Types of damage

I just wanted to know, unless otherwise stated, do necromancer spells deal shadow damage and mesmer spells deal chaos damage?

Theres alot of debate about that actually.

Since some spells say "deal [whatever] damage", and others say "Deal [whatever] shadow damage", but both in most cases arent armor effected..

I think its more of, They suck at writing out effect descriptions, than any "rule" of the game.

Guildwiki mentions an Armor-Ignoring damage type called "Untyped Damage":

http://www.guildwiki.org/wiki/Damage

So I guess the answer is....maybe.

Well, I've been trying to work with some skills that only trigger on a specific damage type, and I know there aren't any that trigger on "untyped" damage.

I think the main concern is dividing in 3 categories:
- physical
- elemental
- other damage.

There are skills that affect elemental damage, and skills that affect physical damage. There are no skills however that inflict 'chaos damage' or 'shadow damage'. They are therefore just nametags without much difference between them.
I've read that the 'chaos damage' from mesmer canes would deal elemental damage (becuase it would trigger on Storm Chaser), altough I haven't tested that myself. Personally I think one generally can make the 'shadow'/'chaos' assumption you posted, but would be very observant to its real affect. Don't take anything in this game for a fact, but go out and explore.

The only mention in the game of "chaos" damage is in the mesmer wands and staves. Some mesmer spells used to refer to it, but those have since been changed. So one can now say definitively that (a) there are no skills that deal chaos damage, and (b) chaos damage does not ignore armor.

The "untyped" damage that Guildwiki refers to is just a label for the damage dealt by skills that don't specify a type of damage (including all mesmer skills that deal damage). It ignores armor, and is in fact identical to shadow damage in all ways, as far as I know.

Are there any skills that trigger on shadow or chaos damage?