed nothing. On a few maps, I found actually useful spots, where you could duck in to avoid damage, then duck out to pull off power shots. I'm assuming with communication, that's what will happen in the bigger missions.

But yeah, then the other thing is once you use the shield, it takes a looong time to come back, unless you're in a good Orb of Light enemy spawn. So you can just pop it, have it be a total waste, then have to wait another 4 minutes to get it back. And you don't even soak up the occasional nice kill in-between.

I'm hoping the deeper I get in the skill tree, the more useful it gets, but right now it's a big adjustment (and a little less fun feeling) stepping off the Striker subclass. Just adjusting to the non-codex build, where you don't get the extra armor and movement, is really something...

Game stays awesome, though, most fun I've had with a video game since I can't remember when.