[Suggestion] Let more mobs use profession mechanics

(IMO) Part of what made GW1's balance so lovely is that mobs (with some exceptions) mainly used skills that players had access to.

I wonder, would it be possible for Anet to do something similar with more GW2 standard mobs? I've noticed it has been done with a couple mob skills, but not all that many. Give mobs the ability to do what players can do (vomit condis, boons, etc.). This, I think, would allow anet to assess skill balance, as most of their focus is on PvE and this would give skill balance more relevance in PvE.

It would also serve to help players practise for PvP in PvE, as they would learn what different professions could do based on what the mobs are doing. That would help reduce the learning curve from PvE to PvP.

I think it would also be more fun for PvE. Rather than the mobs having the same old "generic bite/slash" skill, you would have to stay on your toes when engaging enemies. You might have to engage an enemy firebrand or elementalist first, if they seem determined on healing their NPC allies or clearing enough of their condis that you are struggling to engage them. It would open up new strategies and tactics for enemies in PvE, making the fights less about sponges and sheer numbers and more about the capabilities of the enemies.

This, I noticed, has been introduced more in LWS4, where enemies have specific classes and can be really deadly if left unchecked. If Anet does more of this and even ramps it up to giving enemies the same capabilities as players, I think it would make for a really enjoyable experience.

didn't they stop doing that because it was a balancing nightmare

They don't do it mostly because these profession skills are reserved to human type enemies. They don't even give it to the inquest because they are all "high tech" and engineer skills are too old school for that. :P

When fighting pirates during Istan's metas I do recognize several of the skills. Same when fighting the white mantle.

Though I think it's better, balance wise, to keep skills apart. When not.... I remember this champion in cursed shore which used an improved version of the mesmer's greatsword third skill (it summoned there of those blades at once) and, in a balance patch, when ANet greatly increased the damage of this skill, it had the effect of making this champion extremely hard, the skill would kill on one hit regardless of your toughness, and it was quite spammable, which made it all the much more worse.

On the other side of the coin, when ANet severely nerfed lava font damage, even though I play a staff elementalist, I was so glad that those veteran fire elementals in Balthazar's sanctuary in sirens landing were no longer such a huge threat as before. :P

So yeah, the balance dream doesn't quite work right because mobs using player skills can be broken when said monsters have high stats that players don't have.