When I had the lion, confident, stoneskin and dragonscales up, fighting a warrior that took the time to practice their weapons and defenses, I tried that initially. Rake gives you two demos more or less, two rounds lag. (is it three? I think I remember it being two) The problem was that in those two rounds you might hit once or twice, but they'd hit your 4-7 times. If they had a decent damroll, you were about on par for damage per round.

Enter the boneshatter/drivelag/cranial/impale/pincer. Those skills all ruined my day. Without rake, you weren't going to put out more damage than a competent warrior, so the lag made things get ugly, especially if they could permalag you somehow (Zubei-esque builds designed around that were nightmares).

Pincer wasn't too bad because they didn't parry as well, and despite the lag/damage you'd still be throwing out your rake.

Boneshatter and impale messed my world up - though part of that was not knowing how to gear a shifter for str/dex in addition to the HP. I always had around 1200+ hp as a gnome shifter, but I never realized the importance of gear until later.

Honestly I think if you gave the lion the dash skill it would make it worthwhile, but I rank it not too far above the orangutang (which seems may be boink now since there've been updates?)

EDIT: If swipe actually WORKED then the lion would be great. But it doesnt. It's like a crescent kick, but less successful. :P