Possible Paladin Rework...

[dramamine]

My view is let the warrior be the DPS OT. SE should retool the Paladin into more of a healer/support OT.

I like the OP's idea of making flash a riot-blade combo. Here are some other ideas:

Access to more healing spells. Cure II, medica and regen are all good choices, and would make riot blade significantly more useful (by virtue of the fact that Paladins don't have a high MP cap).

Take cover off of cool-down, make it cost MP to activate and then tick MP while active.

Holy oath - Swap Str for mind, buff healing potency and nerf damage output. More healing spells would make this most useful, but even just making enhanced raise/stoneskin available in holy oath would be a start.

First aid - High potency regen, can only target other players in close proximity (like cover)

Rally - High MP cost to significantly buff one person's stats. Possibly also requiring proximity.

Rallyga - Very high MP cost to moderately buff entire party's stats

[Daniolaut]

Holy oath - Swap Str for mind, buff healing potency and nerf damage output. More healing spells would make this most useful, but even just making enhanced raise/stoneskin available in holy oath would be a start.

I'd trade Sword Oath for this "Holy Oath" in a HEARTBEAT!

The only issue i see with this is things like turn 5 conflags were originally designed with the additional dps from sword oath to bring them down in mind.

Though using sword oath was -not- required it certainly made the odds more in the players favor.

[SwordCoheir]

I'd trade Sword Oath for this "Holy Oath" in a HEARTBEAT!

Not that I wouldn't mind some more support abilities outside the realm of self casting, I'd frankly settle if they allowed Sword Oaths potency boost to apply to weapon skills even if I have to trade-off for something like increased TP costs or MP consumption per weapon skill. That would of course imply some form of decreased enmity generation from Sword Oath too to help keep balance (and manage hate control), but I don't see why we can't get a little more utility out of us when we're Off Tanking long as the trade-offs are reasonable.