Taken at face value, all things being equal, etc.

I'm contemplating a paladin/undead hunter type character, now that I have Dawnguard installed.

I would be using a lot of restoration for healing and turning of the undead, and knowing that I'll be facing a lot of vampires, a case could be made for the need for magical defenses. There are perks that make shields a good choice, but I was thinking more along the lines of ward spells. I was trying to come up a Pros/Cons list.

Wards

Pros:

- Weightless

- Can move at full speed while active

- Completely negates spell effects targeted at the player (assuming the ward isn't broken)

- Adds extra, if miniscule AR bonus in case of melee attackers

- Awesome against dragons breath and shouts

Cons:

- Magicka Cost

- Useless against mundane projectiles

- Can be broken

- only projects in front of the caster

Shields

Pros:

- Blocks other damage

- Negates 50% of all magic damage (sans poison) when raised

- AR Bonus, protects against projectiles

- Can shield bash to interrupt enemy casters

Cons:

- Slow to a crawl if shield is raised (sans appropriate perks), causing you to possibly take more damage

- Adds weight to character

Any others you all can think to add? I really want to specialize in Wards with this character when engaging spellcasters, so I was just looking at some ideas/opinions

One downside with shields is that they don't immediately have the magic resistance. That said, they can also bash to interrupt magic, and the various perks with them are extremely useful. I'd say that if you invest into Block and shields, it is significantly better than wards in about every way. If you don't intend to invest, then wards might be better.

Spellbreaker...the shield/ward combo is the best of both worlds.

I knew someone was going to bring that up, haha.

I forgot to put that I probably won't be using Spellbreaker with this character. The only daedra I plan to help would be Azura and Meridia, not that I won't get "tricked" into helping others, but at least with these two you make a conscious choice to help, and it makes sense with the character.

if the elemental shield perk in the block tree is taken, shields are at basically a complete advantage, wards have basically no advantage to anything other than a pure mage, where it can eventually absorb magicka, but even then it cannot block non-magical attacks.

Hmmm...I'm going to give the Wards a go for a while, see how they hold up in practice. If nothing else it will help level Restoration. I've got Steadfast Ward, and I need to face a group of witches plus a hagraven...we'll see.

I've been partial to shields, however I play a melee character/paladin/cleric. May I add two more advantages of shield:

1} The ability to enchant a shield. Add a straight magic % damage reduction with additional health, or two elemental resistances, if your enchanting is high. Investing in enchanting is an assumption I'm making if you're playing a traditional mage character. Can also enchant for additional Health or posion/disease resistance.

2} The ability to 'cast' a reliable, no mana, paralyze via Shield Charge perk. Extremely helpful for dealing with caster from a melee/fighter perspective, it also shines if you're intending to stay at range for some encounters. The ability to shield charge incoming melee, continuing to sprint away (to widen distance between the melee combatant), and then resume missile attacks is a worthwhile tactic in open areas. However, this means you'll need to devote time to training block. I argue that if you're using a shield in the first place as a mage, you're going to be training it to bash-cast-cast-bash-repeat.

As an aside, if you're going to use a shield, I think you'll want to devote points to the Respite perk under restoration.