List of skill anomalies

DISCLAIMER: The information in this article is based on experimental research conducted by the community, and may contain inaccuracies and speculation. While we strive for accuracy in these articles, we make no claims of experimental rigor or unbiased conclusions. Caveat lector.

A Skill Anomaly is a case where an effect does not exactly match its stated or implied description, but still functions. It is similar to, but not as serious as, a Bugged effect.
The following is a list of anomalies in skills and their descriptions. Please feel free to add anomalies that you have noticed. Also see Category:Anomalies for more info.

General notes on skill behavior

• The game displays 0 damage differently, depending on the precise text in the skill description:
  • The number 0 is displayed for skills that "take no damage" and when "takes damage" skills generate no damage.
  • No number is displayed for skills that "deal no damage".

• In skill description, the term spirit is misleading: the effects of these skills are limited to spirits created by rituals. For example,
  • There is no energy gain from Essence Strike standing near the "protective spirit" Zunraa.

• All Shadow damage skills and all Holy damage skills ignore armor and caster level, although this is not mentioned in their skill descriptions.
  • Exceptions: Judge's Insight, Avatar of Balthazar, Lightbringer's Gaze, and the converted weapon damage from Heart of Holy Flame.

• Effects always take place at the end of stated intervals, e.g. when the description says something is caused every second or every N seconds.

• NCSoft uses faster recharge, activation, or attack speed to mean that the interval between events is shorter.
  • For example, a 33% attack speed increase results in nearly 50% more attacks: 4 attacks per second means 0.33333s between each attack. Reducing that interval by 33% allows for 0.22222s between attacks which translates to the 5th attack happening after 0.89s and the 6th at 1.11s.

• Pet Attacks trigger effects dependent on activating attack skills, but not those dependent on hitting or attacking with attack skills.
  • e.g. they do affect Anthem of Fury and Zealous Anthem
  • e.g. they do no affect Defensive Anthem

• Resurrection skills will not work on non-fleshy creatures, such as Djinn.

Warrior

• The description of "I Will Avenge You!" 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 skill's effect is not infinite as the description implies, but counts fallen allies only within radar range.
• The skill descriptions for Sever Artery, Gash, Eviscerate, Hamstring and Dismember are redundant, describing the condition they inflict.
• Healing Signet is a healing skill, rather then a gain health skill.
• The description of Swift Chop is misleading: if blocked, the target takes only 1..16 damage, rather then 1..16 bonus damage as the description implies.

Ranger

• Rampage as One and Never Rampage Alone require a living animal companion or it cannot be activated.
• Whirling Defense deals physical damage that ignores armor and cannot be converted into fire damage by Greater Conflagration.
• If you use Comfort Animal (PvP) without having a pet with you, you incorrectly get the message "Your pet is out of range". Although likely an anomaly, this may be intended to reflect that the Ranger's pet is merely not with them, as opposed to winking out of existence every time Charm Animal is unequipped.
• If you miss with Oath Shot your skills will be disabled for 5 seconds, rather than 10 seconds as the skill description states.

Monk

• Draw Conditions refers to negative conditions, although all conditions are negative.
• Balthazar's Spirit yields energy if the target is merely hit, although its description says it depends on the foe taking damage.
• Martyr's description is ambiguous about the duration of conditions transferred to the caster; if two (or more) party members have the same condition, only the longest duration applies. Draw Conditions displays this behavior to a lesser extent.
• Life Attunement misleadingly states that the target deals 30% less damage in combat. Instead, only weapon damage is reduced; there is no effect on damage from other skills.
• 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.
• Spell Shield's concise description says the caster cannot be the target of any spells, however, the caster can be targeted (the enemy will not be able to activate the skill).
• Purge Conditions does remove all conditions, but fails to explicitly mention Cracked Armor in its description.

Necromancer

• Animate Flesh Golem's description says that you can only have one Flesh Golem at a time. It does not mention that the old golem is destroyed when you summon a second Flesh Golem, leaving an exploited corpse.
• 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, Plague Sending, and Plague Signet mention "negative" conditions, which is redundant as all conditions are negative.
• Rotting Flesh's description states that target fleshy foe 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.
• 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.
• Rend Enchantments is health loss, not damage as specified in the description, and as such, it is not altered by Protective Spirit or Reversal of Fortune.

