List of skill anomalies

The following is a list of anomalies in skills and their descriptions. Please feel free to add anomalies that you have noticed.

General

 * "Takes no damage" means a damage number of 0 will show up. However, "deals no damage" does not produce a damage number at all.  Finally, "takes damage" (as a trigger for other effects) will count a damage number of 0.
 * The use of the term "spirit" in many skill descriptions is ambiguous. the effects of these skills are limited to spirits created by rituals. For example, an Unnatural Signet will not recharge instantly if used against a Spirit of the Fallen, and you will not gain energy from Essence Strike standing near the "protective spirit" Zunraa.

Warrior

 * Shield Stance is ambiguous. This skill will provide no deflection bonus, but will slow your movement if you are not wielding a shield.
 * Earth Shaker's description is erroneous. The skill is targeted, and knocks down target foe and foes adjacent to your target, rather than foes adjacent to you as the wording implies.  In this case, "adjacent to your target" means the second smallest area of effect represented by the concentric circles at the Practice Target in the Isle of the Nameless.
 * Swift Chop: if blocked, there is no additional damage, the target just takes 1..16 damage and suffers from Deep Wound for twenty seconds.

Ranger

 * Call of Haste and Call of Protection say that your animal companions are buffed. This is ambiguous. A footrace between a Dodge ranger and a Call of Haste ranger, will result in one pet running significantly ahead of the other. Also, Call of Protection cannot be cast if your pet is dead, even if there are other pets belonging to allies in range. This seems to indicate that the buffs only apply to the beastmaster's pet, not all pets.
 * Dust Trap deals earth damage that ignores armor and cannot be converted into cold damage by Winter.
 * Flame Trap, Barbed Trap and Spike Trap deal the initial damage that is not shown to the user of the trap, although the damage of the other traps is shown. Additionally, damage dealt by these traps does not benefit from any "damage level" (neither weapon, which uses attribute; or spell, which uses level), thus the damage value is only accurate if target has 0 armor.
 * Spike Trap deals damage that is neither physical nor elemental.
 * Whirling Defense deals piercing damage that ignores armor and cannot be converted into fire damage by Greater Conflagration.

Monk

 * Draw Conditions mentions "negative" conditions, which is redundant as all conditions are negative.
 * Essence Bond says that the caster gains 1 energy if the target takes damage. Actually, the target merely has to be hit; the energy is gained even if the target takes 0 damage. Balthazar's Spirit behaves similarly.
 * Judge's Insight says that attacks deal holy damage with 20% armor penetration. It has been experimentally verified that attacks under Judge's Insight do not ignore armor, although every other source of holy damage in the game does. There are two possibilities here: either holy damage is not armor ignoring, in which case every other skill that does holy damage has armor ignoringness as an unstated property, or attacks under Judge's Insight do not deal holy damage, in which case its skill description is wrong. In the latter case, it would be fair to say that attacks under Judge's Insight deal light damage, as both light and holy damage deal double damage to undead, and attacks under Judge's Insight have been verified to have this property.
 * Martyr says that all conditions and their durations are transferred to the caster. This is ambiguous. Experiments show that for each condition only the maximum duration is transferred to the caster, not the sum of all durations on all party members. Draw Conditions displays this behavior to a lesser extent.
 * Life Attunement says that it causes the target to deal 30% less damage in combat. This is ambiguous. It appears to reduce only damage caused by weapons, but has no effect on damage from other skills, including skills that "count as" attacks such as Palm Strike.
 * Protective Bond and Protective Spirit say that they limit damage only for attacks and spells. However, they also work for damage sources such as Vile Touch that are neither attacks nor spells.
 * Spirit Bond states that "whenever target ally takes more than 60 damage..." but actually heals before the damage itself is applied. i.e. it heals before target ally takes said damage.

