ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Shielding runes still seem quite bad in the current version.

A regen infusion starts at 60 for 5 turns and gets higher.
Shielding runes can be as low as 50 for 3 turns.

The problem comes in when you compare the two.

A lot of regen is used on warrior/melee types that can get pretty good armour and even some defense. They also can either naturally or through escort get 'vitality' which is pretty much another good regen due to high life.
Runes are used a lot on magic users who get little armor or defense (most robes being 0,0). They are also used by those who can't used infusions. 'Vitality' through an escort doesn't do to much for a character with quite low life to start with.

Stores usually stock quite at least a few regen infusions, so the chance of getting a good usable one is decent. Yet I have seen stores stocking 0 shielding runes. Not very good if you have to rely on shielding.

Shielding rune drops seem few and far between too. And a lot of them are not ego ones either making it even more difficult to find a good one.

Something to think about.

Regeneration infusions take a turn to activate unless you have the fungus tree. Shields do not. You should compare shields to heals. You'll find the values closer together.

There may be a problem with the Aegis tree promoting heals over shields, but that's its own problem. For everyone but archmages, arcane blades, wyrmics, and antimagic characters shields are a reasonable option.

I do think there is too much variance on the values for some inscriptions, including Shielding, Regeneration, and Healing. Some of the values are laughably low, while an enemy or shop at the same level can spawn much better versions. The variance on cooldowns is also excessive in my opinion, but that's generally less of an issue.