YES way.... Arcane shield advantages aren't great: +3 magic attack (not very meaningful if you wear proper mage gear) +20 crush defense (who cares if your maging somebody with a cmaul your gonna flip sol special anyway and thats about the only weapon people use with crush that is tier 1) +3 prayer (I doubt you would notice it unless that the only prayer bonus you have) 0 range penalty (you range with it? why its for maging? Much better shields for that) Arcane shields disadvantages are very significant: No damage soak (this is significant because it stops the big hit ko's, I can't ever remember being koed on hit more than 200, probably because they coded it up wrong and apply the damage soak before figuring out if your dead or not) worth 67mil more (huge waste of time making the money to buy or getting on a drop, 4mil/gp an hr is a myth) I laughed. That's a good joke man ^ Exactly. 1. Your point about cost is absolutely wrong. You act as if Arcane's are 67m, and FSK's are free. WRONG. Learn how opportunity cost works. Even if you do consider FSK "free," it's tokens that could be used on other things. You can sell an Arcane back, you can't get a refund on your DG tokens. 2. Nobody uses SoL spec LOL. If you're a proper brid, you bring a spec weapon, claws/dds at least. People fight to kill, not to survive. 4 DDS/2 Claw specs go a lot further than blocking half a maul hit for 60 seconds in a fight. When people realise their melee attacks are halved, they will switch. That's what brids do. SWITCH. The only time I could see using a SoL special is when you are only maging. And nobody does that...It's too easily defended against. D'hide + magic protect, and your "only mage" setup just hit a brick wall. 3. As stated by people before, the soaks are barely noticeable. What difference does it make if you get hit a 500 or a 482(forget the actual value, but it was around this)? Either way, if your lp is that low, you're DEAD regardless. Try taking a trip outside of Soul Wars once in a while, things are a lot different in BH/PvP/Clan Wars. DyingSilent just ripped you to pieces.