I think this is a Ritualist skill bug, not in the actual performance, but in the description.
Anguished Was Lingwah and
Pain are supposed to be the same spirits, right? Well when attack spirits were first buffed a few months ago (at the time of the Ritual Lord nerf), I don't think Anguished Was Lingwah's text was updated to match Pain's.
Here is my Communing at attribute level 14. The text on both skills says they do different damage, but when I was using both in the Nundu Bay mission tonight (against Margonites, fwiw), they were BOTH doing 28 damage, not one 19 (as Anguished Was Lingwah's text box reads) and one 28 (as Pain's text box reads):
Anguished Was Lingwah's skill-description box at 14 Communing:
Pain's skill-description box at 14 Communing:
ANet, you can go ahead and test it. 14 Communing - Nundu Bay - vs. Margonites. Either the damage being done by Anguished Was Lingwah is wrong or the text in the skill-description box is wrong (for Anguished Was Lingwah). I was using a green Communing Staff of the Forgotten, which comes with a Health +30 mod, so this wasn't a case of any +1 attribute modifier kicking in.