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.
 * There are some bosses in Istan with elite skills that cannot be obtained from them with a Signet of Capture.
 * All Shadow damage skills and all Holy damage skills except for Judge's Insight, Avatar of Balthazar and Lightbringer's Gaze ignore armor and caster level, which is not listed in their skill descriptions.
 * Although not technically an anomaly, it is worth noting that the 'only recharged by Morale Boosts' effect of Resurrection Signet and Sunspear Rebirth Signet takes priority over the instant recharge effects of other skills such as Keystone Signet and Assassin's Promise.
 * When a spell's description says it causes some effect every second or every N seconds, this effect is always caused at the end of the interval.
 * There have also been reports that, when a skill's description says it makes skills recharge X% faster, they actually reduce the recharge time by X%, so far, this has only been confirmed for Mantra of Recovery and Ritual Lord.

Warrior

 * The description of Dwarven Battle Stance implies that it improves attack speed for all weapons and causes hammer attacks to interrupt foes. In reality, the skill cannot be activated unless a hammer is equipped.
 * Earth Shaker's description is misleading. If it hits, Earth Shaker 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.
 * Shield Stance is ambiguous. This skill will provide no deflection bonus, but will slow your movement if you are not wielding a shield.
 * Swift Chop: if blocked, there is no additional damage, the target just takes 1..16 damage and suffers from Deep Wound for twenty seconds.
 * Yeti Smash's description says that it strikes for +5..17 damage and all adjacent foes take 5..41 damage, however the area damage does not affect the primary target.
 * "I Will Avenge You!"'s description is misleading, as it says: For each dead ally, you gain 10 seconds of +3...6 Health regeneration and your attack speed increases by 25%. The area of this skills' effect is not infinite as the desription says, the effect of +3...6 health regeneration and 25% increased attack speed happens only within radar range.
 * Hamstring's description is redundant stating that: "...your target is Crippled for X seconds, slowing his movement."
 * Eviscerate's description is redundant stating that: "...you inflict a Deep Wound, lowering your target's maximum Health by 20%"

Ranger

 * Barrage's description is misleading. It actually fires arrows at the target and up to 6 foes adjacent to the target. Barrage also removes Glyphs, even though it is not stated in the description.
 * 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.
 * Rampage as One requires a living animal companion or it cannot be activated.
 * 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.
 * Sometimes bow attack skills and normal bow attacks do not function on bridges or stairs. This is fixed by moving slightly or moving completely off the bridge/stairs.

Monk

 * Draw Conditions mentions "negative" conditions, which is redundant as all conditions are negative.
 * Balthazar's Spirit 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.
 * 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.
 * Spell Shield: This skill only causes hostile incoming spells to fail, rather than all incoming spells as its description implies.
 * 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

 * Animate Flesh Golem's description says that you can only have one Flesh Golem at a time. It does not mention that, when it destroys the old golem, the old golem will leave an exploited corpse.
 * Aura of the Lich says that it reduces all damage by half. Actually, it reduces both damage and life sacrifice by half.
 * The descriptions of Deathly Swarm and Vampiric Swarm are misleading. Contrary to their descriptions, they are not PBAoE spells or projectile spells, and do not require line of sight to hit a target. Similar to Chain Lightning, they hit the primary target first and then move on to hit up the second and third targets, however, unlike Chain Lightning, there is a 1 second delay between each target and the next.
 * 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 Touch and Plague Signet mention "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. Additionally, the description implies that it can target any fleshy creature, but it can only target fleshy foes.
 * 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.
 * The description of Verata's Sacrifice says that it affects all undead allies. It only affects your own undead minions. It neither removes conditions from nor gives health regeneration to allied minions that you do not control.
 * Taste of Death and Feast for the Dead's descriptions say "target undead ally", but automatically act on the the nearest undead ally if the player is not targetting an undead ally.
 * Rend Enchantments is health loss, not damage as specified in the description, and is not altered by Protective Spirit, Reversal of Fortune or Aura of the Lich.

Mesmer

 * Arcane Thievery, Arcane Larceny, Inspired Enchantment, Inspired Hex, Revealed Enchantment, Revealed Hex and Simple Thievery cannot copy monster skills.
 * Frustration deals damage if target is interrupted in any way: Clumsiness, Signet of Clumsiness or a knock down while the target is using any skill or attacking will trigger the damage.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * Mantra of Recovery does not recharge spells 50% faster, but instead reduces their recharge by 50%.
 * Power Block will disable signets if a spell of the same attribute is interrupted.
 * Signet of Humility displays a message about invalid spell target when an invalid target is selected, this should be signet or skill target. Signet of Humility also actually disables all of the foe's elite skills if the target has more than one (such as a foe who copied an elite skill with one of many mesmer skills which can copy other skills).
 * Signet of Illusions: While this skill is active, spells ignore +1 Illusion Magic procs.

