Much as I liked many aspects of Classic, I don’t think I can replay it as a Paladin because in all honesty the class was absolute trash outside of one role.
Protection just didn’t work and didn’t have the tools to legitimately tank like a Warrior or Druid which is why it was for all intents and purposes a defunct spec until the Burning Crusade.
And Ret? Hoo boy, where to begin?
Right off the bat, it wasn’t a viable spec because the developers openly considered it a joke and treated it as such and furthermore suffered intentional sabotage because several developers with a history of discrimination from previous games like Everquest outright hated it.
With only a single weak attack, Judgement, and an AoE, Consecration, Ret’s damage was entirely dependent on RNG via 30 sec duration Seals like the infamous Seal of Command (better known as Seal of Casino). Which, by the way, could be dispelled.
With no damage consistency and weak damage compared to every other melee DPS, the spec was likewise discriminated against by the playerbase itself who made light of the developer’s own discrimination thereof by making it nigh impossible to join a group much less a raid unless you were primarily specced as Holy and healed.
And as a final insult, Warriors were almost always given gear priority over you because they were a ‘serious’ DPS spec.
If you decided to try your hand at PvP as Ret, good luck because your only gap closer was…running after your opponent at normal speed. And yes I am serious. No snares, no speed boosts, nothing. Without these basic melee tools, your battles will ALWAYS be dictated by your opponents who had the added advantage of being able to run away from you if, by some miracle, you actually managed to hurt them enough for death to be a distinct possibility.
The only advantage you had was Cleanse and Blessing of Freedom which, admittedly, made you pretty hard to lock down. Unfortunately, if your opponent had any idea how to play whatsoever, it wouldn’t make a lick of difference because they would just use hard CC and simply kite you to death, and there wasn’t a thing you could do about it.
In short, your toolset was only effective if your opponent was a complete idiot who didn’t know how to play their own class.
Feeling depressed yet? Don’t worry, it gets worse. I haven’t even mentioned the fact that Blessings lasted 5 lousy minutes and you have to apply them individually. That’s right…if you happened to get into a group at all, most of your time will be spent listening to your group whine about you refreshing their Blessings.
But don’t fret, there is a silver lining to it all! With the joys of Divine Suicide…err Intervention, you can ensure your own worthless existence at least serves a purpose by dying to save a more useful class upon a wipe. Don’t you feel righteous?
So in closing, I want to warn you. Don’t make the mistake I made of going for the class with the shiny plate armor, because unless you absolutely love healing for a living and nothing else, you’re going to hate your life if you choose a Paladin.
Do what I should have done in Classic: roll a different class. I’ve played Retribution since Vanilla so please believe me when I say I am trying to spare you pain by warning you off.