Anet, your templating...

there is one thing about crystal wave you have wrong. It is unnecessary to specify armor-ignoring damage. why? because, whenever the game doesnt specify a damage type, it is automatically armor-ignoring.
is correct.
is incorrect

Obsidian Flame specifies that its damage ignores armor. Why on Obs Flame, and not Crystal Wave?

Inconsistency.

The OP has a very good point, and it's something I've noticed about GW from day 1. People say "What's the point? Who cares?" but I say think about this: A few chapters from now we will more than likely have a couple hundred skills for each class... if the description text is not standardized/templated, it will become very hard to tell certain skills apart by the way they're worded. It will be very confusing and time-consuming to form builds. Hell, it already takes too long to create 'just-the-right-build'.

The warrior skills are ones I find the most amusing... where they actually describe what some of the conditions do in the description... I think we know what they do by now, thanks.

Don't forget these inconsistencies:

Spellbreaker: "For 5...15 seconds, enemy spells targeted against target ally fail."

Obsidian Flesh: "For 8...18 seconds, you gain +20 armor and cannot be the target of enemy spells, but move 50% slower."

Shadow Form: "For 5...17 seconds, all hostile Spells that target you fail and all attacks against you miss. When Shadow Form ends, lose all but 5...41 Health."

Now, you could think these would do the same thing regarding spells, but you'd be wrong. Two of them do the same thing, to such an extent that trying to target a foe that has Shadow Form on receives the message "Spell failed. Target is protected by Spellbreaker" (A rather sad little bug) Note that they still have different wording from each other, even though an identical effect is used!

As well, spells targetted against you failing and can not be targetted means this: If the spell fails, it still takes energy. If you can't be targetted, it takes no energy. This makes obsidian flesh inherently weaker than the other two, but looking at the description you could easily not notice that distinction because the wording is so similar and ArenaNet's been so careless in other skill descriptions.

I agree, a more precise dictionary needs to be applied so people will be able to tell exactly how a skill will behave just by reading its description.

Conjure Lightning: "For 60 seconds, if you're wielding a lightning weapon, your attacks strike for an additional 1-13 lightning damage." Armor ignoring, but it has a damage type.

Oddly enough, Crystal Wave used to specify that it ignored armor.
Old description for Crystal Wave: "Foes near you are struck for 10-82 damage, but are cured of any negative conditions. This spell ignores armor and magic resistance." Sadly, they removed it.

What is the inconsistency here? Both spellbreaker and shadowform cause spells to "fail", whereas obsidian flesh prevents you from being the target of enemy spells.

Spellbreaker is described as "spells targeted against target ally fail" because it can be used on any ally, whereas shadowform reads "spells that target you fail" because it is only usable on yourself. Whether it says "enemy spells that target you" or "hostile spells targeted against you" is hardly something worth arguing over, because they both mean the exact same thing.

Conclusion about Spellbreaker: The spells failed=The caster loses energy when he/she tries to cast spells on Spellbreaker's target.

In the case of Obsidian Flesh, the caster can't even cast any spell on the target AT ALL. He/she doesn't lose any energy if he/she tries to.

And yes, I'm a M:tg player myself. And I'd been hoping against hope that Anet will fix this one day. Until Factions came out and nothing changes...I lost hope.

One note about "Mend whatever" spells with condition listing: I think I've read from somewhere that the conditions that are not in the list can't be remove by that spell. And Mend Ailment/Mend Condition have different condition listings.

Can anyone confirm that?

/signed

It makes sense to make their descriptions more accurate and more consistent. Even though it is nitpicking, i'm partially ECD (not really, just seems like it) so it annoys me.

I think the skills that clarify (such as mend ailment or hamstring), anet created first, and then the wording was never changed.

This is actually a very useful thread that needs to be looked at by people higher up. The link provided on guildwiki is great too. This is probably just my own ignorance on the matter, but I think it needs to be straightened out which skills count as a "skill" (are are skills counted as skills or only skills that say "Skill. Blah blah..."). This relates to expertise and the ever so popular touch ranger.

From memory, it does need to specify that it is Earth Damage because it interacts with Storm Chaser and Mantra of Earth.

So it should read takes x...y earth damage. This spell ignores armour.

Makes your brain hurt, huh?
and so it would be ob flame, not wave, that needs rewording.
yep. brain hurts

Heh...so I'm not the only one! I was trying to work on a new build the other day...and some of the skill descriptions seem to require my secret decoder ring (which sadly I left in my other jacket) to figure them out.

And just because it's kinda on topic...
Can we please do away with the skill descriptions once you leave a town/outpost? Hey guess what..I know what the thing does..that's why I put it there. I find it gets in the way when I am trying to scan the mobs...looking for the right target. I don't need a massive wall of text telling me what I already know. Ya, I could use the tab button to cycle through the enemies..but I find it takes longer.

Any condition can be removed by either of Mend Ailment or Mend Condition.

When it comes to the ele if a spell ignores armor than it should specify. Take a look at the air magic. All the spell that do damage have 20% armor penetration and they all say so in the description. Cured vs Removed, it really doesn't matter. They are both saying the same thing.

The kind of description you would see when you look at the format used with other spells would be:

"Foes adjacent to you are struck for 10...82 damage, but are cured of any negative Conditions. This spell ignores armor."

As for Mend Ailment not mentioning every condition is probably because those that typed the description in forgot. Is it needed? No. They list the conditions to examplify what a condition is.

Your new to the game and ask "What does disease do?". Taking one look at the spell and you see what it does. "Oh, disease is a degen". Why do some have this added description and why do some don't? Don't know. My guess, more than one person did up the description of the skills.

The only thing that is bother-some is when a spell ignores armor, not adding it to the description.

Poor crazy Kakumei.

Hunter. The "Negative conditions" part doesn't belong in the describtion becuase it leaves some room to doubt what it actually does, and if there are actually any existing positive conditions.

But, you know, positive conditions are an idea

I agree I have always found that some skills to be confussing it would be a good idea only thing is Anet has alot more important problems to fix at the moment.

This is very important thread. Guild Wars combat system is very sensitive especially at PvP. Small things like -10 hp, 1 second bad timing, hidden skill effects, 1 inch bad position and other "minor" things can kill you or reduce your/others current potential a lot depending what builds you and the enemy has and how well those builds will be used.

Here is one example from the hidden skill effect:

Vampiric Touch

Skill. Touch target foe to steal up 29...65 Health.

Okay, the skill steals life but the description doesn't say that it will ignore Protective Spirit because I died with 55 hp monk against necro minotaur boss. I don't know if it ignores Shielding Hands and Reversal of Fortune too. Maybe this is one reason why touch rangers are so powerful.

It should say something like this:

Skill. Touch target foe to steal up 29...65 Health. This skill ignores magical resistance.

On the other hand, it does not ignore every protection spell. Very confusing indeed.



off-topic:

I really would like to see skills which ignore all magical resistance. For example Crystal Wave probably could be popular if it ignores any protection spell.

I definitely agree. I also think, to help new players, that all the information could be put in some kind of in-game Encyclopedia, where you can look up things such as 'disease'. I know that you can aquire this information in the PvP 'Isle of the nameless', but pehaps an option to see it any time would be good.

/triple signed. Excellent idea.

Life Stealing is no normal damage.
It does not start "on damage" triggers, and as you noticed is also not influenced by damage-protection.

Yes!