It does get better and warriors who bladestorm in the arena are ususaly easy targets if you can purge them before they start it. (since they cant spellreflect while spinning)

Im sitting at almost 23k hp unbuffed and 850 resillience but im not gonna lie and say its a walk in the park. 90% of all the 5v5 teams seems to use ret/warrior and the rest seem to be random since it pretty much doesnt matter. Usualy Ret/warrior/destro lock/shaman and priest. First you have to get the bloody kill wich is hard enough then you have to survive all that damage with bloodlust. Remember all meele usualy sit with atleast 25-26k hp unbuffed, and when they decide to use fire res aura or fire res totem things get even harder.

I usualy go for the ret paladin since there is no way to react to 4 flameshocks + 4 lvb that comes instant. There are times that i screw up and its pretty easy to do, and the same tactic never work on the same team twice. However 250 resillience and 16.5k hp is very very low, you will notice difference at 500-600 resillience and 20k hp. However my shamans can outheal a well geare ret paladin who dps my main but with a ms debuff it becomes nearly impossible.

Im not 100% sure but alot of the burst seems to come from Exorcism and the plan is to nerf it, but how far is 3.1.2 away? Also blizzard finally seem to admit that Elemental damage is buggy, wich leads to lot of problems when im dealing the killing blow with LvB.

According to Mmo-champion there are quote from blue posts that they are looking at ret paladins burst damage.

Retribution burst damage
"I have answered this recently. We want to make Retribution less about unloading multiple cooldown-restricted abilities all at once. We aren't ready to discuss our specific plan yet or we would have already done so."

I feel the main problem is that its to easy to deal shit loads of damage, my mate played retadin fine with a macro that spammed divine storm and crusader strike. Now all he had to do was trow HoP on me and HoF on himself, with randoms HoJs and repentance when he was out of range. Im not gonna say it a easy class to play but it seriously cant see a difference on a skilled ret paladin and a bad one it all seems to be gear to them. Unlike a hunter skilled hunter who seem to be able to avoid it all with FD,deterrance, NE racial.