The Enigma Order

[Hunter] Beast Mastery Bible - Elitist Jerks:
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t11420-hunt … ery_bible/

Reaching the hit cap is advised, but not 100% needed. 130ish hitrating will do.
Haste: With passive haste effects your attackspeed should not come below 1.5sec when Aspect of the Hawk procs. Depending on your latency (and reactions lol) the ideal attack speed would be 1.8(less than 150ms) 1.9(150-200ish ms). Reaction time doesn't really matter, since you got a handy little macro that makes you more flexible. Alternative is to look at quartz timer instead of the encounter(s), I found the macro to be more useful

Gear: hitrating 130-142, crit: people say around 28-30% before you start stacking ap/other stats(hit before crit tho).
I've got 26.6% crit, abit low, but t5 setbonus kinda makes up for it.

Shotrotation: even I use a macro, I still try to weave in Multishots/arcane shots if my mana allows me too. Cheeky's gave me a 1:1:5 rotation which means after every 5th steady, you either do a mutlishot or arcane shot, depending on which shot is on cooldown. (always use Mulit if its ready and there's no CC that can be broken)

And another keypoint is to keep your pet alive. Since it will do 20%++ of your damage. So a mend pet now and then (if you don't have 2 t5 bonus) can save your pet. (I often respec my pet to different instances, giving it more resistance to different schools of magic)
Avoidance, Cobra Reflexes, claw/gore as dmg skill, resistances and stamina.  I've read that others also use bite as dmg skill, but I found bite to fuck up alot with its 10sec cooldown.

I'll paste the macro I use later

your hitrating won't help the pets hitrating. But Animal Handler talent gives your pet 4% extra hitchance.
Hitrating is probably the best dpsstat before the cap. If you can't hit, you can't crit either

about the hit rating in general - it's important indeed, the question, however, is - where is the cap. Specifically I mean - is it optimal to reach cap against lvl 73 (boss) seeing as vast majority of the stuff we shoot at are non-bosses, aka lvl 71.
I myself am aiming right over 100.

*waits for Palma's tips & tricks*

yeap

time trinkets with Bestial wrath also

For MH, I spec my pet with rank 2 avoidance, cobra reflexes, gore/claw (screech for iWipe), max fire res. rank 2nature, rank 2 shadow, rest on stamina.

For BT I spec rank 2 avoidance, cobra reflexes, gore/claw (screech for iWipe), rank 3 or 4frost res. rank 3 fire, rank 2 shadow, rest for stamina

Keytalents you need: 
5/5 Improved Aspect of the Hawk   | Depends on your attackspeed, but 5/5 improved my dps atleast
2/2 Focus Fire          |  2% extra damage when your pet is out, and extra crit on kill command is always nice
2/2 Improved Revive Pet  | if your pet dies early in a fight its important to get it up as fast as possible imo
5/5 Ferocity
4/5 Frenzy (cant find any point to lose really to max it)
2/2 Bestial Discipline
2/2 Animal Handler   | Pets have a high missrate
3/3 Serpents Swiftness  | Faster attackspeed, no-brainer
1/1 Bestial Wrath  (1/1 Intimidation, 1/1 The Beast Within) | Combine with trinket(s) increases both your and your pets dps
(rest is "free" points)

Marksman Tree:
5/5 Lethal Shots
5/5 Efficiency (or Huntersmark if your mana ain't an issue)
2/2 GFTT   | Best way to regen focus for your pet
1/1 Aimed Shot (need it for Mortal Shots)
2/2 Rapid Killing

My Build atm
I might change a point in Endurance Training and put it in Improved Mend Pet.

oh yes I will - again found contradictory info - armor penetration of a hunter does not affect pet, right'o?

so from your personal experience - seeing as there's a 'need' for hunter crits on one end and the fact that the pet only benefits from ap - agility remains the stat of choice, aye (excluding hit for obvious reasons)?

Tested the macro you posted a bit. From some brief tests it feels like the key to using it properly is to stay cool - despite the increased attack speed there's still a fair amount of time between the attack, but - usually - not enough to squeeze an arcane\multi in the meanwhile. Having same experience?

And one more question - while using that very same macro, are you having any problems with kill command being used properly? I had to use it manually, despite hitting the macro button for a steady shot.

One last (I'll test most of the stuff I'm asking myself over the weekend orso, just having very limited time currently) - it's obvious that using Beast Within and trinket together is wise. I'm not so sure about adding rapid fire though? Gotta work aroound the attack speed some more in general.

I think its a combination of the macro (I don't think I'm doing 1:1:5, but closer to 3:2  (3steadys, 2 autos)) and "too many" hasted attacks.
I noticed on Akama yesterday, where I got 0.69 Attackspeed I clipped alot of autoshots when I tried to do steady's, so I just went auto/arcane/multi.