Talk:Item Spell

Vote: Renaming
7 day vote. -PanSola 22:45, 15 February 2006 (CST)

Btw, I suggest we do an instant run-off voting (see Category:Votes for explaination), so ppl please put down your second (and third?) choices if you have them. -PanSola 01:32, 21 February 2006 (CST)

The Ballot

 * Option 1: Keep as "Ashes Ritual"
 * Option 2: Rename to "Ashes Spell"
 * Option 3: Delete this article. All skills under this category should simply be moved to Category:Spells
 * Option 4: Other (please specify)

Short Reason for Each Ballot Option

 * Option 1: These skills share a common and unique characteristic, thus deserve a category. "Ashes Ritual" because they involve the ghosts of the dead.
 * Option 2: These skills share a common and unique characteristic, thus deserve a category. "Ashes Spell" because they are all spells, and involve ashes.
 * Option 3: In the game their skill type is Spell, and we go by what is in the game.

The Votes
Option 1
 * Stabber (Ash Ritual, no es)
 * 1) Tetris L (Ashes Ritual)
 * 2) "Evan the Cursed" (the anon user who is too lazy to register, who also likes Ashes)
 * 3)  (Ashes Ritual)
 * 4) Lunarbunny
 * 5) LordKestrel Ashes

Option 2
 * 1) PanSola (second choice opiton 3, third joince option 4)
 * 2) LoginError
 * 3) 130.58
 * 4) FireFox
 * 5) TheSpectator (second choice is option 1)

Option 3 Option 4
 * 1) Ravious (run off vote = option 2)
 * 2) Shandy
 * 1) Stabber (Ash Rite)

Discussion
If option 2 gets the least votes then I transfer my vote to option 3. I am strongly against calling these skills "rituals". -PanSola 22:26, 15 February 2006 (CST)

"Ashes Spell" would be okay, I think. "Ash Spell" sound too weird. With that in mind, even though "ashes ritual" sounds really cool, I vote for "Ashes Spell". I think you should keep this page as a redirect, though, as it seems the term "ashes ritual" does have some traction (i.e. popular use) already. --130.58 06:27, 17 February 2006 (CST)

