Very true.

I was going to say that :-)

I must say, having just dusted off my kitty druid I'm pleased to see they are nowhere near as far behind as I thought they were. Hear us roar!

The best part is that during PTR, there was a period where Ultraxion was changed to be shreddable/backstabbable. They removed his parry capability to make sure melee were on even footing... and then screwed a few melee over when it went live by returning his facing to normal.

Thanks, Blizz. Showing ferals you care one patch at a time...

Was thinking the same. Also, Ultraxion is one of the worst choices of a fight to measure a feral. We can't shred, and Mangle doesn't do a great job even with the Glyph of Bloodletting. They say "rogues do it from behind" and this is not true... Ferals do it from behind :P

I suspected that ferals needed a small buff and this almost confirms it. Maybe remove the position requirement of shred? Give us something like Tricks of the trade? I hope we recieve some love in MoP.

Yes, Ultraxion is a bad fight to measure ferals. It's an excellent fight to measure everyone else. It's not even too bad at measuring rogues since Combat doesn't need to be behind the boss and that's the spec which is ahead. So long as you keep in mind that feral will be lower than it should be on Ultraxion, then it's the best single fight to look at damage capability in Dragon Soul.

The problem is mangle is well below Shred, and a mangle rotation is boring and frustrating seeing we cant use one of our main abilities. Really on Heroic content what is the point in bring a feral dps when you can bring in another class that is almost guaranteed to do more and that will meet the dps check on a fight like Ultrax.

It's not just rogues and ferals that it's a weak fight to measure for, it's also pretty bad for paladins and unholy DKs as well, being there's no ground underneath him.

@DragonFireKai
Admittedly, I don't really play ret much, so I could be totally wrong, but I am *pretty sure* that consecration is the lowest priority ability in single-target for a reason.

@DragonFireKai

Ret paladins use Consecration in DPS? You sure about that? I don't actually know for sure, but I thought it wasn't worth the mana. Maybe, if they really have nothing else to hit. What do Unholy Death Knights need ground for? I didn't think Desecration did any damage any more, it's just a slow.

But hey, I can go for that argument! Did you know that, currently, Survival hunters actually gain DPS by launching an Explosive Trap during a fight? In fact, a fully stationary boss would be an excellent time to use an Explosive Trap. Oh. I can't do that Ultraxion. So Survival hunters would gain a small DPS boost if there was ground too!

Tiny things like that aside, it's still a great DPS check. Except for the poor kittehs. :(

@Skarn, Death & Decay is still a part of unholy's single-target DPS rotation.

I do think you're comparing apples and oranges here. DKs lose *one* ability that is usually part of their rotation, kitties lose *the* bread-and-butter ability that allows us to build up combo points, which we need for the real damage-dealing abilities. It's gutting our rotation, and with it our dps.