I like healing but I realized paladin has no plate healing gear till T3. Onceis and twosies, but not much. Should I abandon and play priest instead?
A class with clear gear options and not random hand me downs?
Has anyone done holy, how was it for you?
Running a Dwarf Priest will get you lots of Raid invites, plenty of gear options and pound for pound is one of the best raid healers in the game.
If you want to only ever wear the highest armor class you are capable of wearing, then sure, reroll priest.
If you want to actually use the full kit available to your class, then stick with paladin.
I played a Paladin back in actual Vanilla. There is plate healing gear before T3, but if you want an optimal set it’s going to involve a lot of not plate.
It’s still a strength of the Paladin class though: Armour doesn’t mean a whole lot in PvE as a healer, and you get to go after ANY armour class for the proper itemization while as a Priest I’m limited to only cloth.
Paladins are also very good healers. Easily on par with Priests, if not better at single target once they get some spell crit.
and top tier buffs too.
The best heals i’ve ran with so far was a paladin. Pally buffs needed badly in endgame. We have a severe shortage of paladins on my server.
Not sure what you mean here. Some of the the best healing gear available to players is Cloth, so much so that many Pally healers will run cloth pieces because they out perform their Plate equivalents. So as a Priest he would have the “Full Kit”
Pally > Priest for me. Priests are like ants, you see them EVERYWHERE.
How far into your Paladin journey are you so far?
It’s true that there isn’t too many plate options for healing in general, however playing a class that can use plate gives you the option of taking many other forms of armour instead.
You can soak up plenty of mail healing gear as there are no Shaman to compete with as well as being able to use leather and cloth.
Ultimately it’s up to you how important wearing plate is for you and the feeling of class identity you are looking for.
Honestly though most classes are in the same boat outside of clothies (who can’t wear anything else) and Rogues (as cloth gear isn’t useful).
Every other class in Classic will maintain a set that is a combination of other armour types as things like leather armour provide gear physical dps traits for Warriors, Hunters, etc and many casters including Druids will appreciate cloth armour.
I mostly see people recruiting paladins, priests are a dime a dozen. Your server may be different. And yes as a paladin you’re likely to wear a lot of cloth for a while.
Paladins can use cloth, leather, mail and plate. That means they have a wider range of gear to choose from. That is part and parcel of the class. Why do people still not understand.
Correct. Some of the best healing pieces for a paladin are cloth.
Paladins can wear any armor type. If you are unwilling to wear non-plate gear, you are not using your class’s full kit. When I say “kit”, I’m referring to “suite of abilities”, not “set of gear”.
A paladin not using anything but plate is like a rogue not using stealth at all. It’s part of the class to use all the armor types to maximize their strengths.
There are tons of them though lol. Mages and Priests feel like the most played class.
I just don’t like the idea. I get it. 
Warriors/hunter/Ret/Enhance all use combo of leather pieces regardless of class. Its a vanilla thing duento itemization. Dont sweat it.
It was a thing all the way up until Cataclysm gave us passives that more or less forced us to only use our highest available armour class.
I remember using a lot of ArPen leather on my Fury Warrior in ICC.
Unless you’re a tank or PvPing, then armour simply doesn’t matter as much as other stats do.
Just roll on the cloth gear, friend. But you better let the casters know beforehand that you’re a dress paladin.
Priests are absolutely bonkers right now. They have always been great healers but shadow is op af with all the +sp damage stuff. Way more options in pvp whereas a paladin is a useless auto attack bot. Priest all the way
Wear T2 helm, shoulders; chest, legs and either boots or belt. The rest of the slots you can fill with +healing gear.
You’re not going to be significantly nerfed in the healing department because the 5 piece bonus is 47 spell damage/healing. You get some resistances and a good chunk of stamina as well.
You’ll also do better healing if you’re mentally empowered by the magnificence of the Judgement Armor.
Paladins are awesome, man. Blessings, auras, good heals, always in demand and less popular than Priests.
Don’t worry about an item being plate, cloth, mail or leather. If it has the stats you need, you’ll have to use it.