So I know people will crucify me when I post a suggestion like this but, what the hell.
Give paladin a gimmick like priest prayers, Only You take armor pieces to holy sites or churches to consecrate it; Turning them into holy paladin versions.
Blizz can designate which pieces with a little Icon, so its only certain pre-established pieces of loot.
ret paladins will have all sorts of cool gimmicks like this. holy paladins, not so much 
just roll ret. SoD is for retties.
I have and always will be a Holy paladin I may ret off spec but, I’ll carry this torch if my brother and sister paladins won’t
Holy paladin got the shaft for this phase. I don’t see anyone who made one right off the bat still playing that char… I really hope they fix this next phase and there is healing plate available in gnomer.
Hello it is me, done WSG and BFD still playing holy (its suffering at times) but im hopeful for phase 2
Oh my, a unicorn! 
If I had a nickle for each time I seen’t someone say / whisper that to me I’d have 3 nickles- which isn’t a lot but its weird its happened more than once.
In all seriousness, I think its a fine middle ground, yes that means warriors may have to roll against holy now- but it also removes the argument of seeing Hpally gear dropping on Horde side.
What is the argument?
People don’t want H-pally gear to be on the loot table, cause no one on horde can use healing plate gear. (or mail gear in phase 1)
I’ve been in parties where people called mail or plate with spirit on it, “H-pally gear.”
Its ironic cause Hpally would never want spirit gear, unlike priest we have no talent or way to generate value off of spirit in combat. (we need int, spell crit/power to survive.)
Spirit gear is as good on pally as it is a warrior in combat, just helps a lil with downtime between fights. 
Now if you saw int mail or plate, thats more pally gear. But end of the day we need spellpower which only really exists on leather or cloth, atm.
I mean, warriors literally get exponentially more out-of-combat life regen from spirit than any other class, though this is only really particularly valuable at low levels.
With regards to the armor type, I haven’t seen anyone call cloth with str a particular class’ gear. I do feel like rather than removing gear from loot tables, it would be (or would have been) interesting if any class could wear any armor, but it affected attack speed or movement speed, or both, and maybe even attack power, etc. as obviously it would be much easier to move in cloth clothing than in full plate armor.
I suppose it wouldn’t be too far a stretch of the imagination that the forces of frost, fire, arcane, shadow, or whatever that come from within would also be more free flowing through cloth than through leather or plate. So rather than merely limit classes by which armor they are even able to equip, it could have been an additional dynamic to the game.
But it’s not, and frankly who cares?
Thats a neat idea, though would be a huge balancing act, and im just hoping to get some Hpally gear I won’t wish for the moon.
But I agree, spirit isn’t useless, as much as paladin hates it- its good low lvl. I just have to wait 5s for my mana tick to kick in. while priest get a bit of in combat regen with the right talents.
End of the day though, I have faith Hpally will be good phase 2 
We get Illumination at least!
If we ignore what we know about runes, the current class rankings in SoD seems completely predictable, and more-or-less inline with any Classic Era 19/29 twink tier lists.
I’m no clairvoyant, but I suspect Healing Paladins will be very strong going forward.
Runes aside, i know Hpally will be much stronger phase 2-3
Prayer of mending / penance make holy pally look like a sad joke rn though, and unless they get something in the rune department, were still gonna have trouble competing with the raw power those runes provide.
Yes. Make pali the only class that can turn their gear into whatever they need. Sounds like it fits the narrative.
Or could add in to loot table and you can have a chance to roll holy paladin gear in your raids.
You here to add anything constructive?
Listen I get it, worried about Paladin getting an unfair adv, but that’s why I suggested pre determined gear by blizz, can’t be any piece.
-2nd its not like their gonna get easy access to loot over another class- they’d still be rolling against someone else, like warriors, not druids or priests. and I’m not asking it to be reversible either.
Also its not like their not gonna add mail healing gear for shamans already, only reason we didn’t see any in BFD was cause only class that could use it would be hpally, and horde would complain about seeing loot drop that no one could use. (and rightfully so.)
And spellpower+strength plate for prot/ret who know how to properly itemize
Im sure they will at some point even if we dont in gnomer some at 60. let Hpally put away the dress in SoD.
Here’s hoping w.e the case shaman and hpally will compete more with priest come next phase.
Edit: thought asking for spellpower ret gear might be a bit greedy and same problem as asking for holy plate gear, though if they made either an option from “consecrating your gear idea” so long as it was a one time decision and cant flip flop- I dont see the problem.
Spellpower plate gear already exists at 60, dont see why it shouldnt in these brackets.
Just make set gear based on tokens, so we dont have to roll our eyes at gear nobody needs dropping. Tokens were introduced in AQ, so you cant use the “its not classic” excuse