"While Casting" - does it apply to all skills, or just spells?

The question is regarding the inscription "Knowing is half the battle", which gives +5 armor while casting. I'm wondering if this applies to all skills, or just spells.

I checked wiki, and it seems that it's kinda up in the air. In the discussion, it is determined that the in-game term "casting" seems to only refer to spells, like in the case of Fast Casting. However, there seems to be instances where this isn't the case, like with the "Curse of the Bloodstone".

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Cast

Now, my question remains: Does "while casting" mean the cast time of any skill, or just spells?

I'm wanting to know because I think it could be a good mod for a Ritualist, possibly giving extra armor while casting the Binding Rituals, but since they aren't considered spells, I'm not sure if it would work.

As far as im aware you only cast spells the rest of the skills are activated.
But then there are alll sorts of quirks and exeptions to many rules so I guess the only way to be sure is to test it.

So, umm, that sounds good, I guess. Now I have an embarrassing question... How would I go about testing this?

Go somewhere with a consistent damage with universal levels of armour.

For instance, you could roll a PvP character, make sure that from head to toe, you have the same armour rating (If the headpiece is 60 AL, the chest, hands, legs and feet should have exactly 60 AL as well), grab a weapon/focus, whatever has the mod, and go to the Master of Lightning on the Isle of the Nameless, and pick one of his spells to track and get hit by it.

He has Lightning Javelin and Lightning Orb to deal damage with, either is fine, as long as you're consistent with which one you're using.

Get hit once using a non-spell skill, such as a Binding Ritual, while equipped with the mod, and once while not equipped. You can aid this by initiating the activation until it's almost completed, then stepping quickly to cause it to cancel, and recasting it immediately, so that you don't have 'aftercast' downtime.

If the damage is less while equipped, you have your answer.

There's an easier way.

Get a buddy to scrimmage you with Wild Blow. Then equip the +armor while casting, use a non-spell skill, and get hit with Wild Blow. Since it always criticals, it always does the same amount of damage. Then dequip the +armor while casting, use a non-spell skill, and get hit with Wild Blow. Compare the damage. If its' the same, then casting applies only to Spells. If it was less the first time, then it most likely applies to all skills.

EDIT: Results showed that during binding rituals, there was no decrease in the amount of damage taken. Thus "while casting" most likely means "while casting a Spell"

Damn. I just got home from work, and was about to test it, but I thought I'd check this thread again. Thanks for testing it for me, Relambrien. Ah well, it was worth a try.

As far as I know, binding ritual's attacks ignore armor. Just do what Relambrien said and get a buddy to use wild blow on you while casting a non-spell.

delete, read the skill wrong -_-.

WIld blow wil indeed do, like many others skills (lightning strike flare etc).

WTF? we arent talking about wild blow.

That was not the point of the whole experiment. They were trying to see whether the damage reduction while casting was also applied when using a binding ritual (a skill with long activation time).

How did I manage to misinterpret that? XD

And we're talking about wild blow because it will do a set amount of damage based on the target's AL, so if they do X amount while not casting and Y amount while using a non spell, then the "While Casting" mod works with skills as well as spells.

Any skill that deals consistent, non-armour ignoring damage will work, including Wild Blow, as long as you're not wielding a Sundering mod for some reason.

The reason I suggested Isle of the Nameless is because it's something you can do alone. Easy or not, unless you have a willing guinea pig, you've got to make use of the resources you can.