It sounds cool, Ash Ritual and Ash Spell, but unless we are going to uncanonically always do so for all types of skills, I say we just categorize them as A.Net does. If Option 2 is the winner, I hope the skills will be both in the Spell Category and Ash Spell Category. --Ravious 00:08, 18 February 2006 (CST)
 * If option 2 wins, Ash Spell will be in the Spells category, and the skills will only be placed in the Ash Spells category and not the grandparent category. At least that's what we usually do, this case could be argued for a special treatment. -PanSola 00:24, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * My rationale behind "Ashes Ritual":
 * I picked the name "Ashes Ritual" because it is performed by a Ritualist and because the spell obviously involves the spirit of a ghost, even if you can't see it. "Ritual" felt like a good name for conjuring a ghost to me. Who defined that every ritual must spawn a visible spirit?
 * I created a separate article, because these spells/rituals share a common and unique characteristic. This is comparable to Wards, which are simply spells too, according to the game mechanics. I created Category:Ashes Rituals (as a sub-category of Category:Spells, but I pointed out in the category description that according to the game mechanics Ashes Rituals are spells. I see very little room for misunderstanding.
 * In summary, I vote for Option 1, i.e. keep the old name. (I assume Ash Ritual is an error, as the current name is Ashes Ritual. -- 00:26, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * As we don't have a Category:Wards, so should we not have a Category:Ashes Rituals. Additionally, "Ashes Foo" irritates my North American English speaker biases with regard to how apposition should work with nouns. I prefer "Ash Foo", perhaps even "Ash-Foo". The article itself, suitably renamed, is OK by me; no reason that a ritual can't be a spell, especially considering that ritualists are spellcasters. 00:36, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. What is your grammerical rational for "Ash X" over "Ashes X"?  It seems to me that these skills involve specific ashes, not ash.  You don't say, "Grandpa's ash is in the urn over the fireplace."  You say, "Grandpa's ashes are in the urn over the fireplace."  As for what we call them, ritual or spell, it makes no difference to me, but IMO it should be ashes, not ash.  --Rainith 00:46, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * As I noted, it's a bias. You are asking me to be rational about a bias. Anyway, here's my attempt at a rationale: when I say "Ash Foo", I mean that "Foo" is imbued with the concept of ashes, rather than the actual ashes themselves. This is why I would call a golem made of ashes an "ash golem", a mudfight in an ashpit an "ash fight", a large gaping void in the burning embers of a post-apocalyptic scenario an "ash hole", and so on. 00:54, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * Stabber: Just for the record, I think we should have a Category:Wards. Wouldn't hurt, would it? :)
 * As for Ash vs. Ashes, I used the plural because it is used in plural in all skill descriptions. -- 02:04, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * I'm all for Ashes Ritual and a Category:Wards. I mean for all we know, Anet might include skills or other features in later chapters that target specifically Ashes Rituals and not other spells. It's all for clarity and disambiguation. Technically yes, they're spells, but they're not general spells. They have a defining characteristic about them.  And even more notably so than Wards -- I mean, you carry an object due to casting them. Of course that doesn't seem to be the heart of the problem... it's the "name" isn't it? Something wrong with "Ritual"? Well, the spells involve ashes so I'm all for calling them Ashes , and I believe it should be Ashes Ritual because it is not too ambiguous to be confused for nature or spirit rituals.  We should call them what A.net does unless there is already a precedent -- for clarity's sake. Calling them Ashes Spells would be like having a Category:Wards with every spell that began with "Ward of..." but then somewhere else on the Wiki we take other spells which are technically Wards and specifically do not include them in this category because their name does not follow that attitude.
 * Basically, if the game treats it as different from other Spells (as I'm sure it does, considering you're holding an urn due to the spell), it should have its own category. I apologize for the length in my explanation, if anybody bothered to read the whole thing. "Evan the Cursed" 69.124.143.230 02:15, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * On the subject of "Ashes Spell" vs "Ashes Rituals", calling it a Ritual WOULD be too ambiguous to be confused for a Ritual, and whlie we don't have an article on it yet, Ritual Lord's skill description say it work on Rituals, not "nature rituals and binding rituals".
 * I also disagree with your analogy of Wards. If there is a skill that is a spell and involves holding ashes for a certain timie, we will call it a Ashes Spell, regardless of its name.  So your analogy is incorrect.  -PanSola 13:38, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * That's a Ritualist skill, did you get a chance to use it in the preview event? I actually didn't, but I was under the assumption that that actually worked for the Ashes Rituals.  I honestly didn't even think of Ritualist Binding Rituals.  As far as I know though, it could be pertaining to all three Rituals.  And my analogy wasn't perfect, but I contend that it isn't "incorrect".  My point was that we should describe skills as the game perceives them.  If the game perceived a skill as a "ward" we should distinguish it from other non-ward spells - if the game perceives certain skills as being "Ashes Rituals" they should be distinguished from other spells, and through what the game calls them, not just "Ashes Spells", since there may be a reason they're called Rituals.  69.124.143.230 15:13, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * I would be extremely surprised if Ritual Lord actually does work on the spell Protective Was Kaolai. And you were using your analogy to justtify your choice of picking "Ashes Ritual" over "Ashes Spell", as opposed to distinguishing it from just merely spells, I was picking bones with that part of your analogy.  And the GAME does NOT call the spells in questions rituals, in any shape or form, so I am really confused by the last sentence "since there may be a reasion they're called Rituals".  Some people on this wiki called Protective Was Kaolai an Ashes Ritual.  The game did NOT use the word "ritual" to describe that skill anyway whatsoever, at least not as of the PvP Preview event.  If you have insider information that the skill description has since changed, that would be a different story, but I will wait until I see it to believe it. -PanSola 17:37, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * MY analogy to you is this: For spells what deal damage to enemies, we debate whether to call them "Offensive Spells" or "Magical Attacks". The problem with the latter is, there are skills, like Empathy, that affect other "attacks" (including attack skills like Hundred Blades and Smite), and they will NOT affect things like Flare or Firestorm.  But we still got people who want to call Lightning Orb a "Magical Attack" because, well, those players use Lightning Orb to "attack" their enemies. -PanSola 18:03, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * I definitely DO NOT want Ash(es) Ritual. There are Ritual skills that are defined as Rituals, Nature and Binding, and they act differently than Spells (like Glyphs not affecting them). I see a definite likelihood of confusion by calling them Ritual. I remain. --Ravious 02:14, 18 February 2006 (CST)

