Oh, that melee/ranged divide! Monk struggling Hell.

[Chesspiece_face]

Increasing DPS over defense, however... Would you recommend dropping the shield and dual-wield, or are the benefits of the shield too good to pass on (as I am thinking) and I would be better served looking at my skills (such as Mantra of Conviction, as Treesh suggested)?

The first thing I can say looking over your build is that you have a very high requirement for spirit without much of a possibility to generate it. What I mean by this is that you have 3 attack skills that consume spirit, each with it's own uses and purposes and some of them with very high cost associated with them.

There are a couple things that will end up happening with a build with such reliance on spirit generation. First it will force you into untenable positions. You will find that more and more you are low on spirit and cannot effectively put out damage thus forcing you to take more risks to try to generate that spirit to just be able to fight. This is obviously not a good starting point going into fights.

Now, it's possible that with optimized gear and skills you can effectively overcome this downside but that requires very specific gear. It will probably be a much easier and efficient option to trade out some of your spirit consumers for more defensive cooldowns or other skills that are effectively 'passives'. Breath of Heaven is a popular choice that serves both offensive and defensive needs if you spec for the +15% damage buff. I've also heard that many people who use Mystic Ally find it dying constantly. I don't have that issue with my Monk so your milage may vary. I believe that some amount of your stats transfer to the Ally, but I've found that Mystic Ally is hands-down the best defensive skill the Monk has. Again though, it may not be possible to keep it standing at the point you are at right now. Sweeping Wind is an option that often works as passive damage output in that once you put it up you can often keep it rolling through multiple fights. It has a higher initial cost but ends up paying dividends in spirit per damage the longer it is maintained.

All in all, look over the 3 Spirit Consumers that you are using and decide which of those offer the best utility for your build and playstyle and drop at least one (possibly two) of them and swap them in for skills that can fill in more utility. Playing with that many consumers is probably spreading yourself too thin.