I haven’t raided since February. But I’ve done some heroics and testing/spreadsheeting.

Best Pet?: Elitist Jerks says Raptors (yay!) at very high gear levels. Wolves & Devilsaurs are testing out to be slightly higher for me in my ToC duds. By “slightly higher” I mean “about 20 DPS fully raid buffed”, whether or not that’s worth it for you is up to you.

Shot Rotation? Again, going by very high gear levels, Elitist Jerks says you can drop Arcane Shot. Spreadsheet tells me I can’t yet. Praise the light, I hate dropping shots, it makes me bored out of my mind.

Spec? I am still 53/11/7. I tried playing around with dropping Survival Instincts in favor of more points in Mortal Shots but the difference is minuscule (less than 10 DPS, fully raidbuffed). It might be worth a shot if you are better geared, however.

Is BM “viable” yet? Ah yes, that word with the nebulous definitions that people love to toss around. Ultimately this one comes down to you, what you are doing, and what your personal standards/opinions are, but I can tell you two things for sure:

One, Elitist Jerks says that at high gear levels the difference between BM and SV is now very minimal. Both lag noticeably behind MM, however.

Two, if I can pull this off on a single-target boss fight in a heroic as BM in oldschool ToC gear & freaking blue ammo:

…then anyone who makes fun of you for being BM in a heroic is, quite honestly, out of their looney little mind. And yes, you can tell them I said so.