Firstly this isn't a whine thread, I want to start a good and educated discussion about a retribution paladin real problems in PVP, in my opinion the problem comes from a lack of tools, to illustrate this I'll start with a comparison of the other melee classes.
Every melee class has, a snare and an interrupt, some of them also have a CC and a ability to close the distance with a target and a couple of other twists too.
Warriors
Have intercept to close the distance with 30 CD, they have hamstring to make sure they stay in melee range spamable if they have enough rage, and if needed they can pummel to interrupt a cast with a 10 sec CD that is not on GCD, by specing accordingly they get a second snare Piercing Howl that is spamable and a root effect to hamstring.
Rogues
They have no less then 3 CC, sap that is used out of combat but is spamable, blind that can be used in combat CD of 3 mins or 90 seconds if talented, and kidney shot if they build up enough combo points with a 30 sec CD, to close the distance they have sprint on a 5 min CD, they can become almost immune to spells for 5 seconds via CoS on a 1 min CD, and they can become almost untouchable in melee with Evasion on a 5 min CD, they can slow a target with poisons and its spamable via shiv, with talents they can have a second distance closer its Shadowstep, last but not least they can kick with a 10 min CD not on GCD to interrupt casts.
Shamans
They get earth shock, 6 seconds CD and it interrupts casts, its on GCD though, as a snare they have frost shock and earthbind totem, if talented they can instantly get into ghost wolf and remove all movement impairing, I will assume all shamans have this since we are talking about melee PVP shamans, and now in WoTLK shamans are also getting a CC, Hex with a 45 seconds CD and a 1.5 sec cast.
Feral Druids
Surprisingly they don't have any interrupt at all and have to use charge or bash for that purpose, they have feral charge to close the distance with a 15 sec CD in bear and 30 sec CD in cat, and can also use dash , bash has a 1 min CD, as for CC the druid can use Cyclone that is spamable.
Death Knights
From the information on MMO champ on their abilities I can see they have, 1 snare and root effect all in one chains of ice, to close the distance they bring the enemy to the via Chains of ice its spamable as long as the DK has frost runes, to interrupt their enemy they have mind freeze with a 10 second CD that costs runic power, as a second interrupt they have strangulate with a CD of 30 seconds, however DK can gain a lot of other snares by specing into either unholy or frost, and for 12 seconds DK can become immune to stuns and have 50% damage reduction.
Now it should become quite obvious by now that most of these classes have a very wide arsenal of abilities at their disposal for PVP.
Paladins on the other hand have just, judgment of justice on a 8 second CD, limits the enemies movement speed to 100%, its supposed to act like a snare but its also our means of closing a distance, while it does have its uses, it doesn't make a paladins life that much easier, we don't have any interrupt, we have 1 CC, hammer of justice that is on a 1 min CD or 30 seconds if you spec for it, and 1 other CC, repentance that is also on a 1 min CD, so far I count just 3 abilities against a lot more the other classes have.
However I am not going to limit my argument to just this comparison, now I'm going to explain why these abilities are so needed by any melee class that wants to PVP.
So lets imagine a fictional combat scenario, of melee vs caster/healer.
Warrior
The warrior can open up with charge then hamstring to slow his opponent, if the need should arise he can pummel a cast or a heal, if the opponent gets out of range they can intercept since its only a 20 second CD (all serious PVP warriors will have improved intercept), again they can use hamstring to slow their opponents since its spamable and cheep and they can again pummel since it has such a low CD.
A warrior can intercept 3 times per minute, pummel 6 times per minute and keep his opponent slowed for a good long time.
Rogue
The rogue should always get the jump on his opponents and make use of his first CC, sap, when finally engaged in combat he can use cheep shot for a nice opening move, followed by kidney shot to prevent any action, during this time the rogue is passively applying poisons from his weapon slowing the enemies speed thus snaring them and at any time the rogue can interrupt with kick, if a opponent somehow manages to get out of range the rogue can chose to either sprint to the target or if speced can shadowstep and again can apply poisons easy with shiv and again kick when he wishes, all the while the rogue can blind whoever sees fit or use vanish, CoS and evasion if threatened.
A rogue can kick 6 times per minute, can blind one target every 3 mins or 90 seconds, can kidney shot 2 times per minute, and can get a cheep shot opener at least 2 times during a fight.
Shaman
Can use earth shock at range to interrupt a cast, can use ghost wolf to gain distance, and to maintain melee range can use earth bind totem and frost shock, all the while can try and CC one other opponent with Hex.
A shaman can get of 10 shocks per minute, which can be either earth or frost shocks, ghost wolf can be used at leasure, hex every 45 seconds.
