Sorry, but that means you're wasting GCDs that you don't need to waste.

Also I cant get my head around how to compute how long a can delay a starsurge and dot refresh for em to get the eclipse effect.

I know its not just taking the dmg lost from not refreshing and compare that to the eclipse gain, because things like shooting star proc chance and extra NG bonus on the 2nd dot cast factors in.

Perhaps we need to lobby for Shadowmeld to have a permenent threat reduction.

As the author of ShockAndAwe the Enhancement Shaman addon indeed the Moonkin addon SquawkAndAwe was based on my ShockAndAwe code. I was looking at updating my other addon PriortyQueue which also evolved out of ShockAndAwe that attempts to work through a list of conditions and present the user with an icon for the top dps ability to use.

Now having read a LOT about Moonkins lately (I aim to make my moonkin my main in Cataclysm) I have still yet to see a definitive set of rules for what abilities to use when. The principal article in this thread still seems to be worded in terms of rotations rather than priorities. It is my gut feeling with Moonkins that a divide has been crossed and we are now dealing with a set of rules that says things like..

Cast StarSurge immediately on a proc
Use X if Y and less than Z seconds before W Eclipse.
If X dot has less than Y seconds left and W Eclipse is longer than Z seconds away then refresh dot X
etc

I feel it would be really useful to condense the accumulated wisdom here into a set of rules that people could debate as to what sort of ordering we should think about.

With Enhancement Shamans we evolved a simple list that meant we could learn to think through the various priorities. I don't see any such simple list having evolved for Moonkin yet it still seems to be a long list of if, buts and maybes. Is anyone up to speed enough to make a stab at a first draft of a list of rules that might form the basis of a priority list?

As Cata approaches and more people are looking to max their dps at level 85, having an acknowledged set of rules that max your dps will be really useful. Of course what then separates the good players from the bad is being able to follow those rules.

The priority list is reasonably straightforward. We use the term "rotation" from habit. Highest priority at top.

FoN.
Unless outside of Eclipse, with less than 21 energy to go and not moving {

On-use Trinket
IS (non-clipping, only if it will proc NG during Lunar)
MF (non-clipping)
Starfall only during lunar
IS (non-clipping)
Starsurge

}
Wrath if Solar or pre-Lunar
Starfire if Lunar or pre-Solar
MF DD (you'll only get this far if moving)

This assumes we aren't responsible for FF or E&M debuffs, and we aren't having mana issues. For some fights we might add Thorns to the list, and at 85 we may toss in some WM use.

Let user change that "21" number independently for Lunar and Solar.

Edit: Some might want variations, like allowing a little bit of DoT clipping just before leaving Eclipse, but the DPS gain, if any, is small.

This is an excellent base, but I doubt it is top dps. For one, you want to clip your dots. If, with your haste, IS ticks every 1.8 seconds, and your IS will expire 1.7 sec after the last tick, then clipping will pretty much add an extra tick (in terms of time, not in terms of tick/cast). On average, clipping a dot will provide an extra half a tick each time you clip. In theory, given our dots have a fixed duration, one could check with his present haste how good clipping would be. But then it depends on NG, BL, speed pot, and other haste proc, not to mention if the previous cast was clipped or not, so I'm not sure how useful that'd be in practice.

As Levva said, the exact priority list is not clear-cut, and will most likely depend on gear (I can see Mastery rating heavily affecting how badly you want to wait for eclipse before refreshing dots / casting starsurge).

What about the Worgen, Tauren, and Trolls among our feathered brethren? I would suggest allowing Cower to be used up to 40 yards away, or implementing a threat reduction into Soothe. Soothe would make sense, given the nature and name of the spell.

Good point, however when I say Clip I mean that you lose a tick (ticks were clipped or cut), not that you refreshed before the last tick. I've also been assuming that the "advisor" is not tied into DBM, but has instead been set for some generic fight, like Patchwerk. I may know to delay FoN because of some event 10s from now. I'm assuming that most tools won't have that logic coded.

There are other edge cases. Inside Lunar Eclipse and both IS and MF have one tick remaining: IS in 0.2s and MF in 1.3s. Ideally I would cast IS first (keep both DoTs at 100% uptime), even though my priority list has MF at a higher priority.

However, most of those are "tweaks" on a basic advisor. As a general rule, my UI and brain aren't good enough to tell me if SF will complete when IS has 0.8 ticks remaining or 1.2 ticks remaining. An "advisor" can make a good prediction, and adjust its recommendation accordingly. If it gets me to the point where I maximize ticks per cast, and also have very high DoT uptime, that is a significant improvement over "pure manual" play, and is probably more important than many of the theoretical "tweaks."

Right... I was saying that it would make sense to add a threat reduction mechanic in addition to Soothe's current enrage dispelling mechanic, if Blizzard were to give us a threat reduction ability at all. It's not probable that they will, but Soothe would definitely be an obvious spell to implement that sort of thing into.

Soothe
Instant cast
10 sec cooldown

Soothes the target, dispelling all enrage effects and lowering your threat by 10%.

There you go.

They could just give us back our play dead ability from vanilla beta.

If you have any movement whatsoever in which you use Moonfire as filler, your timers will be off. Then you will be clipping one of your DoTs when you use your macro. Also, with a macro you are unable to make decisions about clipping DoTs early at the end of an Eclipse. You basically lose the ability to choose which you are casting first and separate them. And in the end, it will cost you GCDs that could have been spent elsewhere (and your DPET of those DoTs will dramatically decrease).

This is probably obvious to most of you, but you can go Cat Form and use Cower. -10% threat right there, 10sec CD.