I felt the same way leveling my WAR. Huge boost to HP, and some pretty good skills to boot. I haven't played a Paladin (My GLA is barely 22), so I can't say, but from what I've seen, WAR's have an advantage with their massive HP pool. We don't have the defense that a Paladin has, but I can pop a few CDs and take -60% damage, which ain't bad. Some of the endgame stuff hits extremely hard, and I've watched Paladins burn to a crisp on Ifrit, while I dance around in the flames with thousands of HP left xD