Necromancer

 * Aura of the Lich says that it reduces all damage by half. Actually, it reduces both damage and life sacrifice by half.
 * Grenth's Balance also balances the health of the caster and target if the caster has more health than the target. This balancing effect does not happen if the caster has maximum health.
 * Plague Sending, though in the Necromancer's Curses line gains no benefit from higher ranks in Curses. It would be best described as a Necromancer Other skill rather than Curses due to this.
 * Plague Touch mentions "negative" conditions, which is redundant as all conditions are negative.
 * Rotting Flesh's description states that target fleshy creature becomes diseased and slowly loses health. This wording is redundant.
 * Taste of Pain's description states that you gain health; however unlike other health gain skills, it is affected by Life Attunement and Aura of Faith, and thus should be considered a healing skill.

Mesmer

 * Channeling's skill description reads "gain 1 energy from each foe in the area", but in reality it does not deduct the gained energy from the counted foes. It should say "for each foe in the area."
 * Clumsiness causes attack skills to fail rather than actually interrupting them, which means that the disrupted skill recharges instantly.
 * Illusionary Weaponry says that your attacks "deal no damage" in melee. Actually, your attacks simply do not hit. This can be tested with the stance Deflect Arrows which will not be ended by attacks under Illusionary Weaponry. To compare, Deflect Arrows will end when attacking a target under Mist Form &mdash; in this case, the attacks do hit, but deal no damage.
 * Signet of Humility displays a message about invalid spell target when an invalid target is selected, this should be signet or skill target.
 * Illusion of Weakness subtracts 1 more life than the skill description says. In addition, the -XXX red damage number also shows a value incorrect by 1 point.

Elementalist

 * Sliver Armor says that it strikes "one nearby enemy" with earth damage. This is somewhat ambiguous. A natural reading would assume it to mean "one random nearby enemy", but actually, given a constant set of enemies in range, it always strikes the same one. This is not necessarily the closest enemy - presumably it is the first enemy encountered in whatever data structure the game uses to determine such things.
 * Ride the Lightning's damage has 25% Armor penetration although the description fails to mention this.

Assassin

 * Assassin's Promise claims to recharge all skills. Actually, it only recharges skills that normally recharge with time. It has no effect on Resurrection Signet or any Celestial Skill.
 * Aura of Displacement says that, when you stop maintaining the enchantment, you "return" to your starting location. This is ambiguous as it doesn't distinguish between shadow stepping and teleportation. The effect is identical to a shadow step.
 * Return says that you teleport to target ally. Actually, you shadow step to target ally.
 * Shadow of Haste says that, when the stance ends, you "return" to your starting location. This is ambiguous as it doesn't distinguish between shadow stepping and teleportation. The effect is identical to a shadow step.
 * Siphon Strength Even though the skill description did not state that this spell is a touch skill, it behaves like a touch skill.

Ritualist

 * The description of all Binding Rituals use the wording "Create a level ## spirit ...", where as "Summon a level ## spirit ..." or "Bind a level ## spirit ..." would be in line with the lore.
 * Bloodsong summons a spirit called "Spirit of Blood Song". This was apparently not updated after the FPE, when this skill was named Blood Song.

Celestial skills

 * Celestial Storm says that it strikes for 40 damage per second. The skill actually strikes for 40 damage four times every second, in effect striking for 160 damage per second. Additionally, the skill description suggests that the damage is armor ignoring, when, in fact, it is reduced by armor.
 * Star Servant claims to summon a level 20 Star Servant. It actually summons a level 25 Celestial Horror.

Monster skills

 * Impossible Odds does not mention that all conditions on Shiro are transferred to those he strikes when under this effect.
 * Meditation of the Reaper has an inconsistent damage absorption figure. The tooltip on the skill activation icon says 700 damage, whereas the icon in the Effects Monitor says 500 damage (and is the correct figure). Also, the skill does not say how to end the Meditation early (by reaching the damage cap).
 * Dark Chain Lightning deals 300 damage to the first target and 10% less to each subsequent target, not 200 and 10% less to each subsequent target as the description states. Also, the damage is not Lightning Damage in spite of the description.

Item Effects

 * The Spear of Archemorus is able to deal 1900 damage to a single target, rather than the 235 damage listed in its description.