Crucible steel is sometimes called "true damascus" "wootz" "palud" and pattern welded sometimes is called mechanical damascus. If the blade is etched the patterns are easy to see and tell the difference from. Some unetched blades that are reported to be wootz I do not see patterns in particularly in pictures. I think they both have appeal I would love to have a kris with mechanical damascus center, or a twist core doa, I would also like to have a wootz persian blade. So personally I think the skill of the maker and how well the blade was heat treated is more important than if it is mechanical or true damascus. But, there are many here who know more on this than I do and I look forward to their responses
you may want to look here
http://www.vikingsword.com/ethsword/patterns.html