Blizzard to Paladins:

[oldmandennis]

And if you really want to talk about overpoweredness of the Paladin, you have to also talk about the overpoweredness of the Shaman too. 

This is probably a case of fearing what you don't understand.

The Shaman has atleast 2 snare (possibly 3, can't remember for sure),

It's only 3 if you count the useless frostbrand weapon

the ability to remove debuffs their party,

poison only, not that many important player buffs are poisons.

the ability to remove buffs from their opponents, the ability to counterspell every 6 seconds,

but the counter only lasts 2 seconds, and you have to choose between that and the much feared frostshock. You did leave grounding totem off the list.

they don't have to sacrifice like a Paladin to get really good as a healer/buffer/cleanser (take a look at Thottbot sometime for plate items that would benefit a Paladin, they're pretty sparce until you get to MC).
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I disagree. Paladins are much better, especially at the buffing and clensing part. People bitch about their blessing running out after 5 min? I think my longest lived totem is 1 1/2 min. I have to plant them practically ontop of the person I am using them on, which can be very tricky if I'm buffing the MT in fights like Mag or Ony. And clensing is only poison and disease (I can't think of an encounter where those are game breakers), and some mindcontrols. Good healing mail items are just as scarece, in another thread I discuss some of my "druid" gear I use in raids.