Yeah, stick with the mid ranged armors - Heraldic w/ Tabard is a solid choice. Entirely suited to your style. Lamellars and mail shirts are all really effective and cheap. Invest in a decent helmet, and don't go overboard on boots or gloves, just what looks nice to you.
As far as builds go, try this website out. Remember to keep your stats on increments of 3's. 15/18/21/24/etc, because that allows you to get your crucial skills.
http://infinitum.dyndns.org/crpg/calc.htmAs a 1h shielder,
18/18 is a standard balanced build at level 30, which allows you to max all of your key skills at 6, with 5 points remaining for ironflesh. From there, whether you want to be stronger or faster, tweak the build. 21/15, or 15/21. That calculator will let you play around with skills yourself.
Also, I'm talking too much, but if you want to keep reading, I'll offer a little more advice about ranged in your build:
Keep all the armors and weapons you bought so far. You sell them back at a much lower price, so might as well keep the Black Armor for when you want something heavy for a round.
Also - if you want to keep ranged in your build, definitely play the game how you want to. Archery requires Power Draw, and each rank of Power Draw requires 14 (effective) wpf points. As you wear heavier armor, your effective wpf drops. Using a Bow is a very steep investment in this mod, as you really need to put most, if not all of your points into Archery. If you want to do a hybrid shielder, you will need to put your weapon and shield away, and you will be restricted to a 1 slot bow, a 1 slot shield, and 1 stack of arrows.
Its doable with an 18/18 build at level 30, but you will need to split your points appropriately. You'd probably want 100 in your melee skill, and you'll be left with about 135 for archery. Since you're spending 6 points in power draw, you can't get ironflesh, and probably drop shield to 5 instead of 6, which is fine.
Crossbows require no skill point investment, and are overall the go-to ranged weapon for a hybrid character. An 18/18 1h/shield/xbow would have a very solid build, with maxed shield skill and the ability to do full pierce damage from range. As a shielder you can scuttle away to cover to reload a crossbow as well, minimizing the time you don't have your shield out when you need it.
Throwing is also effective for shielders. It requires the same investment as Archery does, but allows you to keep your shield out, do heavy damage, and have an advantage in mid-close range melee engagements. Using Heavy throwing axes, you can press X to put them in melee mode, which will also use your 1h proficiency, if you needed a shield-breaking weapon. They're terribly short, and I don't recommend it to a new player, as you'll want to keep your main 1hander of choice on hand, but this way you can bring more ammo into a battle.
All of these except for crossbow require a large skill-point investment though, so you'll have a harder time until level 26-30 than you would if you went full melee build. What I can't stress more though, is to focus your WPF points into 1 main weapon skill, or 2 if you want to use a bow or throwing. Max your power strike. Max your athletics. Get at least 5 shield. From there, ironflesh helps a lot, but you can sacrifice it if you really want to hybrid. A crossbowman can still get it.
One last thought. If you do a pure melee build - as of right now, you do not necessarily need Weapon Master if you only do 1 weapon type. An example build could be:
18 STR / 21 AGI
3 Ironflesh
6 Power Strike
7 Shield
7 Athletics
111 in One Handed
Enjoy man, sorry to talk your ear off, but I hope some of this helps. I know, I wanted to try everything too. Have fun and good luck!