Mesmer

• Arcane Thievery, Arcane Larceny, Inspired Enchantment, Inspired Hex, Revealed Enchantment, Revealed Hex, and Simple Thievery are unable to copy monster skills.
• Arcane Mimicry cannot copy Junundu Siege.
• Crippling Anguish's full description implies that it can be used on any target; it can only be used on foes.
• Illusion of Weakness subtracts 1 more life than the skill description says. In addition, the red damage number also shows a value incorrect by 1 point.
• Signet of Humility displays an incorrect message when an invalid target is chosen (it says invalid spell target rather than invalid skill target).
• Signet of Humility also disables all elite skills if the target has more than one.
• While Signet of Illusions is active, spells ignore +1 Illusion Magic percentage effects. Signet of Illusions also affects spells with linked titles.

Elementalist

• Gale states it knocks down a target for 2 seconds; this is now redundant, as all knockdowns last 2 seconds unless stated otherwise.
• Glyph of Sacrifice actually reduces the next spell's activation time to ¼ 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. The skill affects one random nearby enemy each time it is triggered.
• Stone Striker appears to convert at least some non-elemental, non-physical damage from attacks into Earth Damage.
• Crystal Wave and Teinai's Crystals refer to negative conditions, which is redundant as all conditions are considered negative.

Assassin

• 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.
• Attacks with Shattering Assault use the skill's listed damage in place of base weapon damage. This damage is affected by Dagger Mastery, critical hits, armor penetration, inscription and inscription-equivalent weapon damage bonuses and the target's armor, but does not benefit from the customization damage bonus.

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.
• 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%.
• The concise skill description of Ghostmirror Light states that, if in range of a spirit, you gain 15..75 health. In truth, you are healed for this amount.

Paragon

• Because Energizing Chorus reduces cost at the beginning of skill activation and doesn't end until activation is completed, using a Shout in the middle of a Chant's activation will allow both skills to benefit from this Chant.
• Mighty Throw and Unblockable Throw have activation times of 2 seconds and not 3 seconds reported by the skill description.
• Pet Attack skills are not considered Attack Skills by many Paragon Chants because they're activated by a different character (the character that owns the pet). However, Brutal Mauling does trigger paragon chants.

Dervish

• The description of Chilling Victory says that it inflicts extra cold damage whenever it strikes a foe with less health than you, however the attack does not need to hit to trigger the bonus effect and will only trigger once, even if multiple targets have less health than you.

Common skills

• When used against an invalid target, Resurrection Signet incorrectly gives the "Invalid spell target." message rather than the generic "Invalid target." message.
• Although the description says "nearby", the actual range of Signet of Capture is significantly larger than earshot. Furthermore, Signet of Capture cannot be used to capture the elite skills of some bosses in Istan, which is suspected to be related to boss level.
• The temporary versions of the Norn elite skills - Raven Blessing (temporary), Ursan Aura, and Volfen Blessing (temporary) - will remove all your enchantments when activated, even though the description is missing the sentence that mentions that.

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, and implies the damage is armor-ignoring; actually, the skill strikes for 40 damage four times every second, one each of Lightning damage, Cold damage, Fire damage, and an unknown Elemental damage, presumed to be Earth damage.

Monster skills

• Creatures summoned with Call to the Torment are not considered summoned creatures by other skills, such as Banish.
• Dark Chain Lightning deals 300 damage to the first target and 10% less to each subsequent target, not 200 as the description states. Also, the damage is not Lightning Damage in spite of the description.
• Enchantment Collapse triggers every time the target foe loses an enchantment, lasting until it is removed, rather than only triggering the next time the target loses an enchantment as the description implies.
• 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 display 700 damage, whereas the Effects Monitor displays the correct figure of 500 damage. Also, the description does not mention that reaching the damage cap will end the Meditation early.

Bundle 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.

Half Range / Touch Skills

The concise skill description for half range and touch skills includes the range as part of the skill type (e.g. "Half Range Bow Attack", "Elite Touch Spell"), instead of mentioning it in the description itself.

Special skills

• 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.
• Because of its long skill animation, Leave Junundu actually takes significantly longer to activate than its listed 1/4 second activation time.
• The descriptions of Rollerbeetle Dash, Harden Shell, and Ram omit the fact that they can only be recharged by reaching a checkpoint.
• The descriptions of Distracting Lunge, Spit Rocks, Rollerbeetle Echo, Rollerbeetle Blast, and Super Rollerbeetle 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 has the undocumented effect of providing a brief speed boost.
• Although the description does not mention it, Vial of Purified Water fires a projectile which inflicts 50 damage if it hits.