I'll compare this to Spectral Razor since they fill many of the same use cases

Pros:

• Testless damage. Depending on your difficulty this could be very valuable
• Potentially Costs 1 less if you're targeting low health enemies like Acolytes
• Synergy with arcane slot increasing effects such as Familiar Spirit
• Synergy with empty arcane slots, clearing the way for a beefed up Eldritch Initiation

Cons:

• Anti-synergy with standard arcane slot spells (unless you managed to spend all the charges already)
• Must be engaged. Razor comes with a free engage to deal with pesky aloof enemies
• Increasing the damage potential still requires you to pay one more resource per damage. You can easily reach Dynamite Blast cost but for situationally less payoff since you're always targeting just one enemy.
• Only target non-elite. This a deal breaker.

In my opinion the best reason to run EW over Razor is to lean into that big payoff explosion. This requires you setting up assets to maximize your slot conversion which will be a significant resource and card investment. All of that setup to be able to target basic enemies only is a let down.

For most investigators Razor will get you more mileage. The only Mystics who I can see potentially taking Ward are those who cant reach useful + scores (so just Marie Lambeau?)

Whenever kate apears, I'm sure she'll love it.

For 1xp (Mending Distillate) you get an easier to aquire more versatile version of this 4xp (+ researched) card:

• Strange Solution

(Though, lets be honest we only cared about: Strange Solution.)

Works great with:

• Lab Coat

I am a bit surprised there isn't more buzz around this card, more action compression for Survivors is huge. Between this and Sharp Vision (not to mention Resourceful to get them back) survivor is almost as speedy as some Seekers. Darrell's ability to take this, Sharp Vision, Deduction or Deduction(2) and Research Notes gives him silly levels of consistent action compression.

The auto succeed is useful for avoiding nasty token effects and the two extra clues is huge. The difficulty 0 requirement means this is only going to be consistent for investigators using Flashlight or Old Keyring, but that is a lot of survivors and fair number of investigators who splash survivor. With the new Old Keyring(3) this nets 3 clues from a 2 shroud location and 1 clue from somewhere else with auto success! If you aren't using those, you might be Darrell and getting to 0 should not be an issue.

Winging It, Lantern, Cryptographic Cipher, Otherworldly Compass, and Arcane Insight can also lower the shroud, but are secondary options since they only reduce shroud by 1 or you are less likely to have access to them.

This is most useful in 2-3 investigator campaigns where locations are more likely to have 2+ clues on them. Even though you may not profit as often from the extra clue from your location, remotely grabbing a clue off a location with a monster/locked door/high shroud is useful often enough for me to add this to solo Survivors as well.

This can be read to be a +1 on any skill tests performed on Seeker cards which is solid since there are a lot of seeker events and assets that request skill checks. It doesn't help with any of the "For each point you succeed by" effects though.

Also, while an FAQ entry is yet to come out, I believe that assuming the difficulty of the test is 1 or 0 this will protect against even the autofail token. The autofail token sets your result to 0 and says you fail. Then this reaction kicks in and you succeed instead. Probably best use of that would be it means guaranteed success on Alchemical Distillation.

Now that we know the Aug 22 erratum updated the text to "One at a time, play..." And this enabled Backpack to work (you can play the found items). Does this allow fast events, specifically Well-Maintained, to be used between each played event.

Logic train:

• Geared Up uses the word Play (treated as a play action, but you'er not getting an play "action").

Rules for Effects

• Suggests 'play" would be treated as an action using the Framework event detail. Specifically 2.2.1

Rules for 2.2.1 timing

• indicate there is a player window before (and after) each action ( in our case, a played item).

Rules for fast

• Indicate I can play Well-Maintained in this player window.

Am I missing anything? Any exception overlooked?

If i'm correct, you can attach Well-Maintained to Backpack before it's discarded, discard it, triggering it to return to your hand instead, and play it again.

This would also be true with Ever Vigilant as wording is similar.