Pet Charm Efficiency

[Terloch]

Has anyone number crunched and found out where the sweet spots are (or if they exist) for using Pet Charms to buy the random stone packs, and/or to buy the rare upgrade stones instead? I've seen the commentary about using the stones for only levels 22-25 on pets that are leveled up, but I wonder if there was any other discussion on how to best use Pet Charms the most efficiently for both growing your overall levels and increasing your rare counts.

[Gahtmilch]

Leveling pets up until 20 requires, at most, winning three 3-opponent (L23-L25) battles per level without buffs (far fewer if you are leveling up using trainers). Every level after that requires a fraction more experience than the last. Assuming all pets are equal in a given discussion, L25, L24, and L23 (in that order) gain the most return for the stones being used to a player with a suitable stable of higher level pets. Any stone used after level 17 is 2-5 less battles required to level that pet (increasing as the level number gets higher).

A new battler, just starting out, however, might find better use for the same stones by leveling a "power pet" as quickly as possible, or getting a few pets to L5 to get a better start on the "core team". Once you have a core team that you can use to capture wild pets reliably, the first statement reasserts itself.

Using the upgrade stones only matters if the affected pet is actively being used to battle. Upgrades in rarity just increase battle stats, so if that particular pet is not being used to actively battle, then having improved stats is meaningless outside of the odd rarity achievements.

I think most battlers (myself included) prioritize using rarity stones on pets that are a pain to acquire or are not available in "blue" rarity to begin with. Once you start building a surplus of upgrade stones via dailies (or menagerie), then you go back and start stoning the ones you are too lazy to hunt for in the field. Otherwise, you just hunt for "upgrade rares" while waiting for raids to start or between quest hubs.

-Gaht

[Graven]

Obviously it's far more "efficient" to use the charms to buy rare stones, as they are much harder to come by than the 3-5 levels those charms would buy if you spent them on level stones. However it all depends on your other sources of stones. If you only ever do wild battles and garrison dailies, you won't get many rare stones and will probably have to buy them. On the other hand, if you do the "bag" tamers each day you will eventually have more than enough and will have to start using them on duplicates. There isn't really a sweet spot, as it all depends on your own collection.

As you mention the random bags though, there is definitely a point where it becomes pointless buying them as opposed to the flawless level stones. I figured it out like this - it's pretty rough but you get the idea.
If we say each bag contains an average 1.3 stones, that means each 1 charm buys 0.65 levels.
The flawless stone is 3 charms for 1 level, so your 1 charm here buys you 0.33 levels.
So, assuming you have no families fully upgraded, you get around twice the value if you buy the random bags. This will obviously decrease as you start getting to the point where some stone types are useless, but as long as you can use stones for more than 5 of the 10 families it should still be worth it.

[Shakesbeard]

maybe you have a lot more charms than i do, but remember that 6.2 patch on june 22 has 4 pets to buy with charms, and some pet toys. [url=http://blizzardwatch.com/2015/06/17/new-battle-pets-patch-6-2-find/]the 4 pets are 400 charms total[/url]. the toys are 650 charms total.

there are 15 legendary pets that reward charms tho, so maybe charms will be easier to get after the patch.

[Terloch]

I can grind out 60+ charms a day when I actually do my Draenor dailies as well as my pet dailies on each 100 toon that I have, so getting them is honestly not that big of a deal.

[Formerruling]

Time investment wise it is better now to catch wild pets any rarity (just look for breed that's OK with you) and just stone it to rare. There is absolutely no reason to grind a pet til a rare appears anymore outside of just being a purist.

[Icecreams]

1 main+ 10 alts = more than 11k charm in bag =D

[Terloch]

Hooooooly crap that's insane, 11k charms? do you have a bank alt just for charms?