Skill-names, effects and professions

Im not exactly a hardcore player, i dont have 3 sets of 15k armor on my every character, just a regular 'play for fun' guy. I have played guild wars for 1 and a half years now, and i was just wondering about the things mentioned in the thread-title.

Now, this wont be a "let's pressure Anet to change this and that" thread, at least its not my goal.

My 2 main characters are my Mesmer and my Necro, so they would be a nice start.

The mesmer. A more perfected concept of a unique class i never seen in other games. Mentalists, manipulators, illusionists, dominators, call them what u want, but the Mesmer is all of them. But i wondered. They are supposed to be able to alter their foes feelings, and some skills do this exactly. Emphaty for one, Shame and Guilt. Cry of frustration is just lol, when u may imagine how would it sound, when ur targets swears when u interrupt him thus distracting his own allies. Mistrust is nice too. Excelent adaptation of feelings into the game mechanics.

But. what about fear? Oh well necromancers have 'fear' skills, right? And they have them rightfuly so. In most every other game inflicting fear is the part of a necromancer's job.But those games didn't have Mesmers. Fainthartedness, Shadow of Fear, Meekness. Reducing attack speed by 50%. 1st time i thought...wtf? why doesn't that shadow fiend run away? (pre-searing catacombs, where u get fainthartedness). Yes i was a noob. Then i thought about it, and it's a nice touch. You barely dare to hit something that is so scary it makes your heart bleed.. Thus fear is the only supposed feeling that might be a specialty of the Necromancer in GW. But then comes Sum of all fears. speed reduction in mostly everything. In illusion attribute line. Great. It is not even in domination, which is more of manipulating feelings than illusion.

Guess the concept was like this: "we already have speed reduction in spells and movement in illusion, like imagined burden and arcane conondrum, then why not?" ...Im not really mad about this, just making me confused.
Also, Isn't a bender of minds and thoughts supposed to inflict the only condition that comes to this? Making others Dazed perhaps? I know mesmers are not exactly about inflicting conditions, maybe spreading the conditions others inlfict, but dealing with the Dazed condition should be in the abilities of a mentalist...

Enough about mesmers now...

Necromancer. One of my eternal favorites. Using dark magic and stuff that makes most rightous ppl shake in fear.Summoning death energy, cursing and giving "life" to dead things. Also manipulating the blood of friends and foes. now this is a bit afoot. Blood magic is considered to be the necro's worst line.
In my opinion its is not bad, but definetly the worst of the necro. I only have 1 complain...Why doesn't it deal with the bleeding condition more so? The whole attribute-line only has 2 skills(Blood drinker and Signet of agony) that deal with it, and those are about inflicting it on YOURSELF. Why is that? i dont know. give me a clue..why cant a blood-mage make others bleed but himself? Some new skills perhaps, or some skills change entirely? I can think out 1 right now.

(choose a name, casting time and recharge)
Target foe is bleeding for x-y seconds. when foe is not bleeding anymore, it suffers z-r damage(perhaps for each second of bleeding).

This would open some place for team-strategy too, like warriors extendig the bleeding duration with sword attacks(sever artery) perhaps.

Speaking of team strategy...why cant elementalist conjure elemtents on ally's weapons? You know, conjure lightning, flame and frost. Leaving these skills just as they are now, jut making you able to target allies with it too...it might need planning and foresight but only as much as an order necro (physical attacks). This and such things on eles could make them able to break out from the eternal spiking-nuking responsibility of eles (though i know most ppl dont mind being the main firepower)

Well, enough about my ramblings now. just curious if any1 else thought about such things too on other classes and attributes.

blood magic was designed to take health away from other people and give it to you, not make people degen to death with no self heal, thats more curses and death (mainly curses) plus if you you really wanne make people bleed take [plague sending] along with sig of agony.

A mesmer is just a debuffer basically.

Every ORPG has them. The only thing unique about Mesmer's, is the name.

Just sayin.

While the Mesmer has a few debuff type skills I really wouldn't classify them as a debuffer. I believe a Mesmers strength really lies with controling opponents through the use of interupts or penalties for using skills. A mesmer with the correct build can completly shut-down a team strategy through the use of anti-melee, anti-caster and also debuffing.

As for the comments above, the blood line of skills for the necro is the least fun to play but there are a lot of single skills that can be great to use while only dedicating some points to that attribute.

I agree with the gist of the OP - make the professions unique!

(GW:EN, unfortunately, has completely undermined that position. Now, anyone can: summon; set traps; perform KDs; interrupt; degen - all while still playing your Primary/Secondary "profession" - attribute points mean nothing, it's all about faction.)

It's what I am hoping they will do in GW2, actually. Really think out the profession. Make them different. (There will always be some overlap, I think. Rits and Monks; Necro and Mesmer. As well as the basic function of "buff", "debuff", etc.)

But, like the OP suggests, if Mesmers manipulated and controlled foes - confused them, made them attack each other, or waste attacks/spells on illusory targets, and so on, that would be cool. Necroes about Death and Undeath, life-stealing, disease; Monks about Health and buffs, and smiting, and raising the fallen. Rits as shamans, summoning spirits to protect or attack, maybe do some healing and condition removal. Balance professions against each other. Monks vs Necro's Death Magic, Mesmer vs. Necro's Curses. I don't know - there are lots of ways this could get really creative, but it all requires that the system has unique skills and abilities so that, if you're not a Necro or Monk, you want to be one - or have one in your party!

I know the basic strategies, even played that one u mentioned, even with plague touch for the damage take effect. My point was that with a line called Blood magic and a condition called Bleeding, they missed some nice options. I know its an entirely different kind of game, but the Vampire:Masquerade Bloodlines Thaumaturgy (vampire bloodmagic) comes in mind. Bloodshield, Blood-boil, Blood-shower(i know, its like unholy feast). Blood magic with life-steal is kind of the same as fire-magic with burning. The attribute-line can master the effect, and some other class-other attribute can 'mimic' it (life-steal=nightmare weapon, burning=anthem of flame). I would just like to see some more creativity in skills and attributes.Not just "let this skill burn foe/steal life from foe if this and that conditions meet"-these are fine and serves their purpose, but it lacks variety. Like fire magic. Its mostly just x damage over y second on z area. energy,casttime and recharge variates. Though i admit i cant think much else about fire right now....:P