Is Paladin the least fun class to play?

[PiedPiper]

This. Simplicity and straight-forwardness are not cardinal sins of game design. They are also not taboo to the point they should never be present in a game. You can feel as awesome as you want pressing 20 buttons and managing 10 buffs on some other class, so long as my straightforward tank gameplay remains unscathed and can still get through content. KISS (keep it simple, stupid) exists for a reason. Sadly, some people do lose sight of this, start demanding complexity due to misguidedly confusing "complex" with the word "fun" and then we get a mess in our hands and a very pissed off Duelle.

Drg only has 9 gcd abilities that are always desirable to use. (All of them contribute to the primary purpose of the class) and yet is possessed of great complexity and depth. In some ways it is very simple (apply debufs and self buff, use big attack if they are up) but it manages great dynamic value owing to how they interact. 9 is really not that many. Plus two more aoe options, 3 jumps, an off gcd stun... the game play is not very complex but it is extremely dynamic. This keeps it engaging. Ultimately, "fun" is how "engaged" you are. Every dps class has 10-15 damage dealing abilities that directly contribute to their primary goal in all / nearly all situations.

Paladin has 7 gcd abilities. 7. Fast, savage, rage. Flash, swipe, lob, riot. 4 of them are extremely situational and contribute nothing / nearly nothing to the classes primary goal (earning agro on a single target).

Paladin isn't just a case of keep it simple, its a case of "a macro keyboard can play as well as I can." To play paladin, you hit 3 buttons and wait to be afraid, when you're afraid you hit one of 4 other buttons that largely do the exact same thing (make you slightly easier to heal for a time either by reducing damage received or increasing healing received, basically the same). Occasionally, you get to hit spirits and cos.

There is nothing dynamic about paladin. It requires no real decisions, nor even for you to pay much attention.

We aren't really asking to make the class complicated. We're asking to make it dynamic. Only when a class is dynamic is there opportunity for excellence. With drg, anyone can hap hazardly fire off combos and be passable. When someone really engages and manages their interactions masterfully, however, they stand head and shoulders above the rest. The same is true of brd and smn. Paladins, however, are only either competent or awful. There are no excellent paladins. There simply isn't enough to the class. There are no decisions to make, no room for finesse. The absolute hardest thing in the game for pld is to track the cool down on death sentence and use your cool downs early to make them rotate well. That's just counting. And it can and should be rendered unnecessary by group coordination on conflag.

More to the point, the OP's suggestion wouldn't make the class any more complex for its primary purpose. You could still sit in shield oath and spam ROH and hold hate forever. What it does add is depth, risk/reward. "I can step out of shield oath and go into holy and be able to heal myself and others, but i'll get hit harder. I can go into sword and do more damage to help pass this dps check but I will get hit harder and earn less enmity etc etc." The class would thus have a reason, or at the very least, the opportunity to do more than spam the same combo. The basic play of shield oath + combo would be as effective as it is now, only in OP's wonderful world, you could actually decide to care and have a chance to do more.