Once your initial energy is depleted, and you're dpsing with energy regen, on average, most abilities will align to the energy tick timer (and the gcd will occur ~1 sec (50%) into the next tick. ie. Either the last tick gave you enough energy to use an ability, or you're waiting for more energy.

2pT4 procs (ie. energy gains not aligned to the energy timer) basically mean that you'll be able to decouple the gcd from the energy tick timer for a brief moment.

If the extra 20 energy gives you enough energy to use another ability, you'll attack and enter the GCD. During this time, you'll end up getting the next energy tick while inside the GCD, which means you'll be over 20 energy when the GCD ends and you won't auto-powershift for another 1-2 seconds. [This could be identified via code to allow a powershift to occur if desired, like if the tick occurred late during the gcd where you'd be waiting more than 1.5 sec for the next tick.]

However, if you don't have enough energy, within 1 second you'll get the next energy tick. During this 1 second, you'll have atleast 20 energy, so you won't powershift. After the tick, there is a small chance you'll still have under 42 energy, so if you were trying to shred, you'd still be stuck waiting another 2 seconds, otherwise, you would be able to cast any Cat ability. [This case seems OK.]

Well there are 2T4 procs that occur at other times too, like just after a powershift that are beneficial as well. If you're powershifting on many attacks or often per cycle I could see the diminished value, but at even 2 powershifts per cycle you're burning mana extremely fast.

Well it would lose the 2T4 procs that occur under 10 energy that I dont notice fast enough to not click my shift button. I'm not spamming it like the macros/addon is doing so it doesn't come up that often. There's a pretty narrow window where a 2T4 proc will happen and you're hitting your shift button at nearly the same time. Other times I can usually catch myself before hitting the shift if I get an energy proc. While this does technically reduce my dps (if below 10 energy) it massively increases my mana efficiency, so much so that I'd say it outweighs the minor dps loss since it probably adds more dps in the long term due to more mana.

When I saw this:
I asked myself if this will work:
Is it possible to prevent the "/cast Heroic Strike" line from being executed in a macro under certain parameters?

If yes, how?

First off: this is amazing! I can't wait to experiment with it. Thank you.

This was my first reaction. There are certain actions that you can't use with conditionals, since 2.0 I believe. Canceling a buff, apparently, isn't one of them. So, these shifting macros (along with the latest version of the Bearstand macro in the megathread) rely on cheating the system a bit: Based on conditions, cancel your form buff. Then, use the [stance] conditional with /stopmacro to control whether or not the rest of the macro executes. The effect is the same as if the conditional in the script were applied to the entire macro.

I'm a bit worried about the potential for a nerf. Blizz could change forms such that they don't count as normal buffs, for example. (Worse, we could be nerfed back to the pre-2.3 world where powershifts weren't instant and it was impossible to use combat consumables while tanking a boss--something I worry about anyway!)

I don't think it would work for a warrior, because you can't "cancel" your stances (right?).

As far as I am aware, this would only be possible if:

1. You could find an action like CancelPlayerBuff() that is still permitted via scripting to execute based on your rage count, and
2. That action set a condition which was testable with the existing macro conditionals; see http://www.wowwiki.com/HOWTO:_Make_a_Macro#Conditionals for a complete list.

Stuff like the macro you describe was possible pre-BC; however, Blizzard deliberately restricted what is possible with /script for 2.0. The fact that I can't think of a way to accomplish a similar thing for any other class in 2.0 is the reason I'm worried about a nerf.

I'm confused about what your magic solution is?! Isn't it just as was stated a while back? Put a /cast cat form macro on the same hotkey on your caster(form) bar as the powershift macro is on your catbar.

Well that's exactly what I ment, yes. I might have overlooked the fact that they were talking about the same as I just did. I believed they just wanted to go back to regular, manual powershifting instead of combining the makros with it.
Nevertheless, it's working for me like this (so far) and I'm sorry that I didn't understand the meaning of the previous discussions about this matter.

'fraid not, Zork. This works for us because CancelAura is not a secure command. We can automatically do a cancelaura if we are below X energy, and use intelligent macros to immediately recast Cat Form when out of form.

Hello Valerian, can you link us your simple powershift macro with the energy tick tracker ? I have the same opinion than you and i prefer to manually powershift, to avoid to do it when i'm stun, to save some mana in many fights where we have to be versatile and use a lot of mana (battle rez, innerve, self-heal, tranquility, etc), and to add a sort of challenge and another thing to check to break the monotony of our classical dps rotation. But if i can save the 2t4 procs that can occur just before a hit my powershift macro, i'll take this clear improvement. For the moment, i use a /cast !cat form macro bind in an accessible key, and i just hit it when i'm low on energy and i see that i'm not on gcd. This macro never leave me in caster form. Can i add a simple command to this macro to check the energy, but without adding theses lines that stuck some of you in caster form in fight ?

Thanks in advance for your advises

Yilfin, check the first post of the thread (or my post directly above yours). The first macros posted in both are manual powershift macros that do the same thing as your old powershift macro, except they only execute the powershift if you have less than a certain amount of energy.

Hey, i was wondering if it's possible to add the powershifting command to a sequence. LIke in between
/castsequence [nocombat, nostealth] Prowl; [stealth] Pounce; Mangle (cat)()
Got used to this macro so much, it hurts having to replace it :>

By the looks of it that macro isnt a sequence at all
/castsequence [nocombat, nostealth] Prowl; [stealth] Pounce; Mangle (cat)()
is the same as
/cast [nocombat, nostealth] Prowl; [stealth] Pounce; Mangle (cat)()
Since Raffys addon checks if you are in combat, or atleast i think it does, I cant see any potential problem with replacing the normal /cast Mangle with this line. Only unwanted behaviour i could imagine is if you are :
*stealthed
and
*in combat
and
*has less then the threshold energy
This would powershift you and put you out of stealth, but i cant see anytime this happens tbh