That would be believable if it weren’t for the following:
Why would you fire blast? 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1. /loot
Its very true thar Paladins offers a lot of different gameplay. Great class. Ive always prefered ret but im slowly leveling a dwarfadin and will try the holy prot build on him at some point.
If that’s all you’re doing, you’re probably fighting things that aren’t a challenge. Paladins are basically Swiss Army knives of the game. Effective players should be using the full range of the tool kit on an as-needed basis.
Ret paladins have a larger focus on damage (this doesn’t mean they’re a damage class, however.)
That being said, it’s not for everyone.
You didn’t forget. You just mentally blocked out pally memes in hopes of myth busting them.
Now you’re here lol
…More like blizzard, arcane explosion, nova?
U doin it wrong brah
Those people were remembering WOTLK .
And yet for some reason Seal > Judge > Seal autoattack strangely felt better to me for a long while than Ret in BFA. Crazy, I know, but that’s how it felt. The newer playstyle just feels… strange. Although I still wish that we would have gotten the original Crusader/Holy Strike version of Paladin (the one NPC Paladins still use, not the one added in TBC), and wonder how that would have played out differently than judgments and seals.
I recommend giving prot a try to get some fresh air, You actually can push buttons! From Holy shield to Consecration to weapon twisting, there’s always something you can be doing to maximize the playstyle. I tanked Vael last week, and oh boy, was that thrilling! If you can get all the tricks down, you can easily keep up with the warriors, and even exceed them on certain fights.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz4HzuZ8Cs8)
At least you can make warriors want to slam their heads into a wall in pvp
I noticed this on my 44 paladin in WSG a few weeks ago against an Enhance shaman. Now I know how other folks feel when I spam purge a few times. 
I love Ret.
It’s
Okay
To Be
Ret
Here’s the thing: most of the complaints people have about ret are talking in terms of Ret in raids. The meme that a ret player is being carried by the rest of the raid has some truth to it. So I am not so delusional to believe that we do “great dps”. What we don’t do is great sustained dps. But we can do some burst. This is what makes ret good in PvP and 5man dungeons. However a good ret player’s job isn’t to top the DPS charts, but to make the dungeon run go smoother.
A bad ret paladin just sits there and autoattacks, and waits for SoC procs.
A good ret paladin cleanses, casts flash heals on the dps, freedom’s the rooted tank, BoPs the caster that pulled, stuns mobs that escape tank threat, keeps up the right seal judged on the target, dons the sword and board with righteous fury when an offtank becomes necessary, ALL inbetween swings.
Luckily ret gets much much better for us in TBC. Not only do we get a long awaited strike for more dps, but we grant +3% to crit on a single target for the entire raid, +2% static damage boost to our group, and other paladins can judge the target and we can keep their seal up with crusader strike.
It starts to get way more entertaining past level 34. But early levels do feel that way, especially 10-20.
But each seal plays off itself, and you can cycle through different ones for different effects. Sometimes it’s better to use one seal over another vs. a caster mob and another seal vs a plate-wearing mob. You have to look beyond the simplicity of the leveling guides to appreciate the paladin class.
If by beast mode you mean getting killed by any mage with half a brain… then yes.
You kid yourself if you think ret is any good… with any gear you want, still trash.
At least that is trash by poor game design, whereas for you it is by personal choice.
I think that a lot of players mixed up the Vanilla & BC talent trees in their memories of days long past. TBC is really the most polished version of “Vanilla WoW” game-play/class mechanics.
I also remember how the removal of talent trees “dumbed down” the game. These are often the same complainers who won’t bring anyone to raid that isn’t running a copy-pasted min-maxed build. My theory is that these people don’t garner enough attention in real life, so they pin the bulk of their self-esteem on their mastery of the game. Adding extra hoops to jump through provides the illusion of difficulty.
Hybrid tax was a real and sensible limitation in old school Everquest. I played a Shadow Knight and am familiar with the trade offs old school MMO’s imposed on jack of all trade classes.
I think the problem for Ret Paladins in Vanilla/Classic, and the problem with Hybrid Tax in WoW overall, is that there’s no real justifiable niche for a hybridized playstyle during raids. It’s min/max or bust.
That’s partially on the players, partially on the design of the game.
I had no problems raiding as a Shadow Knight in EQ (or my alt Ranger, but they did pretty good damage… just died all the time, kek. They were absolute glass cannons which was their trade off for being a blend of a Druid and a Warrior and being able to output decent dps).
I’m ret, I just down rank my conecrates depending on fight durations and mana pool at time to concecrate, anywere between rank3 through 5
EverQuest. Every fifteen seconds you get to use Kick. Meanwhile you watch your auto attack. Oh, how I miss thee…