Originally Posted by Opioid

Addendum: Looking at their design soulmate, the shaman, paladins were meant originally to be the physical/healer class whereas shaman were the caster/healer class. Shaman have a few different schools to resort to when nature is locked down. Paladins, during Burning Crusade, were fixed to be better tanks/damage, but not in a physical sense: their melee viability is still based on the Holy School, thus screwing them when they are counterspelled.

If we look at the one other class in the game that loses its spell damage and healing powers in totality when counterspelled, we have druids and Nature School. Even then, however, druids still have amazing capability to shift at will and some good melee powers not dependent on Nature School to use: Feral Charge, cat bleeds, etc.
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