How to tell if a skill ignores armor?

I've been trying to figure this out for a while. Is there any way to tell from the skill description whether a skill ignores armor?

I thought the phrases "Target TAKES xxx damage" or "Target IS HIT for xxx damage" may be a factor, but some skills seem to break the pattern.

Anyone know?

[skill]Obsidian Flame[/skill]

basically if the skill indicates a type of damage, like earth, fire, etc then it doesn't ignore armor, otherwise it does, to be confirmed but I'm 99% sure

Ultimately since Anet doesn't put a nice "ignores armor" tag on the skills, you're going to have to wiki or use them. There is no universal pattern.

Look at the damage type. It's somewhat complicated, but try to bear with me here:

Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Earth damage are all sensitive to your base armor, plus your armor against elemental, plus your armor against that specific type. (And clearly not armor-ignoring.)

Slashing, Piercing, and Blunt damage are all sensitive to your base armor, plus your armor against physical, plus your armor against that specific type. (Again, not armor-ignoring.)

Chaos damage and Dark damage are sensitive only to your base armor. (Sill not armor ignoring.)

Damage that has no listed type is armor-ignoring.

Shadow damage is armor ignoring.

Holy damage behaves oddly. If it comes from a weapon (like a monk staff for example), then it is sensitive to your base armor. But, if it comes from a skill, then it is armor-ignoring.

The above will keep you straight on 99% of the damage in the game. There are however a few "buggy" skills that are really armor-sensitive even though their damage type is listed as holy or unspecified. Notable examples are: Great Dwarf Weapon, Whirling Defenses, Lightbringer's Gaze, and Judge's Insight.

Judge's Insight has always worked properly, people incorrectly insisted that Holy damage was always armor-ignoring.


If the damage is from a weapon:
-The base damage is not armor-ignoring.
-Attack skill damage is armor-ignoring.

If the damage is from a spell/non-attack skill:
-If it has a physical or elemental damage type listed, it's usually not armor-ignoring.
-If it doesn't, it's usually armor-ignoring.

i look for the amount of damage listed in the skill description. for example, empathy should do roughly 35 damage per attack (i'm at work so i can't check, my instinct is 30-40 at max domination), no matter what. you can watch the 35's and see that it doesn't matter what armor level your enemy is.
something like power shot though, is affected by armor. as in, you will likely do less damage than what is given in the skill description. when you use it, you can tell it's not doing the full damage (or even the same amount of damage every time) unless you land a critical hit, then it goes up.
hope that made sense.

+damage ignores armor, so where did you get this information? Something that people thought was correct back in 2005?

Power Shot has been working correctly since Factions was released.