I don't typically get too caught up in the changes to classes and who is getting smacked around with which nerf bat, but World of Warcraft has lowered the nerf wrecking ball on the Paladin class in the current beta. For those who are enjoying their new found damage via the retribution tree, don't get used to it. The nerf was serious enough for Ghostcrawler, a Blizzard poster, to create some lengthy posts in response:

”These seem like pretty severe nerfs, but that was the intention. It is difficult for some players to ever be truly objective with issues surrounding their class, but in this case we felt Ret was severely overpowered. This was not in the realm of small tweaks to fix (though we did try originally). We overhauled the paladin class for Lich King, so it is unfortunate but not too surprising that the numbers for the dps spec require a lot of iteration. The mistake is ours, not the fault of the player base or beta testers.”

Don't get too attached to that DPS you are cranking out Retadins, it will not last. Typically the posters say something along the lines of “don't worry, this is beta and things could change” but this time it looks permanent. Read for yourself in the WoW Forums and if you get infected by the plague there, make sure you read our latest Scourge Invasion Guide.