GuildWiki:Style and formatting/Skills

This article provides information on starting, expanding on and completing articles relating to individual Skills in Guild Wars. This information should be taken into account along with the more general information in Style and formatting

The Skill Template Interface (Basics)
The stats of a skill go into a template interface named after the skill. This way other articles that wish to display information about the skill can be directly invoked. This is the soul of the skill's information.

(Table of Contents is automatically generated by the template. Click on the "hide" link to collapse it)

Basic Syntax
The skill template interface has the following layout:

For ease of copy/pasting, a blank version of the above:

'''Note: you might notice a more complicated syntax calling structure in other skill templates. Please refer to the section later in the article. If you see a skill template already using advanced syntax, please keep it that way, otherwise it is perfectly acceptable to just use the basic syntax here.'''

Note: to convert a skill template from basic to advanced syntax, replace the first line: {{Skill box {{{1|}}} with: {{subst:skill box qu

This interface by default uses Template:Skill box. However, by supplying {{{1}}} (an unnamed parameter), the interface can be instructed to use any other template that is named Template:Skill box [something something]. This allows flexibility by processing all use of the skill details through a centralized template interface.

The parameters

 * For non-elite skills, the "elite" field can be entered as "no" or left out all-together.
 * For non-profession-specific skills, leave profession out.
 * stat0~3 and val0~3 can be unspecified if not used.
 * Upkeep, Sacrifice, Exhausion, and "must follow blah attack" requirements should always use stat0. Leave val0 blank for exhausion and "must follow blah attack".
 * Energy and adrenaline uses stat1 and val1
 * Casting time uses stat2/val2
 * Recharge uses stat3/val3
 * Description: A description of the skill. Preferably, the official description you get from the Skills window in the game. Note that the skill box automatically creates the header for Description, you needn't create it yourself.
 * part - a part of the advanced syntax. Just copy it verbatim, it will hide the warning message telling people to upgrade the skill info box.

Skill Icon Format
The skill icon should be in JPG format, using icon provided by the ArenaNet Fansite Kit (FSK) whenever possible, and use in-game screen shots otherwise.

Unless there is an upload problem, skill icons should be named as: [Skill Name].jpg

For any upload problems, please report them at Software & Technical Issues/Bugs

The Skill Article
Before starting a new Skill article make sure it isn't already listed in the Skills category.

The Name
The correct name, capitalization and punctuation of a Skill can be found by checking your Skills window in the game. Press "K" to make the window appear and click on the Skill to get the official description. In general, you can use the in-game text as the authoritative source for Skill articles.

Categories
Assuming the skill name and the article name are identical, the skill template (see below) will automatically attempt to place the article in as many relavent categories as it can discern. Thus, it is only necessary to manually specify categories the skill box template missed (such as Category:Duplicate skills) or if for some reason the article name differs from the skill name.

See Category:Skills for existing categorizations.

Skill Stub
All new articles should be classed as stubs, and to avoid confusion it's best to mark a new Skill article a Skill Stub. You can do this by using the wiki code  . This adds the Skill-stub template to the new article. In doing so it also automatically lists the article under the Skill stubs category, so that anyone interested in expanding on this skill article can find it on the skill stubs category page.

Calling the Skill Template
The wiki code will invoke the skill template and include its information in the article.

Skill Progression
Many skills in Guild Wars have green numbers which will change depending on the value of a linked Attribute. These numbers are represented in the description part of the wiki thusly, 1...10. The first number corresponds to the green number when the linked Attribute value is 0. The second number corresponds to an Attribute value of 12. Keep in mind that sources other than GuildWiki may use values from different attribute levels (Guild Wars update notes in particular use levels 0...15).

Some skills are noticeably more powerful at 16. One may optionally indicate this in the Usage Notes.


 * Template:Progression top
 * Template:Progression main
 * Template:Progression bottom

The following shows the progression table for Mantra of Flame:

Template:Progression main can be used as many times as there are variables.

Remember, with the release of Factions, Blood, Air, Fire, Water, Earth Magics and Curses can go up to 20, while all other attributes can go up to 18.

Errata/Clarification
Any inconsistency or high risk of confusion between the skill description and the skill behavior should be noted here.

General tips about the skill's usage, or other information do not belong to this section.

Acquisition
Where to acquire, the cost of acquiring and a link to further information on acquisition. For an example, see the example skill article linked below.

Acquisition information should be listed in the following order:
 * Acquisition through quests
 * Acquisition through skill trainers
 * Acquisition though Signet of Capture (the only method for Elites).

Additional Notes
This is where trivia, usage notes, and other misc information that bears mention regarding the skill that's not covered in another section would go.

Wikilinking
It can be useful to wikiink some of the Guild Wars terms in the Description text.


 * Conditions: If a skill causes a particular condition hyperlink it to the Conditions page, but preserve the original text. For example skill 'Immolate' uses the following wiki code for its description text:
 *  Target foe is struck for 5...41 fire damage and is set on fire for 1...3 seconds. .
 * Which produces this output:
 * Target foe is struck for 5...41 fire damage and is set on fire for 1...3 seconds.

The Skill Icon
To use get the skill icon, just enter  .

Advanced Syntax
The following is the advanced syntax for skill templates. Aside from line 1 and line 13 which are required for skill quick references, all other parts are optional (ie can use Basic syntax if the particular feature is not needed). 1

Required Parts - for Skill Quick References
Line 1, 13 -  . This is the only required advanced syntax. This code instructs the skill template to use something other than the default skill box layout. Currently it supports the variations: top, bottom, whole, and row.
 * whole - generates a skill quick reference row, complete with table header ("{|") and footer ("|}"). It is a complete table by itself, and its columns will not be aligned with any other skill quick reference rows in the same article.
 * top - generates a skill quick reference row, with a table header. It is an incomplete table, and unless a table footer is included, the rest of the article will be considered part of the table, which most of the time severely messes up the article layout.
 * row - generates a skill quick refernce row, and nothing else. Requires a table header to render correctly, and a table footer to close the table.
 * bottom - generates a skill quick reference row, with a table footer. Requires a table header to render correctly.

Optional Parts - Additional Features
The rest of the advanced syntax only needs to be added for skill templates if someone wish to make use of the associated features for those skills.

Lines 2,3,4,5,6,12,14,15 = Overridable components. By using the advanced syntax for these fields, you may override the default value and force the template to display something else in those fiends. If the icon field is never specified at all (which is the case in the basic syntax), the name field is used to determine which icon to be used.

Lines 3,4,5,6,14,15 = Hidable components. By specifying "hide", space is never allocated for these components to be displayed to start with, which gives more space for other components. For "stats" it removes val0~val3 and stat0~stat3 together. Note that if you mix rows that have some components hidden with other rows that hide different components (or are not hiding components), it will likely mess up column alignment.

Lines 16, 17 = Addable components. By specifying them, new columns are created. data creates a column right infront of where the attribute cell would be. notes creates a column right before the description column.

Examples
{|  width=100% ! colspan=2|Skill Name||Type||Speed Mod||Target||Notes||Prof||Stats

{|  width=100% ! colspan=2|Skill Name||Type||Speed Mod||Target||Notes||Prof||colspan=10|Stats

Example Skill Article
See the example (fake) skill article at GuildWiki talk:Style and formatting/Skills/Everything Example that demonstrates how skills should be formatted, and should contain enough sample information to be useful.

Note: the example currently make use of deprecated templates.