Well there are are four things that you can do with Rotes: attack, block, maneuver, and counterspell. Now I have never used a rote counterspell so I don't know how useful they are, but in my opinion they are not as useful as the other three. Now I would take an attack, two blocks, and a maneuver. Because you have spirit you can use on of your "blocks" as a veil, which are always useful and you already stated that you wished to keep a shield rote. Now the maneuver is entirely up to you, I would make it something that would be difficult to do with a melee weapon (since you mentioned that your character prefers melee), I would suggest an area maneuver, maybe you use your spirit power to make the air around character in the zone to almost vibrate, the raw kinetic energy pulsating to distract people, or using darkness to plunge the zone into a weird twilight. Area maneuvers are automatic with a rote (assuming your discipline is at least three which yours is) because you only need to make a three to cast it, also area maneuvers are harder to pull off with a melee weapon (maybe run around with your sword outstretched spinning in circles like a maniac?) in my opinion. Or you can sacrifice the maneuver for another block, this time make it a zone border, useful for dividing the opponents to take them down separately or buying some time to run away.
Basically design your rotes around your character. If you play him as a sneaky, attack from the shadows kind of guy then you'll probably want a veil, a shield, a zone border, and a maneuver. If you are more of the full on attack kind of guy, you may want two attacks (one can be a spray or a zone attack), a shield, and a maneuver.
[Edit: Just out of curiosity, how do you play your character? Is he the sneaky assassin, burly tank, heavy hitting warrior, resourceful diplomat, etc. Just curious]