Nothing has been balanced yet. It will get there, don't worry yourself about pallies. I'm sure they'll fix vile poisons and you can stop 2 shotting things in beta soon too :(

It being a hybrid. They arent the best tanks, or the best healers, far from it. Part of the class is that felxability, and pure DPS classes like rouges and mages (though some mages would disagree with me) make up for the lack of flexability with raw power.

I cant agree with you more. Trying to preach to retadins about balance who think they are entitled for all the years of mediocrity, is absolutely impossible. One even told me that pure dps classes did not exist any more and that retadins need to bring the same kind of dps that a lock does.

As a tankadin, I'm extremely happy about the direction of my talent tree, but as a tree druid, I am concerned about the holy tree. I have always liked the tree/healadin combo for 10 mans and hoped that the paladin would be getting a little more healing power to boost our overall output, but I just don't think they got the same love as the other healing classes.

I really liked sheath of light and serendipity in the holy priest tree and wish pallys got some hot for over heals. Something like heals that over heal will heal the target for the amount over healed over 12 seconds or something.

So what, because they can do anything, should hybrids be bad at everything? "Oh sure, your DPS sucks, but you can heal or tank! Oh sure, your healing sucks, but you can tank or DPS! Oh sure, your tanking sucks, but you can DPS or heal!" Right. You said it yourself: retribution paladins aren't going to top the charts. They bring utility and some DPS. I fail to see the problem. You'll still have your job.

The reason they need to do competitive dps is because buffs dont stack anymore.

Let me use enhancement as an example.

Deathknights now have every major buff that an enhancement shaman can give, AND they can tank. The only reason to bring an enhancement shaman now would be for DPS. It would fit with blizzards current mindset to make sure that buffer/support (When was the last time you saw a retadin heal?) classes can do competitive DPS.

The concept of pure dps classes is asinine. No class is pure anything.

Rogues bring CC, evasion tanking, and in wrath a MD effect.

Hunters bring MD, kiting, CC, etc.

You could make the assertion that any of these classes are support classes in one way or the other.

Just because someone can spec into a different raid roll else doesn't make it a support class.