I wonder if some of you folks don't play Paladins on Project1999. Flash of Light, as awesome as it was historically, simply doesn't work very well on here. Life as a Paladin can be rough until you have stun spells and enough mana to use them frequently--and even then aggro won't be as rock-solid as it was on Live. As with many groups using Warrior tanks, annoyance can sometimes be saved simply by rooting everything.
Paladins do not solo especially well beyond low levels. I *can* solo things at 50+, but it's a terribly slow and near-pointless exercise to do so. At all levels groups are preferred.
Paladins on P99, as on Live, are superb against undead at mid levels (damage against undead falls off, proportionally, at high levels--remember, no Slay Undead here). They're also the best tanks at high levels for groups pulling a lot of caster monsters and lots of things cast in Kunark. They have more ability to protect their groups than the other tanks have, and superior management of their survivability. We've all seen Paladins use LoH on themselves and live where another tank would have died. Paladins work exceedingly well with crowd control classes thanks to their variety of no-damage threat generation spells. 'Control' always feels to me like the operative word on Paladin tanking; the class doesn't have a Warrior's raw durability, or a Shadow Knights extreme versatility, but instead possesses an unrivaled ability to keep control of a situation as a tank.
Several of the Paladin's most important spells for 50+ are due to be added later, so the class is going to get better over time, not worse. Right now--early Kunark--was historically the nadir for the class. It's nice knowing things are going to get better. On the other hand, Paladins are never going to be in high demand in the raiding scene, so it's more of a group-centric class. If you pick it, do so with the above in mind.
So that's my take on it. In the end, the biggest reason to play the class is because you want to. That'll keep a player interested long after the guy who picked a class for power or to fill a needed job ends up burned out.
Danth
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