This leveling as a ret back in class and BC ret was so so so boring is like auto attack and use judgement on CD. As as dps wise they seem ok in WoLK but end of expansion their damage was meh mainly because of armor penetration was the best stats for melee class like warrior and MM hunter and would do some insane damage. I play a port rank back then and always feel my Druid was better since they have a much larger hp pool . End or WoLK is all about having most hp because blizzard have no idea how to balance tanks so tank buster do a lot of damage and constantly DoT to everyone in raids so having more hp is key. Also healers never ran out of mana so every healer was spamming heals and there was a ton of over healing
That all change in cata where blizzard tweak the damage profile of mobs and boss where having armor, parry, block chance, dodge damage reduction become much more important a shaving only HP is actually bad . Healers also goes oom easily .
Overall ret is ok just people always think they are easy to play kind of like BM hunter back in the day.