Phoenix bugged or Bad templating?

I've been a big fan of Phoenix for some time, but the wording as always be a little weird, especially compared to fireball.

Phoenix:
A fiery phoenix rises at your location, striking nearby foes for 7...91 fire damage, and flies out to your target, exploding on impact. This explosion strikes for an additional 15...75 fire damage.

Fireball:
Target foe and all adjacent foes are struck for 7...91 fire damage.

The way fireball reads, it will obviously strike foes around your target for the damage, but so does Phoenix, although it doesn't quite read that way.

Is this a bug or just poor templating?

Just poorly written.

The pheonix strikes the additional fire damage to foes adjacent to YOU, not your target.

on the other hand i have been happily surrounded by charr and used phoenix on the one next to me for double AOE damage to the whole crowd

on launch and landing so to speak

Incorrect. It does both, that's why I posted the question.

If I have no enemies around me, I get no benefit from the first part of the spell. But I have hurled it at groups of enemies (distanced) and they all take dmg (just like fireball does).

I think what Ray was trying to say was fireball does damage to the contact area only while phoenix does damage to the contact area and enemies right next to you.