Some more testing revealed Arcane Shell does not add damage to Telekinesis or Short Perplexing Ray, either. So it seems the card text is misleading and the card itself is much less interesting than at first seems. It just a version of Arcane Aura where the armor has Keep and the added damage is 1 lower. Which does not make the card that bad, as such. Just not as good as advertised. Bah, humbug.
Aeldaar, if you happened to get Ulalia's Boots or Xander's Boots to go with your robes you could stack Arcane Aura and Arcane Shell. Unlikely but yummy!
I was excited earlier today when the folks who know how to read cards helped me see that Arcane Shell has the keep keyword on the armor part, but now I am sad that this card does in fact not enable slicing whirlwinds. I have several armors with it and they really aren't that playable.
Yeah, Arcane Shell and Aura are overvalued unfortunately. That makes the cost of running them too high to be playable. That being said, Arcane Shell is practically the game's only Legendary Card, so if you have a chance to have some fun with it you might as well.
Yeah....forgot about Almighty Hack. Almighty Hack (1 Legendary Item) Arcane Shell (6 Legendary Item) Volcano (2Legendary/3 Epic) Stuck Arrow (5 Legendary/3 Epic) etc...
Friends, using arcane shell is a mental trap that will make you think its decent to good. Its not. I have the robes. Have had them for months. Can't find any use for them in SP or MP (at least not over something else that is more useful). At 1 token cost, there's no point in using them. MP - 1 extra damage is pretty irrelevant, and your armor will likely get discarded by enemies. 1 damage won't keep you alive or make someone else dead, but extra control or 100% mitigation (resistant hide) is always more useful. If you want to run an extremely weird SP niche build, have fun. But it still won't be more useful overall than something else would be.
Arcane shell is overvalued IMO. Not to mention insanely rare, as mentioned. I don't know about MP, because like you say, you are paying a token for that small damage boost. BUT in SP I have found Arcane Aura from Cotton Wizard's Robes to be very, very useful for dealing with hordes and firestorming. And it's not an "extremely weird niche build" at all. That extra damage really adds up when you are multi-targeting and dealing with foes with low HP. In theory, if you can manage to get the cards early in the game, and avoid taking damage, they can dish out some major damage. But how often in MP are you going to face triple warrior or something and manage to stay in control the whole game? I would say that both Arcane Aura and Arcane Shell are overvalued for what they do, which is not much unless you Wellspring/Draw combo really goes off. Now that is fun.
Jade, I've found that I personally would rather have firehide robes for really all of SP, and just use priests to buff the character, or other robes with traits to cycle. It's tended to make the farming I've done go much faster than any robe with arcane shell.
Bailey, I've found that I personally do not have firehide robes, and that Arcane Aura +Firestorm kills those 8 HP kobolds nicely when my priest has very few Savage Curse and Wellspring. I have enough tokenless firestorming gear that I would rather have the power boost from Cotton Wizard's Robes than a robe with Hover. If I had a blue robe with 1 Arcane Shell I don't think I would use that, again the cost is rather prohibitive, and Arcane Aura is superior to Arcane Shell in damage period. Technically Cotton Wizard's Robes should cost a major token just like Robes of White Wylla, but thankfully they don't, because in lower-level SP you can reap the benefits without being hit and it's a much better use of a blue token than most of the other wizard staffs and arcane items, especially below level 15.
Great point. It isn't about what is 'best', it's about doing your best with what you have. If we could just buy whatever we wanted I think the game would be much less exasperating interesting.
Arcane aura + unholy wellspring + spark trait with an electrical attack is plus seven. Those long range sparks are looking pretty good now!
The biggest problem I've found with messing around with Arcane Aura and Unholy Wellspring in SP is that the damage from the Wellspring knocks off the robes more often than not. It was incredibly fun tossing around eight damage Flash of Pain on the rare occasion it worked out though.
