I leveled one and mained as a Ret in Classic. I will never do it again. It’s honestly not worth the headache.
RNG reliant combat. Zero control over your actual damage output especially vs anything that can’t be stunned (IE Raid enemies), frustrating to gear because you need both caster and warrior stats to be effective.
Nah, this time around I’m choosing another class. After playing with the revamped combat system that Paladins got from Wrath onward, I’ll never go back to relying on seals.
Ret Pallies are the bad loot dumping ground of classic. Loot goes to all the real classes first, then when absolutely no one else wants it scream out before it gets disenchanted. You will be on an uphill battle forever and that wont change at any raid tier including naxx. But you will do ok damage in Stratholme and Scholomance so theres that.
You do you but you have to understand that people making fun of ret are doing it for legit reasons because Paladins are the best healers in the game and the utility they bring as ret is frankly laughable compared to other off specs.
Not only that but ret paladins in general have a terrible stereotype following them around for being bad on top of playing a bad spec.
I’m sorry but Ret pallies were considered a weak(meme) spec even back in vanilla.
With that being said, you did see a few in Raids, but by and large most raiding pallies were holy because the itemization in Vanilla/Classic just doesn’t support going off-spec for most classes. Warriors are one of the few classes that are good in every spec for PVE.
Also: AoE Grinding as a Prot pally with a shield spike is generally faster than Ret.
Edit:
Re - Itemization:
See Feral druids
Theres video of every class parse at every tier for classic. The problem is ret just does not perform well, thats just the way Blizz made them and theres nothing anyone can do about it. Are they fun? Yes, Are they an interesting skill wise class to play? Yes. Unfortunately because its hybrid ret pally is a master of nothing.
Ret is a terrible terrible spec and Holy is an amazing and, despite what priest mains on pirate servers will insist, the best healing spec. This is why it is memed on. It is known that Ret paladins are universally bad players with bad attitudes in addition to playing a terrible spec. This is why they will forever be Lolret. Just take a good look at Ret now- it is hated by everyone, including developers. It is constantly made poorly and unfun on purpose. This hatred comes from somewhere.
Until the Day of Ret when patch 3.0 came out to pave the way for Wrath, Ret was an absolute meme. It persisted through BC, though Ret had limited success in PVP when you could have both Seal of Command and windfury proc at once and global people. It was even made playable with Seal of Blood for Horde in BC so that the Horde could actually get a playerbase from people playing Blood Elf paladins. None of that happens in Classic though, where the spec is awful and unloved by design and absolutely by the community because by speccing it, you are actively gimping yourself. Any gear given to you is wasted compared to a useful player and any ability you possess is not being used to be an amazing healer.
The spec itself, on top of all this, is very dull and boring to play. None of the things that made it fun or good are there yet. There are a couple of tiers in the game and a few items that make Ret actually do any damage at all but even those are rare, come in very late and honestly still leave Ret behind anyone else at those levels. This, once more, brings me to the bottom line- you can very easily outperform even other healers at that level in that gear as Holy and people will LOVE you being in the raid and actively want you.
Being Ret is something very special. It demands a commitment to deliberately play something bad that everyone hates, including yourself. It is something that never stops no matter how much Blizzard kills the spec for spite because they were mad about the Day of Ret 10 years later when the forums were filled for a week with cries that Ret paladins could actually win. It takes a very deep level of hatred for yourself and disregard for the community to truly be Ret. Level as it by all means but don’t ever subject yourself to becoming Ret unless you are ready to truly give into the endless downsides and mockery that it entails.
TL;DR don’t play Ret unless you are ready to hate yourself, the community, the game and the spec most of all
Why would you play Ret. In Classic every ret paladin was basically treated similarly to the town fool.
Play a Warrior dude
Uhhhh in MC/BWL min maxing isnt a big thing.
In AQ40 and Naxx you 100% need to min max the raid a fair amount, and ret pallies just have no place in those raid zones. MAYBE one, but multiples will not happen.
A few of the “sub par” specs got in just because of what they brought to the table. Feral druid, not the best dps but it gave a melee group 5% crit. Moonkin, again crit to the caster group. Ret pally… uhhhhh… blessings that holy can do? Enh shaman? again totems that ele/resto can do?
Diversity is a good thing, man. Holy paladins do make great healers, but you’d want priests and druids in the mix, too. Having a pally off-tank/trash tank in raids, or a ret paladin or two in your mix will allow for the full gambit of buffs (kings, wisdom, might and salv, where necessary.) You also get the advantage of multiple auras.