The bone of contention seems to be whether "ritual" is proper here, as there are other distinctly non-spellish skills that are also rituals. Perhaps we can use a different synonym here? My trusty thesaurus suggests: rite, ceremony, routine, praxis (!), form, observance, etc. I wouldn't mind "rite" myself, as it fits the funereal context of holding urns of ashes. I am therefore officially switching my vote to "Other (please specify)" 02:38, 18 February 2006 (CST)
 * I would also appeal to avoid introducing additional vocabularies that are not in the game and are not immediately intuitive. Between "Spell", "Ashes Spell", "Ashes Ritual", and "Ashes New vocab", my preference is in the order of "Ashes Spell" > "Spell" > "Ashes New vocab" > "Ashes Ritual".  But since you changed your vote from option 1 to other, I'm not going to commplain too much d-: -PanSola 17:56, 18 February 2006 (CST)

Who defined that every ritual must spawn a visible spirit? - Tetris L
 * I think Anet kind of did, by setting up a pattern with Nature Ritual and Binding Ritual... -PanSola 16:10, 20 February 2006 (CST)
 * Yeah, A.Net makes sure to classify skills according to what other skills affect it. Thus far all rituals have been classified as Rituals and have spawned visible spirits. --Ravious 20:02, 20 February 2006 (CST)


 * I choose option 3, as they are spells, and I assume are therefore treated as spells by the many spell affecting skills in-game. It's important for this to be noted. Shandy 17:22, 20 February 2006 (CST)

I'm sorry to say this, but this is a ridiculous vote. Ashes Ritual does sound cool, I will agree with that. But, Ritual is an in-game defined term that has effects in ways that will not affect an Ashes Ritual (the Ritual Lord for example). Therefore we cannot call it Ashes Ritual without some user confusion. Is that what we want, to not be the GW source to go to because we have made-up information that contradicts in-game information? I guarantee that if we don't put in a disclaimer some anon will come by and bring up a discussion on Ashes Rituals not being Rituals. --Ravious 20:02, 20 February 2006 (CST)


 * After reading the various reasonings, at this point, I would go for Ashes Spells. True, it sounds cool to be 'Ashes Ritual', but it's not how the game calls it.  These spells certainly have special characteristics to them, so I'm all in for putting them in their own article/category.  For me, it really doesn't matter what to call them, and either way, we can certainly change it once Factions actually comes out and we scour the manual and actually play the game.  Perhaps the upcoming Cantha preview event may shed some more light. --TheSpectator 02:33, 22 February 2006 (CST)

Conjuring ghost/spirit?
It is my theory that by holding the ashes of the person in the skill name the ritualist conjures the ghost of the person, so the ghost will grant the ritualist a bidding. That's how I put it in the original version of the article. This was changed to a plain and strict "No spirits are involved in Ashes Rituals." Simple question: How do we know that no spirits are involved? Just because none is visible? Hmmm ... isn't it the nature of spirits that they are invisible most of the time? -- 02:18, 18 February 2006 (CST)
 * Sorry, it's "no spirits are involved", not "no siprits are involved". Subtle difference.  At the top of the spirit article, there is a disambig note: This article is about the creature type Spirit in the context of skill descriptions. For information on spirits of mortal creatures that have died, see Ghost.  Thus "no spirits are involved" does not conflict with your theory, though it does not mention your theory either.  It is neutral where your theory is concerned. -PanSola 13:31, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * This is at the link the disambig note leads to. 69.124.143.230 15:25, 18 February 2006 (CST)
 * "Fixed". It was a legacy artifact before we decided on how to handle the Spirit/Ghost issue. -PanSola 17:52, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * And for the record, I personally don't find it "obvious" that these skills in question involve the ghosts of the dead. Possible?  yes.  But unless the Chapter 2 PvE story or lore or whatever explicitly says it, I find it equally likely that boons came from the actual ashes themselves.  The flesh of a holy person, in Chinese culture, can attain holy attributes despite the fact that the "spirit" of the holy person has parted from it, and similariy with ashes. -PanSola 18:09, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * PanSola: I thought there was a general agreement that ghosts are spirits?!! See Talk:Ghost. So if you say: No spirits are involved, that includes that no ghosts are involved! -- 20:16, 20 February 2006 (CST)


 * Well, there's the META spirits that is the superset of Ghosts and spirits created by rituals. In the above i was trying to use wikified spirits to mean the ones created by rituals only, whereas the non-wikified spirit refers to the META spirits.  In any case, changed the wording.  See if that makes it sufficiently neutral of your theory. -PanSola 01:27, 21 February 2006 (CST)