I've been mulling this over for a while, for it seemed like a vague feeling. However it's been bugging me for a few days now, so I decided to share it with fellow players in order to get some better insights. What got me thinking was the feral kitty passive talent tree bonusses planned for Cataclysm:
  • Melee Damage
  • Melee Critical Damage
  • Bleed Damage

Now what interested me was the "feel" of kitty damage. What will be our priorities?

If we look back to Naxx and Ulduar, kitties made good friends with agility. It was our main stat and our main priority was Rip. Agility was a bigger boost to Rip and ArPen was hard to find.
A few months later and ArPen is everywhere! Melee damage is getting bigger and bigger and shred crits for more than 12K. Normal white hits (critcapped) do near 4K damage. Haste is getting a better stat because you've maxed everything else.

I'm trying to exaggerate here, because the difference is hardly noticeable. Our rotation stayed basically the same. But nonetheless I definitely noticed a different "feel" to kitty during this transition.

So my first question is if anyone else felt this and can word this better? It's more than seeing Rip above melee damage in recount, it's adjusting your playstyle at a microlevel to maximize your dps in different situations.

Secondly, my question would be: what can we expect for Cataclysm. Basically the mastery system will act like an overpowered agility, boosting melee damage (agi = AP), melee crit (agi =crit) and bleed damage (AP and crit). Will this balance out into a playstyle that compares to Naxx agility or to deep ICC ArPen? Or perhaps a balance in between, say ArPen softcap & trinket?

And finally, what do we kitties want? It seems that the new system will soften the edges between kitty and bear again and we are just starting to get some recognition and reverence after a rocky start (TBC anyone?)

The subject is a bit vague and it wont hit home for a lot of people, but these are my ponderings. Peace out.