If you really want to maximize your charm solo efficiency there are 2 things you can do:
-Make your pet deal more damage
-Make your pet take more damage
Fear kiting is counterproductive: you could have 2 mobs killed for the mana and time it takes to kill 1, as long as you can control mob HP. This is easier somewhere like TD raptors or Perma bear pits (my experience is mostly those 2 places) where mobs are close to each other in damage and HP. At lower levels in OT or TT you might need to adjust your style, I quadded pre-Kunark through those levels.
So, a rundown of the best way to maximize your charm soloing exp:
-You want to kill as many mobs as possible in the time it takes for a repop, without using an unsustainable amount of mana. Given the vagaries of charm breaks and resists, this is going to require you to med out a pop on some cycles. This is OK as long as you aren't doing it too often (once every 3-4 cycles tops). Just try to never sit at full mana unless your pet is buffed and killing something.
-If you use Savage Spirit and Shield of Thorns you should be able to buff a pet just enough to have it kill 2 identical mobs (in the case of TD, buff a Vicious and use it against regular Raptors) with under 5% left at the end. Gauge the two mobs' HP as the fight progresses and use ES Vambs or a Lumi Staff to get the target mob lower if necessary due to randomness of melee; you want the first mob to die when your pet is between 50% and 55%. Keep Ensnare on your charmed pet as a safety (lets you med more and run around less, pays for itself) and pull targets to it using Flame Lick or Glamour of Tunare, then root when the target is close. That's all you should need to get a kill.
-Use Hide, a Gazughi Ring (if you're rich) or Camo to break charm when your pet falls below 5%. If you root the target mob (which you should) you can use the Pet Back button to get it out of range just before it dies; judicious use of the Pet Guard and Pet Back button can also let the target mob hurt your pet a little more if it's going to survive with >10% hp when the target dies. Use ES Vambs or Lumi to finish off the target and the pet. You can usually begin your next pull as the ES Vambs dot is finishing off the previous mobs, speeding up your overall killing. I keep Breath of Ro up to finish off pets that survive with >10%, it's more effective than having a hasted mob take a chunk out of the next mob you charm.
-In situations where a 2v1 is not possible you can use a charmed pet 1v1 without Savage Spirit or Thorns and med back a little mana, but since this lowers the overall DPS being done by both mobs you want to avoid it. There are a few pulls in Perma you can't help but do 1v1 due to pathing bugs, and if you're sharing raptors you may have to do a 1v1 now and then.
-You could use the dagger method mentioned above to push DPS higher but I can't imagine doing that for any sustainable amount of time before it drove me crazy. It might let you take a single buffed pet through 3 mobs in one go, though.
This charm-tank method is far more efficient than charm-fear kiting because it effectively increases the DPS you do by 50%, allowing you to fit more kills into a pop cycle. Once you have the method down you can clear 9 pops on the big raptor isle in the ~15 minutes it takes for one to repop and die again. Prior to the big nerf to charm breaks a few months ago I was only getting 6 per cycle tops using fear and a single buffed Vicious pet.
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