""Useless" is addressed to shield dedicated paladins.
They posibilities are limited and most of the time they
just spam wrath. I personally find them boring to play.
But it does not make them weak."

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.

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.

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! ;)

"Just imagine a fight. You with your average gear and without preps
and me with my uber gear (damroll 70-80) and without preps as well.
Would I have any chance to win? Doubtful."

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.

"Do you realise that every time I won a fight against you
it is because I used additional preps and money for healing
while you used just your own skill/communes. "

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.

"When a storm two-handed paladin says that without virtues
he is weak because Joe Blow bashed him to death I can only laugh.
Giants are not the best target for bashes. Quaff enlarge?"

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!

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.

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.