I did a Heroic Botanica yesterday on my Shadow Priest together with 3 paladins and an elemental Shaman. We did it in less than 25 minutes with all bosses going down in less than 1 minute, flower guy went down on 23 seconds.
Since we brought a retrilol, protlol and folslave we could keep 3 judgement on bosses, crit, mana and health. And we could have three Blessings each. The overall boost to dps was phenomenal. I bet we had more dps than most Karazhan raids, tbh. Saying Paladin are weak is to say that most people don't know how they work.
How many classes, for instance, can pull an entire field of mobs and aoe them down in their healing spec? Retribution is far more versitile than a MS warrior both in PvE and PvP. And Prot. Apart from not having bosses designed for you, like Bloodboil and Void Reaver, they do some very nice work in heroics and end-game raids.
Big ass whiny rant incoming!
Suddenly Paladin is a strong class because it can participate in tacky gimmick setups in venues that have no real relevance in class balance issues!?
As a multi-year Paladin, who raided from Naxx through BT before becoming "dirty, casual scum" and made Gladiator, I'm going to say that
I DISAGREE IMMENSELY, SIR. I've never been happier in WoW than when I finally put the pistol to it's head and rerolled a Priest back last Summer.
Sadly, I cannot consec tank leveling mobs in PvP gear anymore, but I think no longer being on the bottom of the totem pole in raids, being great in every bracket in arena, and having a healing model that kicks copious amounts of ass and generally just being an interactive, polished class makes up for it!
When Crusader Aura is the only BC provided spell that I ever use, there's a problem. But to be fair, BC at least provided Ret and Prot with the option to be mediocre instead of just full on useless, so I guess you can consider that an improvement.
I'm still not saying that the class is some unplayable lost cause, that'd be utter bullshit, they still hit a few niches and can participate at some level in everything in the game, but they're assuredly in one of the weakest spots any class has been in the games history.
My quick opinion for suggestions to make things a hell of a lot nicer, would be some mixture of the following: Paladins need to have their Judgment duration restored to pre-BC levels, receive any kind of an update to their neigh-on four year old cast-only, no-frill healing model. They need receive zero'd out mana restoration, receive a couple of abilities to participate in combat with.
Shocks, Mana Burns, CC's, small nukes, anything really, doesn't need to be overly powerful.
After that, they'll be good to go for everything but fun, probably! Until they take a sledge hammer to the notion that a couple of dispelable defensive abilities on giant cooldowns is a good concept for a class design, and it's changed to be more active, that'll remain. I mean I've played underpowered classes, overpowered classes, multiple healers, etc, but there's a real problem when not only is your class in a poor spot in terms of potency, but it's like digital nyquil just to play.
To be quite honest, I literally hate the Paladin class in WoW, more than I have any class in any game in any genre, ever. It is awkward, outdated and most of all it is god damned boring. There is absolutely no reason to play one unless you're a glutton for punishment or just really poor at the game, since it's the only class in the game with such trite design and such few abilities that it's essentially skill capped.
It'll be interesting to see if they finally evolve in in LK, but I've erased mine, hell of a legacy character, but it's like paying 15 bucks a month to have someone repeatedly punch you in the face just to keep it active.
The only amusing memory I'll take from playing it specifically is that: throughout the two servers I played on with it, and two guilds I was in, no one threw away so much work and rerolled more often than the poor Paladins.
