These hotfixes were intentional and we wanted to share more information about the "why" for you all here:

Mana is supposed to matter for healers, and in the case of Holy paladins, that just wasn’t happening. We were seeing raid groups attempting to learn new bosses where the other healers were out of mana while the paladins were still at 90% of mana. We also thought the experience of paladins healing harder heroic dungeons was inconsistent with that of other healers, or our design intent. We thought it was only a matter of time before groups started going out of their way to stack paladins for raids or recruit them for dungeon runs, which of course is not our intent. For this reason, we thought it was important to address this point now rather than sitting on it until a future patch.

The main culprit for the increased paladin efficiency this was Holy Power from Tower of Radiance. We were seeing a strategy develop where paladins would cast Holy Light on a Beaconed tank, and then cast Light of Dawn on the raid (and use very few other spells). This strategy was remarkably successful considering how simple it is. The Holy Power-based heals are supposed to be an important component of the paladin kit, but because Holy Light is designed to be super efficient, the overall strategy was too efficient. The intent of Tower of Radiance was to make directly healing a Beacon of Light target less punitive, but instead it was becoming the only smart way to play. You can still generate Holy Power by using Flash of Light or Divine Light on a Beaconed target, or through a variety of other ways. Remember, overall it isn’t balanced if paladins are just as mana efficient as other healers and have several mana-free spells.

Light of Dawn was adjusted because it was completely eclipsing Word of Glory. We lowered the healing of Word of Glory late in development, but also redesigned Light of Dawn. They had fallen out of sync, and Light of Dawn was just too good.

Posted by Taymatt
Putting aside the issue of how unfun healing is in general, you STILL haven't answered the question posed by dozens of pallies in this thread: why have you made the entire holy power mechanic useless now? You could have nerfed the hell out of pallies, thereby bringing them "more in line with other healers" without essentially eliminating holy power generation. What about the wasted talent points in ToR? Can you speak to this at all?

Holy paladins can generate Holy Power through a number of mechanics: using Holy Shock is intended to be the main one. They can also take damage through Blessed Life or heal a Beaconed target with Flash of Light or Divine Light.

The problem we were seeing is that Holy Light was made very inexpensive so that paladins always had a cheap go-to heal. Paladins had figured out to use this as a Holy Power generator for Light of Dawn. They didn’t even care about healing the tank per se – they were just casting 3 Holy Lights to earn the Light of Dawn. It seemed to us an effortless way to play that was super effective. With these changes, we expect to see paladins making more decisions – sometimes they might want to Holy Light a Beaconed target just because that’s the right spell at the moment. They may also Holy Light non-Beaconed targets. They will still Holy Shock on cooldown, which will generate plenty of Holy Power.

Those of you saying Holy paladins will no longer generate Holy Power might be taking the change a little too much to heart. That's not the design intent behind Holy paladins, nor a desired outcome of the Tower of Radiance change. In fact, we haven't seen this to be the outcome since the change was applied. Often times when we bring an overpowered ability back into line, the reaction we see on the forums is that the ability itself, or the core mechanics of the spec, has been gutted. That's a natural reaction in most cases, this one being no exception, as paladins will have to adjust to a change that came rather suddenly in the middle of gameplay (i.e. in a hotfix rather than a patch).

We understand there is also a mixture of concerns regarding this change which really revolve more around general healer mana regeneration in Cataclysm. Some paladins may claim Holy Light is now the only affordable heal. This is inaccurate and we're confident we'll see talented paladins shine using all of the appropriate tools in their kit. Perhaps, if anything, it means paladins can't afford to spam many different heals. That doesn't mean they're not useful given the appropriate situation.

(For instance, when the tank is very injured or you have to move, use a Flash of Light. If the damage is coming in faster than you can heal, use a Divine Light. You aren’t playing badly by using these spells – you are playing badly if you only use these spells and neglect the efficient ones.)

When we see players who claim they don’t have enough mana to heal, one of the following is usually true: 1) they are undergeared for the instance, 2) the tanks are trying to tank everything without CC, 3) they are avoiding Spirit on their gear, 4) they are trying to keep everyone topped off as fast as they can by resorting to fast spells (like Flash of Light) or relatively expensive area heals when they aren’t warranted. If someone is about to die – absolutely save them. Using Holy Radiance (40% mana) to get two folks who are at 95% back to 100% is not efficient. Throw a Holy Light (9% mana each) at each of them instead.

Sub-85 sprawuje sie chujowo, na 85 bedzie dokladnie ten sam problem co wczesniej. Holy Power to zjebany system. Wszystko jest randomowe

- Czekasz na HP
- Czekasz na Art of War proc
- Czekasz na Hand of Light proc
- Czekasz na crity
- Starasz sie utrzymac Inqusition

Walka wyglada tak ze zbyt czesto czekasz na HP i masz tylko auto attack i cooldown na CS, a potem procuje ci wszystko naraz i nie wiadomo co z tym zrobic. Da sie to ogarnac tak, zeby wyciagnac DPS, ale ja po przerzuceniu sie na arms warriora nie widze powrotu do ret. Ja na 81 arms warriorem z gearem iLvl 260 wyciagam tyle co na 84 paladynem z iLvl 310.

Ret poki co ssie.