*What is the role of a hunter pet in a raid?
The role is what you make of it, and also depends on your personal spec. If you’re BM and you want to top the DPS charts, get a DPS pet, a ravager, raptor, or cat. If you’re MM, you may want utility, so you might shoot for an owl, wolf, or scorpid. If you’re Surv, you may want something with a focus dump, so maybe a windserpent. I haven’t played Surv, so I don’t know what you’d utilize, but make sure whatever you choose, you have a reason behind it.

*Are there differences between 10-man raids, 25-man raids and 40-man raids in terms of the role of a hunter pet?
I’ve never played a 40-man, but the difference between 10- and 25-man raids is minimal. In both, your pet takes a backseat to the tanks, and is mainly there to add to the DPS. In a 10-man, your pet is more likely to recieve heals, only because if the healers are good enough, they might have nothing to do and take pity on your poor damaged pet. However, regardless, your pet’s survivability is it’s most important role

*What pet stats (armor, health, DPS) are particularly important for raids?
It’s all about DPS. Armor isn’t needed, since the pet won’t be getting enough aggro to be attacked. Same reason why it doesn’t need health. If you find your pet is dying a lot in raids, either spam Mend Pet more, boost its stamina, or find a pet with more innate stamina

*What active pet skills are most useful — or least useful — in raids?
This really comes down to what you’re fighting. In Kara, for instance, solid DPS usually wins out, so any and all damaging skills are good. However, sometimes it helps the raid if you focus on survivability. Spamming Scorpid Sting and having an Owl use Screech really helps keep the Tanks alive in dire situations. Also, you should keep in mind whether or not your pet’s signature skill can actually be useful. No sense in bringing a scorpid into a fight against Void Reaver, since it won’t be able to poison him.

*How about passive skills?
Avoidance, Cobra Reflexes, and Resistances are the way to go

*Do you respec your pet for different raids?
Quite often, yeah. I doubt it’s necessary, but if you’re going into a raid you know will have a lot of this type of element, better safe than sorry. BMs should respec often, especially, since if they lose their pet to a random elemental onslaught, they lose the bulk of their DPS

*What other considerations go into choosing a raiding pet?
Everyone has their preference, but you’ve gotta look into helping the raid more than helping yourself. I’m an MM Hunter, and I use an Owl as my raiding pet, since I’m always the Hunter who spams Improved Hunter’s Mark and Scorpid Sting to help the raid. Adding Screech to that makes me a seriously-loved Hunter in my guild. To be honest, my preference has always been Windserpents, but because I found much better use out of other pets, I scrapped him for a Ravager so I had a solid DPS-er when I needed it. Honestly, it all comes down to what you like to use versus what would help the raid the most.

Anyway, to best use a pet in its role as DPS, you will need to pick a pet with both a high base damage multiplier, and a “focus dump” skill like Claw, Gore, or Lightning Breath. If your pet is lacking either one, you will underperform in your role as raid DPS, and not by a negligible amount. That is final and inarguable, like trying to raid while PvP specced. Unfortunately no pets have skills that can make up for lacking either of these; wolves, boars, and gorillas are not competitive.

That said, if your raid does need you to perform a gimmick role like off-tanking one of Moroes’ adds, then bring the appropriate pet. But that is not and never will be the optimal group, though if you can make it work and enjoy the company, then don’t be concerned. :)

Besides picking the right pet and giving it the right skills, you will also need to make sure it can survive. As stated earlier, armor isn’t much use because your pet won’t be taking much in the way of direct physical attacks. Instead, stamina is preferable, and the appropriate resistances for the bosses you’re expecting to face. Then just keep an eye out on your pet’s health, toss a Mend Pet preemptively and know when to pull your pet back.

Side note: Someone mentioned issues with pallies buffing pets. With recent changes pets are now included with certain classes for greater blessings. I’m not sure about all of them, but most seem to share greater blessings with warriors — although at least warp stalkers share greater blessings with paladins. Maybe that’s something Mania would like to figure out. :D

I know a lot of healers who would heal only the high health pets and just let the low health pets die simply because they knew they couldn’t keep up with the damage. While I would agree that a High DPS pet is very good for a raid, just expect that they’re going to die a lot simply because Healers can’t keep up with the damage they take.

As a Healer with a Hunter alt (I have one of every class), I’ve gone with pets who can take a beating and give a good amount of damage even if they aren’t the highest damage pet out there.

Mend Pet works even in the heat of battle, and is pretty much an instant cast. So if your pet does end up getting into things (either tanking or thrown into the thick of an AoE battle), you can throw a Mend Pet and at least help a little bit. Against many big bosses, it’s not going to do much, but even that one or two extra ticks is still one or two extra damage that goes toward the pet rather than a raid-mate. And as much as I adore the pet, we have the power to res them, where we *don’t* have the power to res the main tank. So sacrificing them is often part of the game.

Just remember: like any heal spell, it can also grab aggro, so make sure your MT has the attention of the scary mobs before you throw your quick mend pet. Otherwise you may find yourself staring down something very angry.