Its been years since first aid came out, and I was thinking of giving it another look now we have shiny new core set and examine the problems with it and see how things may have changed, a lot of people agree on a few key points.

Cost: Guardians for many years were the poor class, they had very little economy and the stuff they had wasn't completely reliable, but now we have stand together level 0 and even clean them out as source of cheap fast injections of cash, so the 2 price is less relevant today.

Limited Use cases: this seems to still be a big mark against it and one that doesn't seem like it will ever be able to be worked around, you can only heal investigators, only at your location. the fact that it is completely slotless is a huge upside but not enough of one to overcome such a minor use. (that a lot of other healing cards don't share)

Action Sink: the big bug bear of the card is that 3 actions for 3 points of healing is rather slow, even if you get first aid into play fast and free you still only max out at spending a turn to get a sizeable chunk of damage/horror off people, hardly worth the two extra actions from not using a healing event to gain that extra 1 point of healing. (again in the best possible case)

Fair to say first aid has only really improved one of its drawbacks (or to say it's less relevant today), and in that time we have had a huge tidal wave of healing effects that do incredibly well in the two area's it can never overcome. it is however the best possible counter for the edge weaknesses (it can heal both types, over any number of turns and from up to three people), but that only really matters if more than one player has one, otherwise you'll be much better of just taking a healing card that specializes in the type they need healing for.

The sad proclamation is that first aid remains very useful to the game in its true position, being a floor no healing card will ever dip below, and still may see some minor play due to edge weaknesses and down the rabbit hole.

This is similar to "Eat lead!", but this costs an action and can let you pass if your skill is low and happen to draw a special token. Eat Lead costs 1 more EXP, costs an ammo (which is usually somewhere around 1/4 of the cost/action of a gun) and is probably more helpful if your skill value is decent/high.

I think its a fair exchange, maybe slightly leaning towards Eat Lead but neither are that great. This would've been a lot better if it was Fast (we may see a level 2 or 3 version at some point for that?).

I had no idea how 'enchant weapon' works with Enchanted Bow or other willpower-weapons, so I asked FFG. This is the response I got:

“Enchant Weapon” adds its owner’s willpower value to the attached asset’s combat value for the attack. Because “Enchanted Bow” does not use combat when taking a Fight action, it would not get a bonus to the skill value being used (willpower or agility). It’s worth mentioning that “Enchant Weapon” would at least grant “Enchanted Bow” +1 damage to the attack.

This is not at all what I expected. It seemed like these two would have a really cool synergy, but instead, it turns out it's just a very expensive way to do 1 extra damage.

I have been using this card more and more, but not as mentioned by the other comment, to dodge monsters, but rather to... attract them. A kind of On the Hunt (3).

Both William Yorick and Silas Marsh want to face enemies to take the best out of their Decks. In Yorick especially, the more enemies, the more shenanigans you can do and this card basically double the chances to find an enemy when needed, while also helping you not to get too overwhelmed at some point.

There is now an official response on if this works with backpack.

It does.

'To answer your question(s):

We are planning to address “Geared Up” in future errata, which should help in clearing up any confusion about the way it interacts with other cards. “Geared Up” will then say: “Permanent. Limit 1 per deck. Purchase at deck creation.

Forced - When your first turn of the game begins: One at a time, play any number of Item assets from your hand, reducing the cost of each by 1. During this turn, you have 3 fewer actions to take.”

In this sense, “Geared Up” will work similarly to “Ever Vigilant”, and each card put into play with “Geared Up” will resolve fully before the next one is played.'