This thread will be for questions and information about pets. How to spec them and how to choose them. There's a bunch of info in locked and general threads about this topic, so I will write a quick summary of the tidbits I've digested since 3.0, and then let you all run wild.

Tools:

Pet Calculator - Wowhead
Petopia: A complete guide to hunter pets in the World of Warcraft.

Introduction

The pets best suited to 25 man PVE DPS are ferocity pets. As of patch 3.1, top end DPS will always be gotten with a wolf for non BM hunters, and a Devilsaur for BM. If you're BM, you must take the 51 point talent to get 4 extra pet talents, which will open up a pet build that has all 4 points taken in both Shark attack and Wild hunt.

Here is the current best non BM ferocity build that uses one point in wild hunt, however if the spreadsheet shows more DPS for Shark Bite, take that instead:

Pet Calculator - Wowhead. **note: the point in great stamina could equally be placed in any other 1st tier talent

Here's the current best BM devilsaur build. There's a free point in here you can put anywhere. Also, Devilsaurs are a pain to manage, so if you're one of those BM hunters who uses another pet, feel free. I only used it because it's the most popular exotic at the moment:

Pet Calculator - Wowhead. **note: the point in great stamina could equally be placed in any other 1st tier talent

In 10 man or heroics, some argue that a cunning pet is viable because of the mana regen talent, however this needs to be tested. Since the primary purpose of cunning pets is PVP, I won't be including a build for them until see data that supports the PVE utility hypothesis.

General answers to FAQs:

• The pet special moves all cost 20 focus, the focus dump costs 25 focus, and growl/cower are both free. Growl and cower have their own cooldown. Every time a pet's global cooldown finishes, the pet will always cast the lowest cost ability that's not on cooldown.
• Some of your attack power is transferred to your pet.
• Your hit rating from gear is passed to your pet, but rounded down. As of 3.1, hit rating from FA is passed to your pet.
• Animal handler increases your pet's expertise, which reduces the boss's chance to dodge (not affected by hit rating, which determines the bosses chance to try to dodge).

I agree, but it takes 30 focus which takes away from focus dumps. As I noted, though, that one point can be put anywhere in the first tree

I have a couple of questions and I believe this may be the best place to have them answered.

I am currently running a 53-18-0 spec and my only level 80 pet is the gorilla. I am working on leveling a devilsaur and have also been searching for the ever elusive spirit beast to tame. What is the point of having exotic pets if it is still higher DPS to go with a non-exotic pet and a less than 51-point BM spec?

When people say the cat or scorpid is the best DPS pet, which spec are they running? Obviously, when the devilsaur is used, it is at least a 51-point BM. But, what about cat or scorpid? Are people respec'ing to run the cat or other non-exotic pet?

Some hunters use the 51 point talent in the BM tree just for the 4 bonus pet skill points. It can drastically increase the survivability of a DPS pet. Also, Blizzard has indicated that a future patch will ensure that an exotic pet will have a 10% advantage over a non-exotic.

Scorpid poison most definately updates to the current attack power/buff of the pet and will go back down when those buffs are gone, so in truth, it is best to wait until your pet has a full stack of poison to pop all of your buffs in order to get the most out of the poison. As for disabling claw, if your pet is having focus starvation problems, this could work to ensure you get your 5 stack up as soon as possible.

Have you tested this poison damage/AP statement? Also, focus starvation shouldn't be a problem these days because the reapplication only costs 20 focus and will be cast before anything else is. Assuming you had just cast a focus dump when it became available and are out of focus, the only wait will be for the pet to regenerate 20 focus.

Ok thanks, So it would be best to let 4 stacks build up with AotB on-Pop BW and RF (5th stack applies); then go into a normal DPS rotation dipping back into Beast if a poison fails to apply because of a boss ability,death, ect...

I have experienced this behaviour with lvl 70 right after 3.0 while testing pet-dps on target dummies. Although i cannot verify the statement regarding "live-AP-scaling" the poison dot is definately using the current buffs of the pet. The idea during this tests was popping BW, then using Eye of the Beast (with Glyph) and start building up the poison stack. After BW had worn out and I clicked EotB away the poison was ticking for the same lower ammount it has always ticked when not using this stacking method. So I assume it works the same way regarding AP but a confirmation on this would indeed be nice.

Is there any conclusion when to use AotB over AotH? I am currently raiding with an 50-21-0 (3/3 Longlivety) spec with a raptor, which is doing roughly 45% of my total damage on single target fights like Patchwerk. Until I read about AotB on this board I've never thought about using it in a raid environment. Do you recommend to use it all the time (perhaps depending on AP?) or just for the BW phases?

And a few more questions regarding pet special abilities:
During the first Naxx-ID I left Rabid and Savage Rend on autocast. I think it would be much better to time Rabid with BW and Savage Rend with Cobra Strike procs. Do you have a good method to accomplish the later? I am currently at 30% crit raidbuffed and with 1/3 Cobra Strikes there are sometimes long periods without procs and when it procs you got only about 2sek to react and hit Savage Rend. My first idea to do this is a /toggleautocast macro but this seems rather cumbersomely.

Back to the scorpid: Do you leave Scorpid Poison on autocast once it has been fully stacked? With 3/3 Longlivety it has only 3sek CD on a 10sek DoT, so one is "wasting" 2 pet-GCD every 9 sek if it is used everytime the CD is up. Would it be better to replace the 3sek and 6sek recast with Claw and only cast Scorpid Poison every 9sek? Of course a miss an this cast would be a gread dps-loss. So there are two questions: Assuming hit-cap and 2/2 Animal Handler which method provides better sustained dps: Scorpid Poison every ~3sek or every ~9sek? And if the later wins, how would you do this ingame? Via a /castsequence macro?

How conditional can macros become? ie AotB when BW is popped, but after BW goes away, go back to AotH for example.

So far there hasn't been any conclusion to the matter. I can only suggest you try it out personally and see what strikes your fancy.
Mind you Beast is apparently not working according to the tooltip, it gives way more AP to the pet (haven't checked my own melee AP). And that will of course skew results towards Beast. If this will be fixed/changed is uncertain at this time.
Using Beast during BW seems like a pretty good idea since your pet scales 50% better in that period. But you can't make a conditional macro that will send you back to Hawk when BW is over. Just be ready to do it yourself.

What I have noticed however is that changing aspects might be instant in graphics, however the actual result takes a few seconds in terms of AP at least (I know the Viper damage loss and mana regen is instant). If this is just tooltip lag or actual delays I don't know. If it really is a delay it might have hotswitching aspects for BW and other abilities (Aspect of the Dragonhawk -> Kill Shot) very much less appealing, unless you do it ahead of time, which is quite doable.

After each cyclone, call your pet back and send it back in to attack.