Are Heals useful when paired with Absorb?

[Coyote]

I'm considering a new Water Blast...er. As a secondary, I'd like to run Plants, but... when you're hit by damage, and fire Dehydrate, without an Absorb shield, that would be guaranteed to be useful. But with an Absorb shield, it's possible that the shield is damaged but with no HP damage, so Dehydrate's heal effect is wasted. On the other hand, getting heals would be more useful on a character with a lower Regeneration rate than if the character has a +Regen Sustain power. So I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing to mix a lifedrain power with a constant (but low-level) Absorb shield... or maybe it's a negligible effect and I shouldn't care. Does anyone have any experience with the situation?

[StratoNexus]

My experience with blaster absorb is with /Martial, I am not positive how similar that is to /Plant's.

The absorb effect is useful, but you will still lose enough HPs that a heal is good.