Pet upgrading

[Nabulous]

Hi all, just a question about upgrading pets with battle stones really.
All this while I've been upgrading all my cageable pets with flawless stones.
I'm now upgrading all non cageables in the same way but I was told I shouldn't. Is there any reason why not?
Also the BoA flawless stones, I was told these are tradeable but how can they be if they are bound to my account?
Cheers
Nab

[Quintessence]

I'm guessing that whoever recommended not battle-stoning "non-cageable" pets meant wild pets, since you can technically farm for a rare version of most of them.

I don't see any reason why you wouldn't use a battle-stone on non-wild non-cageable pets, though. In fact, I would upgrade those first since they can't be traded, and therefore can't be upgraded using someone else's stones.

Which leads to the next point, you can trade BoA/BoP stones by caging a pet, trading it to someone that has a family-specific stone, have them learn that pet and then use their stone to upgrade it. They would then cage it and trade it back to you.

[Azrile]

Maybe you were given general advice.. yes, it is better to use your pet stones on non-wild pets since there is no way to get a rare version of them. Better to use your pet stones on them first.

But after you have all the non-wild pets raised to rare, and you still have family stones left.. it is a decision on if you want to upgrade a wild pet of that family, or save the family stones(3) to trade in for a different family stone(1) when 5.4 launches ( 3 to 1 ratio).

I decide based on the annoyance of the wild pet to find. For instance, Unborn Valkre, Minfernal, Crow and a few others are so difficult to find in the ´wild´ that for me at least, it is a no-brainer to use a stone of them, even though you are technically able to catch a rare version of them. There was also a rabbit from Hillsbred that I just saw so rarely that I ´wasted´ a stone on it just to spare my the aggrevation of camping it. I guess everyone has a different pain tolerance when it comes to how much time they will spend camping for a rare wild pet. Mine is pretty low since battle-stones are coming pretty fast, about 2-3 a day.

[Livingdeath]

I decide based on the annoyance of the wild pet to find. For instance, Unborn Valkre, Minfernal, Crow and a few others are so difficult to find in the ´wild´ that for me at least, it is a no-brainer to use a stone of them, even though you are technically able to catch a rare version of them. There was also a rabbit from Hillsbred that I just saw so rarely that I ´wasted´ a stone on it just to spare my the aggrevation of camping it. I guess everyone has a different pain tolerance when it comes to how much time they will spend camping for a rare wild pet. Mine is pretty low since battle-stones are coming pretty fast, about 2-3 a day.

I 100% agree with this. I stoned certain pets that were difficult to come by, mainly due to low spawn rate or just difficulty finding a rare. The Minfernal, Unborn Valkre, Bananas, Biletoad, Snowshoe Hare, & Larva were all the worst to find rares for, so I always had a stone waiting while farming for one.

Some things about BoA stones... Truth be told, I don't like using those at all because they are pretty valuable and can be useful in trades. If I do have to use them, I really don't like using those for anything besides the following pet families;

Beast
Flying
Critters
All "other" pet families

Specifically in that order. Those are the pet families that are difficult to finish stoning just because there are a lot of uncommons for those families. By the "end-game" of the leveling/quality upgrading, you'll have tons of stones for all the other pet families.

I do all the trainers in Pandaria daily and ever since they buffed up the rare stone drop-rate, I've been doing pretty well (before that, not so much).

To give you an idea of timing, of the unique pets I have to level at the moment, I don't have any that are below level 22. I'll be finished soonish, most likely the day before 5.4 hits because that's my luck, lol. I finished upgrading all my "other" pet families about 3 months ago. I amassed 30-40 pet stones for those various pet families that I gave my friend. After that I amassed another 75 stones for various families that are in my bank right now. I finished upgrading my critters about 3 weeks ago. And I finished upgrading my beasts a couple days ago. Right now I need 1 flying stone to finish upgrading my collection and I could use one of my BoA stones for that, but I'm patient and rather save those. I am still a few weeks away from max leveling my collection and I know I'll get a few flying stones before then.