Hello
I was told that a few of the chips on the motor shield are easy to kill if too much load is put on them. Following with this information, which chips die easily and how many pins to they have? I am planning on installing IC sockets on the board when I make it so if one does burn out I could just replace it.
Thanks
I think they are 16pin narrow sockets 
You can count them yourself in this huge picture
ICs can get fried during soldering too, that may be more of a problem than average use, if you use sockets you can solder the empty IC sockets onto the board without any fear of destroying the ICs, which can sometimes be quite expensive and may be hard to find