Druids
The druids have a bit of a harder time without a proper interrupt against casters/healers, however the creative use of charge will help close the distance and prevent the enemy from casting too much, bash can help but suffers from a 1 min CD, its a bit sluggish for a druid to shift to caster form to use roots though they are spamable and use Cyclone to CC.
A druid can charge in bear form 4 times per minute, in cat form 2 times per minute, can use bash 1 time per minute, can use dash every 5 mins, can root and CC as much as he wants.
DK
I can't really make a very good argument here since I haven't played the beta and only heard of DK via the forums, as it stands they seem to be easy to kite, but they do have the tools for combat, being able to use chains of ice at least 12 times per minute, the rate at which their frost runes regen, they can use strangulate 2 times per minute, can use mind freeze 6 times per minute and can use death grip 2 times per minute if speced, right now I guess its a case of their abilities just needing to be balanced out.
Compared to all the above a paladin can only use hammer of justice 2 times per minute, and repentance once a minute, and joj 6 times per minute.
Well it just won't cut it for PVP, the paladin is one of the few classes that has to waste his CC to interrupt a targets cast and close the distance, and he can only do it 3 times per minute.
I don't think I've ever seen a rogue that uses blind to interrupt a cast, they use it to CC, it will probably be the same with shamans and with hex, druids have are almost in the same boat as us but they can at least spam their cyclone and use feral charge 4 times per minute.
I think I have made a good enough argument and its probably quite plain for all to see that paladins lack some major tools for PVP, but why? Blizz have chosen to give every other melee class the tools required to PVP well, and they more or less work.
Is it because paladins can heal? Well so can shamans and and druids and even they have the snares, interupts and distance closers available and CC on top of that, DK also have a bit of healing via death pact and rune tap if speced for it.
Is it because we can become immune for 12 seconds once every 3 mins? Well I hate to burst the bubble so to speak but, I heard warriors are getting shield wall every 5 mins but at the cost of it reducing only 50% of the damage done, druids are getting a last stand like abilities, DK have icebound fortitude which reduces damage done by 50% and also makes them immune stuns, shield wall and icebound fortitude last as long as bubble does, rogues can make themselfs almost immune to spells for 5 seconds every 1 minute and can avoid lots of melee damage with evasion every 5 mins, and on demand they can reset those CD if they are speced for it.
So far I find most of the reasons why a paladin doesn't have these PVP tools to be very, very weak, our healing and our immunities just don't cut it against the overwhelming arsenal the other classes can muster.
Now I'm not saying I want paladins to get a all the other tools the other classes have, if we had an intercept like ability even with a 30 second CD, a interrupt with even a 10 second CD and a slow, on top of our 2 CC, judgment of justice and bubble+heal then it would be indeed to much and we would probably become as OP as rogues.
However a fix in some way is still needed, at least an interrupt would be nice, a small snare effect to joj like reduces movement speed by 30% for 3 seconds during which a target regains 10% speed every 1 seconds then after the snare their speed is capped at normal run speed.
A change to art of war would also be needed, we can only use hand of freedom every 25 seconds, 21 with talents, it is vulnerable to being dispelled, but worst still now it has a stun removing component, now on top of having to consider how I want to use my HoJ and Repent talents, to either close the gap, interrupt and what not, I have to make a choice of removing a stun on a team mate or removing snares of me if they are undispelable.
A paladin with a lot of debuffs like multiple poisons, magical effects and such will cleanse them very slowly and will be vulenrable during that time or just flat out ineffective since he isn't doing damage he is slowly trying to remove snares that may also have dispel resist mecanics too, or you can have some snares like curse of exhaustion or hamstring that are not dispelable, in this case you must use BoF, but what do you do if your partner is getting stun locked?
So once every 21 seconds I have to make the hard choice between saving myself or my team member, a 21 CD ability for a lot of other abilities that are spamable, I think its is a problem no one has considered, the new art of war is really not as good as it seems, to me its quite worst then we had before.
I hope everyone can see that in all seriousness its just way to much, I know there are probably ret paladins that have gotten to 2k or more rating, but I bet its way harder then with any other class, also the argument of how paladins are so good at support and must have someone to support is also null since it seems blizzard decided that all other classes deserve these combat tools, and shamans, druids, rogues, and DK all have their own utility too.
Rogues have CC, wound poison and are generally a very big nuisance, warriors have mortal strike, shamans now will have a CC, WF and BL, DK have lots of different buffs depending how they spec, from Improved Icy Talons to Abomination's Strength.
Well I've said what I had to say, now I'd like some feedback if possible, and I'd prefer if flaming would be kept to a minimum but I believe that is a luxury I won't have.