Elementalist

 * Glyph of Sacrifice actually reduces the next spell's activation time to 1⁄4 of a second rather than making it activate instantly.
 * The skill description of Phoenix does not specify the projectile's blast radius. Like the PBAoE effect, the projectile explosion has a blast radius of adjacent range.
 * Savannah Heat's pulses actually inflicts 5..17 damage for each second the spell has been active, rather than 5..17 damage plus an additional 5..17 damage for every second the spell has been active.
 * 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.

Assassin

 * 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.
 * Death Blossom's description says that, if it hits, it strikes for +20..40 damage and all adjacent foes take 20..40 damage. In reality, if it hits, it strikes for +20..40 damage and all other foes adjacent to the target take 20..40 damage.
 * 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.
 * The skill description for Sharpen Daggers says that it causes the next 1..6 attack skills cause Bleeding. It actually causes the next 1..6 successful hits with attack skills to cause Bleeding. This skill is also affected by a bug which causes attack skills against you to consume charges and inflict bleeding on you.

Ritualist

 * Bloodsong summons a spirit called "Spirit of Blood Song". This was apparently not updated after the FPE, when this skill was named Blood Song.
 * Destructive was Glaive: Although this skill is classified as simply a Spell, it is functionally indistinguishable from an Item Spell.
 * Ritual Lord actually reduces recharge time by 15..51% rather than increasing recharge speed by 15..51%.
 * The skill description of Shadowsong does not list the spirit's damage.
 * Weapon of Quickening reduces the recharge of spells and binding rituals by 33% rather than increasing recharge speed by 33%.

Paragon

 * Contrary to their descriptions, Anthem of Envy, Anthem of Flame and Crippling Anthem affect the first hit of the next non-pet attack skill used by each ally within earshot. Pet Attacks will not trigger them.
 * Contrary to their descriptions, Defensive Anthem and Anthem of Guidance are not triggered by Pet Attacks.
 * Mighty Throw and Unblockable Throw have activation times of 2 seconds and not a 3 seconds reported by the skill description.

Dervish

 * The description of Chilling Victory says that it inflicts the area cold damage whenever it strikes a foe with less health than you, however the damage will also trigger if you attack a foe with less Health than you regardless of whether the attack hits or not, and will only trigger once per skill activation.

Common skills

 * Signet of Capture: Although the description says "nearby", the actual range of this skill is signifirantly larger than earshot. Furthermore, Signet of Capture cannot be used to capture the elite skills of some bosses in Istan, which is believed to be related to boss level.
 * Sunspear Rebirth Signet: This skill can only resurrect dead party members, rather than being able to resurrect any dead ally as its description indicates.

Blessings

 * Although the skill descriptions do not mention duration, all Bounties lasts until you leave the current zone.
 * The description of Harpy Bounty may be inaccurate, depending on whether Skree Hatchlings and Skree Griffons are Harpies.
 * The description of the Insect Hunt bounty may be inaccurate, depending on whether Stalking Nephilas, Veldt Nephilas and Dune Spiders are Insects.

Celestial skills

 * Although it is omitted from their descriptions, Celestial Skills cannot be recharged by anything other than Morale Boosts.
 * 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. Exactly 1 pulse per second inflicts Lightning damage, exactly 1 pulse per second inflicts Cold damage, and some of the pulses inflict Fire damage, the other pulses inflict unknown types of Elemental damage.

Monster skills

 * 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.
 * 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).
 * Splinter Mine: This effect inflicts Bleeding rather than Burning, and inflicts 0 damage.

Item Effects

 * When used against Zhu Hanuku while fully charged, the Spear of Archemorus deals 1900 damage, rather than the 235 damage listed in its description.

Environmental Effects

 * Healing Fountain does not inflict weakness on undead.

Special skills

 * Disarm Trap is easily interruptable although it is not mentioned in the skill description.
 * Snowball, Mega Snowball and Flurry of Ice are called spells in their descriptions, however other skills and effects treat them as both spells and attack skills. Because of this, there are numerous instances that have redundant effects, and therefore do not work when these three skills are applied. These instances are; the mesmer's blinding effect from Blinding Snow and the easily interrupted effect caused by Daze
 * Ice Fort does not block incoming projectiles. Instead, it reduces damage from all sources including the non-projectile Icicles hex to 0 and prevents projectiles from inflicting conditions and knockdowns. It is currently not known if Ice Fort prevents knockdowns from Ice Breaker.
 * Leave Junundu: This skill actually takes significantly longer to activate than its listed 1/4 second activation time.
 * Rollerbeetle Dash, Harden Shell and Ram: The descriptions of these skills omit the fact that they can only be recharged by reaching a checkpoint.
 * Distracting Lunge, Spit Rocks, Rollerbeetle Echo, Rollerbeetle Blast, Super Rollerbeetle: The descriptions of these skills omit the facts that these skills are not charged by default, and can only be charged by touching a bonus power box, which randomly charges one of them.
 * Ram: This skill has the undocumented effect of providing a brief speed boost.
 * Vial of Purified Water: Although the description does not mention it, this spell fires a projectile which inflicts 50 damage if it hits.