Are Paladins really bad?

[Raev]

Paladins are rather superfluous at level 60 here.

• Alunova overtuned every Velious raid encounter in an attempt to prevent P99's multiple overgeared zerg guilds from wrecking Velious on day one (needless to say, he failed). Knights cannot even rampage tank Vindi here.
• "Competition" forces everyone to zone pull raid bosses and kite adds, so there is no need for the Knight's traditional trash tanking job
• In theory something like a HoT crawl should be ideal for Knights, but in practice the mobs there are substantially overtuned as well (most quad when they should only double or triple) and Warriors can use the Bio Orb to generate almost as much hate (proc hate should be capped at 400).

So Paladins should be solid raiders on a classically tuned server where guilds crawl TOV and Kael and such. And indeed on TAKP knights are extremely popular.

Paladins are in my opinion a strong grouping class. If I were leveling a Paladin I would fill my friends list with competent (and fun!) Shaman and Enchanters, both of which work very well with the Paladin:

• Shamans will enjoy the Paladin's snap threat letting them slow immediately, stuns interrupting big nukes/heals (A shaman's nemesis is a wizard, since they can't slow spellcasting), +1K in HP buffs, and pacify splits keeping things simple most of the time. Throw in some sort of dps class and you have an excellent trio.
• Enchanters will enjoy the Paladin's snap threat even more (tash+slow is two big debuffs, and as a cloth class they can't just fire and suck it up), and stun on the charmed pet is excellent. Despite being the god class of EverQuest all the way through PoP, Enchanters have a tendency to die and a Paladin has more tools than other tank to keep one alive. Clarity means you can cast more. PAL/ENC plus any vaguely competent priest should wreck.

If you have a really good Monk/Enchanter/Cleric/Shaman, then a Warrior is best. They do the most damage, are the toughest, and have disciplines that really shine vs tough mobs. In an average group, you have a lot more options to keep things together with a Paladin. Also, Paladins are much less gear dependent, and most of their gear is cheap since few play them.

If you like the idea of a Paladin, I wouldn't let the naysayers scare you off unless you are absolutely certain you want to batphone/track/poopsock at 60. By the time you get there nilbog may have retuned things or tweaked the rules to favor knights a bit anyway. And if not, you can always reroll a Cleric or whatever.