Currently, this playstyle does not grant 500+ mp5. A melee swing can go off every 6 seconds after your Holy Shock without taking any other special circumstances. A Ret Paladin's JoW with 3000 AP should be giving 351 mana per proc and procs every swing (outside the cooldown, which one swing per 6 seconds will be). A SoW proc with 1500 SP and 1000 AP gives 350 mana per proc.

The benefit has not just increased, it has skyrocketed. Simply being in melee range and having auto-attack toggled grants 5 times the benefit of the currently chain chugging potions. At level 70 stat values. Sure, there are situations where it's not usable, but when it is usable, it gives absurd regen, more than a Shadow Priest. How can you not try use this where possible?

Edit: Numbers assuming 100% proc rate on SoW, is this true? The mana return is ridiculous regardless.

This quote is from earlier today and was on all the beta class forums:
Source: MMO-Champion Blue Tracker*
So hopefully this will mean they will smooth out the need to consistently need to go run in and get a few melee swings in of JoW.

*Side note, the MMO-Champion Blue Tracker works very well and you usually can get info even faster than MMO-Champion's main webpage, you just have to dig it up.

I'm open to the change if that is what Blizzard intends, and I like your way of stating it - it is more compelling seen that way, though the opposite question does arise: what about the encounters where it isn't possible, will judging every so often (assuming judging can trigger a JoW proc) be enough to counteract the loss of such high regen if Holy raiders are now expected to avail themselves of it? I'm thinking of Twins, for instance.

As for how much risk there is to being in melee range in WotLK raiding, obviously nobody knows - but if you have to take a guess you have at least TBC and the pre-TBC raids to look at as history. The risk on several encounters is fairly high.

Antmanton: I'm not sure I follow you - what combat rating mechanics have affected resto shamans in a similar way? As I understand the resto shaman changes they are being encouraged to work in more than chain-heal into their rotation, but I do not see any actual attack mechanics similar to making use of SoW / JoW for mana regen.

This is something I plan to test on beta.

I also plan to test how the interaction between prot and ret works. If for example a prot judges a poor quality JoW, the a ret refreshes it with CS, and the prot rerefreshes it with a melee attack, does the value of the judgement keep changing or is it clever enough to keep the highest JoW value.

However with both CS and melee not refreshing judgements on beta at the present time this is not possible to test

The increase in mana returns from judgements is part of the picture, but equally important is the change in the actual healing mechanics. Holy paladins are gaining a significant instant heal on a 6-second cooldown, frequent access to an even larger instant heal, 10% haste built right into the talent tree, and another 10% haste from a raid buff that will be ubiquitous in 25-mans.

The increase in instant and fast-casting healing power renders spam-healing obsolete; in fact given the lower efficiency of paladin heals in WotLK compared to TBC, spam-healing probably won't be practical.

EDIT:

The flip side of this, though, is that if a Prot paladin is counting on JotJ for mitigation, it's not a good thing to have a Ret paladin wiping it off every time he uses CS.

Well, generically, Resto shamans might want to be autoattacking for mana in the same way a Holy paladin might (with JoW). But my comment was more in reference to enhancement shamans, most notably those that pick up Elemental Devastation, since the change allows them to roll up Focus, Maelstorm, and Clearcast procs virtually forever. The change is also somewhat mildy useful for feral druids who have to shift out to caster form for emergency healing. While their spell power would suck, at least they'd have decent crit for direct heals. Ideal? No, not really, but every little bit helps, right?

If you need a hand bellator, and assuming you are on Coldarra(EU), give us a shout and I'll be happy to help.

Edit: Out of curiosity, are we treating the extra damage from Judgement of Justice as working as intended? If it is, it just became the primier dps/threat Judgement unless they change Judgement of Light and Judgement of Wisdom to match.

I'm not. I believe Light/Wisdom are correct and Justice is bugged. Light/Wisdom is more elegant and in line with the rest of the system.

Bellator (I think) did some testing a few pages back and found JoW procs 100% outside the 4 sec CD. SoW doesn't have any CD and procs about 50%.

this

People seem very hung up on evaluating the future based on the past. In real life this might be a logical course of action, but in WoW this cannot be done. Look at all the changes that have occured since launch. Originally MM hunters were the raid build, then it was a MM-SV Hybrid, then BM. Feral Druids did not tank in vanilla, then they were incredibly over powered at the start of TBC. Things change in this game. If they didn't we would have all quit ages ago.

Unir, you are correct no one uses SoW to regen mana now. But there is no need. With downranking, and chain potting all the healers can chain cast for an entire encounter. Wasting a GCD every 30 seconds to reseal is not useful because you spend the entire fight casting and not swinging your weapon. You would not get any procs while chain casting. BUT this has all changed. With an instant spell on a 6 sec CD that will be useful, there is a window where melee swings can occur.

It sounds like you like standing in the back spamming one button and don't want that to change. I will never raid as a holy paladin again if that was to be our fate. While doing that all I can think of is Homer Simpson and his drinking bird hitting the Y key ever second.

As much as I'd love to believe that WotLK heralds a return to melee-healing, the truth is we've been here before.

Here's a a quote from a paladin (Tinaris) in the TBC beta, from a post on October 12, 2006, discussing paladin healing:

"It seems to me that the way our healing is supposed to work is when its intermingled with melee when we have the chance to hit the mob for some mana gains via JoWisdom. Hit the mob for mana a few times, cast an emergency heal, rinse and repeat. I found that this method of support healing, even as a 14/0/43 Paladin, was very helpful in terms of putting out good damage, being involved in heals, and maintaining respectable mana amounts for emergencies. Spiritual Attunement helped out in this, as the bit of AoE damage I took would get me some attention from the main healers, which would replenish my mana for more healing for others."

Blessing of Kings: Burning Crusade Impressions from the Forums

In my opinion, as long as Flash of Light resets the melee swing timer, melee-healing will not be viable. The time costs are too large. All these neat tricks Blizzard keeps trying will fall in the face of spamming FoL.