Useless but not weak? Interesting. Maybe for creating a PK
force like Grot, yes. Paladins are about RP. Even as a
2-hander there is a RP price to pay in return for the powers.

Well, if I get this right, paladins are about RP
and duergar warriors are not.
Honestly, many people play various classes and they RP with
every class they play. I don't see why when they RP with their
paladins they are given virtues and when they RP with their
warriors they are given nothing. (in rare cases 3rd legacy which
is nothing compared with a virtue).

In truth, RP is irrelevant here. You can play duergar
warrior who wears a shield and a small stick as a weapon
and you can play a shield dedicated paladin geared for PK,
gather progged damage dealing gear.

You play a shield paladin to emphasize defense. Defense is
the unsung hero, because it will keep you and others alive.
Even you know this, from what I observed. It's far more
important than offense, but won't land you as many kills. I
understand perfectly why you find shield paladins boring. You
prefer to kill people. Even so, they can be more versatile
than you are conceding.

Their limited abilities to finish people doesn't bother me.
Healers are not the best killers as well, but I find them
interesting enough to play.
It is all about their lack of diversity.
And when it comes to gameplay, a two-handed paladin can protect
his group better than a shield dedicated paladin.
I personally just ignored shield paladins and attacked their mates.
Two-hander wouldn't let me to do so, hiltsmash/rescue or lag me
and I'm screwed. Hence I call shield specs useless.
If you ever played a conjurer you know the feeling, when you just
stand next to an archon doing nothing and being completely useless.
Shield paladins are somewhat the same.

No paladin in their right mind would spam wrath on Grot, since
he had a certain piece of gear. When I saw it, I used
anything BUT wrath: curse of radiance, angel's wing,
flamestrike, call lightning, and disarm. That's more skills
than I see a lot of warriors using in combat. I may be
useless, but at least I'm not weak!

This certain piece of gear I simply had to use to have any
chances against wrath spamming paladins.
I had two choices, prep to full and try to outdamage them
or use this piece of gear. But when I use this piece of gear
I sacrifice my offensive abilities greatly and I don't add
anything to my melee defences as you have shield mastery.

You just said they were useless! Shield Paladins are meat
shields with a side order of shield. You also chose finesse
specs that don't lag Paladins. As much as you say Blitz picked
dumb specs, he is a far superior paladin killer than Grot was.
The trade off is that he also incurs more risks and died more
from what I observed.

Actually he is not. Blitz can lag you with nerfed cranial,
which can be dodged by temperance palainds and I can lag you
with lash, which you can dodge as well. Bashing a shield
dedicated temperance paladin is just dumb. If you would ask
me to choose the best spec against paladins it will be axe,
not mace.

Yep, that's why we would hit and run against Grot. As much as
you hated it, wrath & run works. Wear down his legs and empty
his coinpurse. What, you didn't enjoy chasing elf paladins
down eastern road? Come on, that's FUN! Quit being so boring.

Heh, it wouldn't work, I had over 1200 moves with eq
and unlimited source of gold.

There are a lot of elf paladins, too. Bash elf, get all
corpse, right?

I don't see them combining shield and 2H, because it detracts
from their RP. As a reward for the RP, you have to give them
something. Give the defensive paladins defensive virtues,
offensive paladins offensive virtues, the unique paladins
certain unique virtues, or any combination. It keeps the
class fresh. It's like a cruel random reward schedule that
they implement with shifters - although they'll never sucker
me into playing one of those!

Bashing elf paladins is more reliable, but every melee class
can be bashed also. And while sword spec duergar usually
can tank long enough to survive bashes many other classes can't.
You have problems with elf paladin dying to bash but you don't
have problems with svirf thief dying the same way. That is unfair.
If you seek bash immunity for paladins, consider giving bash
immunity to other melee classes. ( which is not goin got happen )
And, actually, the reason I proposed to combine shield and
two-handers is to give some bash protection to elf paladins
as storm paladins are already protected.
RP is irrelevant here as well. Nobody forces you to use two-handed
skills.

There's no way Paladins are overpowered. The price for
getting those powers is eating #### with a straight face.
Many of them are running low on CON, and falling fast. Take a
look at Nhiala's 4-Factors under Vallan's goodbye post.

Many of them running low on con because they die where more
skilled player can survive. If somebody managed to con die
with a temperance shield paladin he is able to con die with
every class in the game.
I don't think Lariya dies every day, nor Nhiala did.

I don't see why you're upset about Paladins. You steamrolled
everybody along with Blitz. There has to be some class that
inherently stands in the way of an evil emperor, and it should
be a Fortress Paladin. And it's not like you did poorly.
VERY few know how to prep for Paladins. You did. Oh, and
incidentally you became Emperor. Well done, there.

Nobody shall stand in the way of Emperor,
Everybody should bow down to the Emperor.