13 Jun 2007 at 17:29 - 6
Always. Bring. A. Shield. You don't need the extra energy unless you're actually casting (and don't have enought energy in your shield set), and 8 passive armor (+10 against one type, which you can swap so it's pretty much always the correct type) is too nice not to have.
+energy armor is bad. If you need more energy bring energy management skills, and for emergencies there's always your +30/-2 set. If you have to stick around in that set for so long that the extra energy from your armor would have mattered you've already lost the game.
If you can reliably meet the condition, armor with a +10 (for whatever) is best. In a bonder's case, I think +10 while enchanted is the best choice.
More importantly, I would never ever run a bonder in PvP. Mirror of Disenchantment is too common in every build (because most builds otherwise get owned by aegis), and messes with your build bad. Secondly, you're probably going to waste 2 seconds every 10 seconds casting Blessed Signet. A signet with such a long cast time is just too easy to Dshot (burning arrow rangers are too common too), and with bonds, balthazar's spirit and blessed signet you only have 5 skill slots left for protection and healing. That's quite tight.
There are just a lot of better monk options out there.