When it comes to 40 man raids, it wasn’t about all the DPS pumping out max numbers. Teamwork and coordination (and not standing in poop) all played at least as important of roles.
So no, I’ve never really saw the spec as “Laughable.” I do see the folks who feel that way as myopic, stubborn, and unimaginative.
Every paladin should be Ret.
I see the specc as laughable because I see what it evolved into over the years when Blizzard went back and gave it an actual combat system.
Compared to the Holy Power system we got in Cataclysm onward, relying on Seals and auto-attacks IS laughable combat.
There’s going to be a certain degree of that kind of dated combat for every class compared to Retail, but Ret has it at the most extreme.
I honestly just don’t see why anyone would want to do that at this point. I at least had the excuse 15 years ago that I didn’t know what I was doing or what I was expecting when I rolled my first Paladin. I made it work because I didn’t want to reroll and level a brand new character all over again.
This time around though, when people know full well what to expect from each class, why would anyone subject themselves to that kind of playstyle?
Its not about being open minded. Its the simple fact that as a raid leader or guild leader you’re inviting people who actually pull their weight. And on average a rogue or a mage will do 3 times a ret paladins damage. So unless you’re showing up with nightfall or full consumables… Why should they invite you? Especially if its new progressive content they’re struggling with.
Plus its unfair to the other paladins that realize this… went healer spec to help out and are contributing as much as they possibly can. It’s like saying your personal desire to be ‘different’ is above them.
If a guild wants to tolerate it… let them… its game. But you have no right to get upset when 90% of people don’t want to invite you. There’s a time and a place for everything though and its all about how you sell yourself.
Phase 1 I’m not inviting moonkins. Phase 2 however if a Moonkin shows up in full bloodvine and says he’s got full consumables… I’ll take him.
If a ret paladin wants to do scholo or strath undead with my dungeon group… sure I don’t care. Maybe even in a pug MC if he has nightfall.
Ret Paladin guide for smart paladins: “Use Ret to get to 60. Go healer. Get an easy spot in raids and enjoy yourself. Once you have full tier 2.5 change to ret and have a ton of fun in PVP.”
3 holy paladins should be able to cover everything. Ret is a token spec at best. You take maybe one but why wouldn’t you take another warrior or rogue at that point unless you didn’t have 3 paladins.
When you first get to Goldshire as a Ret Pally and someone /lol emotes you, try to take it all in and think about your life choices a up until now.
You realize all this still applies, AND, not playing a spec that does 10% of the damage a rogue/mage/warrior would do right?
I never understood this notion of “it wasnt all about dps, handling mechanics and working together was part of it too.”
Yeah, no crap thats part of it. AND not having a broken spec as well. Its not either/or.
They can craft just as good as anyone else tho…so theres that.
Ret Pallys during the leveling phase are effective, but you fall off really bad near 60 this is assuming you kept your gear upgraded through the process. Afterwards, you are super gear dependent just to only to be able to do okay dps and this is if you are min and maxing and trying hard. The truth of the matter is, if you aren’t willing to heal end game don’t expect to go very far as a Paladin.
You guys should look at spell power stacking ret paladin called spelladin.
Yes AP stacking ret with Seal of Command did terrible pve dps but good burst in pvp.
People have been theory crafting a new way to itemize ret for spellpower that could potentially offer much more dps. Don’t count their dps out yet until we see how the build performs on classic wow servers.
most theory crafting has been done on private server but even if it lost 500 dps going to live it could still be competitive especially considering they can still off heal much better than traditional ret.
Seal of Command.
Idk, I did 1-60 already as warrior and when TBC came out I loved my pally, I was stoked to watch old pally pvp vids, see things from the Alliance side as horde
I started playing pallys in TBC, but pallys where a bit different needing to spend quiet a few points getting to crusader strike. Vanilla trees let you dip further into holy or prot so you can provide support to team mates.
Sometimes that versatility in a world pvp/BG or even a dungeon is what people are looking for. I don’t want to be a priest, I’ve already played warrior vanilla. But being able to toss around powerful buffs like candy sounds appealing to me.
But also Seal of Command 
Seal of command, like windfury is the most satisfying and the most demoralizing skill in the entire game. unfortunantly they dont even out for a good experience imo.