You can’t get past the first gate without taking Imp BoJ / Holy Blade. The only way to skip Expurgation is to take JoJ instead (or do something insane like skip FV). In PvP you have the points to come back for JoJ later, and the snare is more useful there, but JoJ is not taken in PvE. There’s not really anything you can drop for Heart of the Crusader (which costs 2 points!!) in m+, even when going for a TS build. HotC wouldn’t be a good choice in PvP either because CS is so inconsequential there.
People who sim this stuff constantly, which is not me, but I just did it for you. I switched Crusading Strikes to TS and Imp BoJ to Holy Blade. I didn’t switch anything to HotC because I think that would actually hurt a TS build. For raid buffs I only checked Heroism and Skyfury, the first because you’ll always have that in a m+, and the second to try to weigh things towards TS:
I went from 986k ST DPS (Patchwerk setting) with Crusading Strikes to 929k with TS, a 5.5% loss in damage. In AoE (dungeon slice setting), from 1.666m ST to 1.537, a 7.5% loss. I rounded the numbers slightly but I’m telling you that TS is a big DPS loss. I can feel it in the gameplay and now I’ve tried to show you with numbers. I’m sure someone who sims more than once in a while could provide more accurate numbers, or you can try it yourself with your own criteria, but last I checked it’s common knowledge that TS is a DPS loss. I don’t peruse the paladin Discord very often but you can try asking there if you’d like.
There was a TS build that gained a little traction for a hot minute, but it involved dropping FV out of the rotation and only using DS. That way there were points to spend on something like HotC. That’s why I keep saying that TS doesn’t fit in the rotation, not unless 1) you don’t mind losing DPS, 2) you want to play some insane build that doesn’t use our ST spender and don’t mind losing DPS in most situations, or 3) the devs purposely start adding gaps to the rotation.
I’ll let you have the final word on this if you want it, and I promise to read it.
EP serves as filler in ST so that by the time you run out of buttons to press, you probably have a proc sitting there to bridge an uncomfortable gcd gap. That was just one example, though. Also you originally claimed “You don’t pick up ep with csaa” even though 45 out of the top 50 Rets in m+ are currently talented into it according to Murlok (not allowed to link here), and none of them take JJE.
That’s not why you run CSAA. There’s occasionally an empty gcd in the ST rotation. You use utility whenever you need to use it.