The idea of stacking haste gear to make a marks build compete against a beast build came to mind last night after talking to a friend. I won't lie, I'm horrible at math, and any numbers I use here will most likely have errors somewhere in them.

Haste Rating
10.51 Rating = 1% at level 70

Currently in the game, there are 4 mail pieces with haste rating on them:
Bindings of Lightning Reflexes (27 Haste Rating) - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32574
Fists of Mukoa (37 Haste Rating) - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32234
Shoulders of Lightning Reflexes (37 Haste Rating) - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32575
Valestalker Girdle (36 Haste Rating) - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30919

For a total of 137 Haste Rating, which = 13.03% Haste.

We all know Marks will hit harder than beast, easily. Beast still has a 7% haste lead with Serpents Swiftness vs those 4 pieces of gear. And beast still has a much harder/faster hitting pet.

Here is where I'm stuck, due to being horrible at math. Is the 7% margin in speed, big enough to keep Beast ahead of Marks? There's a ton of factors, probably too many to give a definitive answer, which I don't need. I felt like bringing this up for discussion, because I know many of the hunters on this board play as Beast spec (including myself), and I think these pieces of gear are semi tied into that spec, but can offer going back to marks a chance.

MM is viable for PvE without the haste rating armor. LOL

(User recieved an infraction for this post.)

Marks is viable, yes, but it is not anywhere near as beneficial as BM. Especially considering FI is 3% damage to any damage.

Ohdin, you also forgot to consider:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32665

I don't know if this cloak would be that great compared to other DPS cloaks, but if you're going for a full/deep MM build wanting to stack haste, something to consider. I'm just hoping that I don't have to drop any professions to learn all these as they are very, very good. One thing I'm noticing on the items I linked on BG and the ones you did hear is that there is basically only 4 stats and then haste. Agi, Stam, Int, AP. There is no hit, no crit. I know I wouldn't get 30% crit from these 3-4 items that you can get, how much of a difference would it make?

While using Cheeky's sheet, I computed my potential DPS as MM and BM. BM has about 50 DPS over MM overall and something like 50 DPS under MM for ranged alone. I don't see a great gap.

well, I know my raid, I will be stuck with another hunter and some casters, there's no way the pet will get totems (WF does not even work on them), the pallies will not buff it (they do it cringingly on progression fights, but never routinely), if it dies once it will get no new buffs, it won't get warrior shouts, it will probably have an Imp buff and may have Leader of the pack (but not mark if it died before)

I did factor in full raid buffs, food and elixir for myself

Also to keep in mind, that it's pretty lackingly beneficial for a hunter to be put in the melee group nowadays. (although it's no crime to do so)
Putting the BM hunter in the Shadowpriest's group allows the SP to generate more dps, and in turn generate more mana for the entire caster group.
The hunter also gives all the other casters +3% damage.

Whereas a MM hunter would have 1) problems with mana, and 2) only give a small attack power buff for his own group.
A Survival hunter would give "a bigger" attack power buff for the "entire raid".
In the melee group you usually have at least 1 warrior, which means the shaman in that group will have to use Windfury, this means the hunter doesn't get his much desired +agility totem.

While MM is still a viable spec for plenty reasons, and encounters which are still very pet unfriendly, BM simply is able to produce a lot more damage, and it scales much better with improving gear.

Maybe I'm not seeing it, but I don't see how BM is any more mana efficient. You will be using Steady Shot at a much faster rate on top of spamming Mend Pet and Kill Commands. A MM hunter will care slightly less about pet survival, and will use pretty much only Multi and maybe Arcanes (I tend to not use Arcane because it's about equal to Steady in terms of damage but with a much higher mana cost. If anything, it would be about equal or more in mana usage to Marks. Mind you, I am not talking about damage alone here, just mana efficiency.

The typical max-dps rotation for MM usually involves SS every autoshot cycle with Arcane/Multi whenever they'll fit without pushing back the autoshot and are off cooldown. While BM is going to be casting Steadies a bit over 20% faster than MM, they also won't be casting arcane or multi, which cost more than twice the mana of a single steady. Sure BM will use mend pet a bit more because they actually care about keeping the pet up, but it's not going to be spammed as much as arcane/multi and with points in improved mend will still cost less than either of those two shots.

I produced "same" dps results in your spreadsheet with SV than with BM actually. :/

Gear:
Halberd of Desolation
Archimonde bow
4x t5
Ranger-general
Cobra-lash boots
Coak of dark reavers
Bands of celestial archer
Kael neck, Hyal ring, Magteridon ring, Tsunami, Hourglass
(t5 quality gear, except halberd + bow)


With standard raid buffs on both pet and me, agi elixir and warp burger.
+enh.goa totem. (normal stuf for me)

Target: 73 humanoid, 0armor, affected by CoS/Imp.Mark

0/20/41 spec
47,23% crit, 100%hit
Dps listed: 2356.43 with Max Special rotation

Changing Celestial Archer to Lightning Reflexes nets +3dps. (additional hastes actually start providing lower increase in dps since its no longer possible to do max special rotation effective / or stop increasing it)
-----------------
41/20/0 (with 5/5 imp.hawk)
36.74% crit, 100%hit
Dps: 2396.76 with Max Special rotation, steady at quick shots

Changing Celestial Archer to Lightning Reflexes +25dps.

Biggest difference i could come up BM vs SV with is ~70dps in those conditions.
Its true i used SV gear for both specs, stacked with agi gems.

* So here is challenge, find biggest listed Total DPS using Cheeky spreadsheet. I would like to see what gear/talents/rotation was used and then try to "beat" it / get near it with SV spec.

* Haste gear goes well with imp.hawk and one special per auto.
Since all ranged weapons are 2.9-3.0 speed (80dps+) we could say that haste is good for all with imp.hawk?

Edit:
Um gave target 6000 armor (36.24%). SV goes ahead for 8dps. :/ (1447 BM vs 1555 SV)
Same gear, same buffs.

Lucky for me, all warriors in my guild are Prot, so no rolling on 2H'ers for me as well as less attack power trinket/ring/neckpiece hogs either, etc. Anyhow, I was looking into stacking haste and haste procs for a marksman hunter as well. Doing so can keep their attack speed up long enough to possibly warrant marksman's use. Now one question I have is that if the marksman hunter is going to stack haste, would be be proper to use the TSD metagem? I found its proc to be underwhelming due to its shortness in duration. I was having it proc on one autoshot and not even receiving the benefit of it until 2.52 seconds later, leaving me with 3.48 seconds of haste. I'd rather use Relentless Earthstorm Diamond where I can keep more stats as well as have a multiplicative crit modifier against humanoids, which make up a large portion of endgame content currently. I tested it out, and it turns out that with Mortal Shots, Humanoid Slaying, and the RED, I have a 245.765% crit modifier, meaing that it only takes a 813.7 damage hit in order for that same attack to crit for 2k.

That's some insane numbers, then again it's top of the line gear and running perfect rotations. However, you said that haste is actually bad for MM/Survival? Wouldn't it be better or even out in the end? I'm talking in practice, not pure theory here. No one is going to run 0 latency+0 human errors an entire encounter.

I agree with the pet statement, but I said it because it's not our #1 priority. We do not lose damage or extremely beneficial abilities by our pets dying. I'll keep it alive, but I won't stop to rezz it, or go way out of my way to heal it either.

If what you say is true about cost of haste vs agi/crit, etc, then it makes you wonder how things will progress. A BM hunter will be able to take that item with the crit; MM with the haste... In the end, would the stats end up being equal and the abilities keeping BM ahead?