The gem is actually pretty decent at increasing your AP; it provides the same amount of AP as an agility gem. However, it would really only be worthwhile if you needed to decrease your Viper uptime; in a 25 man raid, I can't seem to spend my mana no matter what; this isn't necessarily the case in a 10 man or heroic, however.

And to link items, type the text you want to appear; then, copy the URL from Wowhead, highlight the text you want to link to the item, and click the hyperlink button (the glove with a paperclip below it). Paste the URL into the field, and you will have an item link. For reference, I modified the items in your original post to be links, so you can make sure you're doing it right.

looking at your gems for mm hunters.....what exactly is the haste "softcap" you mention....i cant find these numbers anywhere (though im sure its mentioned somewhere)

at rougly 5% haste you'll be able to fit 5 steadies in between chimera shots, and until you are fully hastecapped that gives better dps than delaying chimera for an extra steadyshot.

(that is, if I'm not mistaken, I haven't been MM since well before 3.0)

If you are talking about Survival then yes, that would be logical, although at that point you may want to give an [Enchanted Tear] a close look. If for MM then no, go for the one of the other options.

As far as the [Brilliant Autumn's Glow] goes, I'll add it to the list. They really aren't too bad for yellow options when considering CA (which all pve specs should have), but of course gemming int is a very personal decision. Biggest downfall really is that there isn't an Orange gem with Int for us. An orange gem will always have value over 16 int until you get to sustained durations of Viper time. Perhaps there is a "% of time in Viper" threshold where the Int gem can overtake the Orange options; I don't have a definitive answer on that.

A note on the 3.0.8 patch; haste gems have a lesser value than they do on at live, with more of shot rotations involving instants, to which the benefit of haste is nil. Assuming the accepted rotation involves a 6s instant, a 10s instant and a sting/chimera refresh, crit looks will likely be always better than haste for all specs when considering "yellow" stats. Expect this list to change in accordance with 3.0.8 going live.

Since Blizzard mysteriously decided to make ArP a red stat (and an expensive one at that), and with the change to ArP being a flat percentage reduction (and post -armor debuffs), it is really not viable to gem it. The way ArP worked in TBC, this might have been different, since it effectively scaled on itself, but alas . . . In fact, it is actually going to give you more bang for the buck against higher armored targets than those clothies now, and even decreases in value once Sunders and Farie Fire goes up.

Agility/AP are the best stats you have to gem for your respective spec; ArP simply doesn't compete. You can check that against the spreadsheet, but you are going to be hard-pressed to find any gear situation where ArP can come out ahead. Your pet receives none of that ArP.

Edit: This is now not an accurate comment for many with marksman specs, since 3.1 and past. (original post revised)

I guessed that on the Pet ArP one, didn't see the stat listed under the pet window.

I guess I'll regem +Agi, in the event I get ninja'd into respeccing Survival again.

These are all questions you should answer for yourself with the spreadsheet.

Yes, using MaxDPS for anything at all is a mistake.

Plus, common sense says gemming ArP is bad for all the reasons Faerdael laid out.

Edit: I also just noticed this phrase: You are not self buffed in a 25 man raid.

Spreadsheet also assumes that I've got enough knowledge in complex calculations to tell me how to gem (which I mentioned earlier, it defaulted to Agi)

I use the handy 'plug-in my gear' feature, try to guess my rotation, and see if the numbers match up with what I see on recount on a target dummy. I don't use the spreadsheet as my holy grail of information, I'm using it as an additional reference (just like the EJ Forums here and MaxDPS).

But again since ArP was not listed in the original post and me (being the observant person I am) asked a question about ArP gems and I got my reply.
Now I'm sitting here typing a defense against why I'm not asking MS Excel questions about ArP.

edit: Obvious statement of the century. If my solo self buffed DPS is higher in Marksman than it is in BM, logically I would think my Marks DPS would be that much higher when you add Kings, Might, Leader of the Pack, etc. For whatever reason, BM seems to be scaling better with buffs or at least with my gear availability (not to mention the apparent Chimera bugs I've been having with it; getting parried, half the shot being resisted, etc). In addition, I don't feel like using 25 mans as my testing ground for new specs (I'm pretty sure that would tick a few officers off), so until they come up with some sort of raid DPS simulation area where I can slap on full raid buffs and beat up a target dummy, self buffed DPS is all I have to test on.

That would be all fine and good in your logic except the BM's pet benefits more from the raid buffs as well which would leap frog him ahead.

Big hint here.

Since I didn't see it (and it wasn't even MENTIONED, even as "this gem cut is shit never use it") I asked a question about it.

Stop trolling here and drop it.

Aren't forums a place for discussion and questions? If not it would be a guide (or at least locked to prevent questions and such).

Edit: