The damage taken is mostly fire followed by physical with spikes of death and, possibly, earth if you're taking ink blobs. Out of the available shields the best choice would be soulbastion with fire protection imbued ( 10% phys, 15% fire, 10% death ) followed by falcon estuchion with death protection imbued ( 7% phys, 15% fire, 10% death ). In both cases, you'll grab some additional death protection here.
- If your only goal is to take as little *total* damage as possible, you just want to stack fire and physical protection - the death and earth damage amounts in the total damage are so low that this is the best way to reduce total damage *but* the damage you take will be very spiky and if you get low hp you could get killed by an unlucky combo.
- If taking ink blobs, you could take an elven mail imbued with life / fire / earth instead of a falcon plate with life / fire to reduce the earth damage spikes
- If not taking ink blobs and you want to reduce the death damage, you could take an elven mail imbued with life / fire / death.
For reference, when I was around level 800 ( we always have taken the ink blobs in the crossroad pull ) I used:
magma amulet, cobra axe, spiritthorn ring, falcon coif, elven mail ( life / fire / earth ), falcon graves, pair of soulwalkers, soulbastion ( fire ) and moon mirror ( just to grab a little extra death protection ); this gives good all round fire and physical protection while helping to take the edge off the death and earth combos. Hope this helps!