Baldr wrote:
These abilities are so overpowered that a PLD need only hit 75, get a handful of merits, and go off to tank knowing Fealty and Rampart will more than compensate for poor support, gear, and/or player ability.
I was never a PLD in retail, and I'm sure someone can fill in some more nuance, but it's pretty obvious that PLD is not functioning as it should.
New to the server, but for what it's worth I main'd PLD on retail. Poor gear and lack of ability got you nowhere back then, especially when it came to end game: Sky, Sea, HNMs, and while my encounter with Aht Urhgan was brief that as well.
As far as Fealty/Rampart: it's been a long time, so I could be wrong, but I have no knowledge of Fealty. I stopped playing sometime mid 2006 and from what I remember for merit as PLD is you'd focus on Shield and Enmity primarily. Also, back then Rampart was nothing more than a second Provoke 9 times out of 10.
EDIT: a word.