Blizzard just uprooted every tree in the Nerf Forest and dropped them on our heads. Have you seen the newest round of nerfs? And this isn't just to retribution.
Here are the new changes(off the Oboards):
1) Judgements of the Wise: Mana gained reduced from 33% to 15% of base mana. We spent many hours arriving at this number. For example, we did a lot of Patchwerk fights, watching the mana bar to see when and if it ever went down. In BGs, we were seeing paladins able to go from target to target without pausing even when unleashing all of their attacks. While we don't want you to go OOM in a few seconds, we don't want you to ignore the mana bar either. Mana is not rage -- warriors can't typically start a battle with a full bar.
2) Judgement of Wisdom: mana gained reduced to 1% of maximum mana and proc frequency cut by 50%. This ability was flat out better than Vampiric Touch when the mana provided between the two really needs to be close in order for the decision between Shadow priest and Retribution paladin to be a real one.
3) Judgement and Seals: Damage reduced by 20%. This is the major damage adjustment -- a lot of damage was coming from these. We do realize this hurts Holy and Protection as well, and that is something for which we are prepared to offer compensation (particularly if it hurts Protection's threat generation).
4) Hammer of Wrath: Now can’t be used until the target is below 20% health. Our rule of thumb is that core "Execute-style" abilities work at 20% and talented abilities work at 35% health. We originally had Hammer at 35% based on some other limitations of the spell.
5) Art of War: Increased damage bonus to Judgements, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm. I'll report back on the exact numbers here when we've settled on them.
20% cut to ALL judgments and seals. Ouch. Are we really that far ahead? I mean my rogue is better equipped than my paladin and surprise surprise, she does more dps. I ran kara yesterday with my paladin, and today with my rogue, and my rogue was quite a bit higher. Also, my rogue never runs out of energy during a fight. Now paladins have to worry about that.
What are they comparing paladins to, honestly? Previous version? Because previous version sucked.