Paladins Are a Melee Class.

One of the most maddening misconceptions others can have of the Paladin Class is that they are not fundamentally a Melee-based Hybrid Class. The point they most often put forward is that Paladins are most often healers and that some Paladins (usually Shockadins) use ranged spells to do damage. But lets look at the evidence:

Paladins Use Mana

But mana is just a name for a fairly generic power system. What happens if we changed the colour, called it 'Faith' or 'Zeal' or 'Goldfish'? The name of the Power system, or indeed how it works, means very little.

Paladins are Healers

Paladins have all of 2 baseline low-cooldown healing spells, three with talents, that they may use as a matter of course in a given encounter. By comparison they have a huge number of non-healing skills and skills with affect both melee and healing. We don't call dispute that Hunters are a ranged class even though they have a wide range of Strikes at their disposal because the vast majority of the rest of their abilities, and talents, require range. Why do we do the reverse with Paladins?

Paladins have a Holy Tree

This is by far the most perplexing. Yes, we have a Holy Tree, but we also have two (count them, 2) Trees dedicated to performing a function in melee range. Shouldn't this indicate that melee is an integral part of the classes dynamics?

But but but, Shockadins

Yes, it's true, Shockadins do exist as an offensive spec. They take their name from Holy Shock, the 31pt Holy Talent, but unfortunately melee-based (Swing + SoR) damage still contributes more damage than any other source. Further, every source of damage from a Shockadin except for Holy Shock itself requires you to be within 10yards of the enemy. Whether you class an ability as a 'spell' (consecration) or 'skill' (thunderclap) it's the range which is important... Warriors aren't any less melee-oriented for having Thunderclap or Commanding Shout.

Paladins are Spellcasters

'Spellcaster' is a meaningless term, defined more by a predetermined assumption of what constitutes a spell or by the power system used by the class. For example, Repentence is a 'Spell' and yet Blind isn't, even though both work in a nearly identical way. Similarly the scaling of any ability has been arbitrary since Vanilla, for example see old Arcane Shot or multiple Paladin abilities which scale with a pick'n'mix of melee and spell stats. Those calling Paladins Spellcasters are in effect assigning their assumptions and preconceptions to the class rather than logically analysing the skills they have available and the roles those skills encourage.

That Paladins have been pigeon-holed into a Healing role (or before that, a spam-Cleanse role) does not make them less of a melee-oriented class from a design perspective, it simply means that chain-casting healing as a mechanic is too strong (or alternatively Paladin melee abilities aren't strong enough). The vast majority of interactive abilities which are available to a Paladin require melee range to be effective or are designed to keep Mobs in melee range, and so to consider Paladins to be anything other than a Melee class makes no sense. Additionally, I would argue that the most development time and effort should be made to draw them into melee range, not to make Paladin healing more viable in WotLK. Frankly, I'd count it a failure if at least 50% of raiding Paladins aren't engaging encounters in melee range, and even more of a failure if more Druids and Shaman were up front than Paladins.

There, not only are Paladins a melee class but I've laid out my argument for why Paladins should be considered (and redesigned if necessary) as such in Wrath when creating new Skills, extending the talent trees, and creating concepts for where Paladins should be in 5-man, 10-man and 25-man encounters. Don't like it? Well perhaps you should have been playing one of the ranged-hybrids to begin with, there are plenty to choose from.