While you've mentioned two ways that may seem a bit extreme, I'd say that most of the acknowledged players keep levelling pets the classic way up to 19-20 lvl, keeping their stones for the several last levels (note that these require more experience and are also prone to "overtraining").
Myself, doing that (and adjusting the experience gathering to get the original level on its 0-20%!), I have 600+ universal training stones and two unused ultimate (purple) ones.
You can also keep in mind that if you level your pets on a non-max level character, that toon gets experience as long as your best pet is up to 5 levels above the battled ones.
The easiest way is just battling the 25s with a levelling pet and it also gives the best results for a player. Not very encouraging to visit the old areas!
Legion - Lowbie Pet Battling or Stones
Once Legion hits we'll have an unknown number of new level 1 pets. I know people have stashes of stones, but anyone else planning to check out lowbie pet battling? It was nice for getting some pet battle achievement marks and leveling pets up a bit. I'm going to pop into it and see if anyone's around for a tussle.
Re: Legion - Lowbie Pet Battling or Stones
I have compiled community knowledge & data about pet battle abilities!
https://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19507
Re: Legion - Lowbie Pet Battling or Stones
So you are saying no, you won't check out the lowbie battle Qs in Legion
I think you may have misunderstood me. I'm not interested in leveling myself (and only slightly in the pets) more in the lowbie pvp action. I find it more fun than razing crabs or Squirt so I never tried to grind all my pets to 25. That and I like questing (had old loremaster) I would find it horribly tedious to level myself from pet battling alone. /shudder
I think you may have misunderstood me. I'm not interested in leveling myself (and only slightly in the pets) more in the lowbie pvp action. I find it more fun than razing crabs or Squirt so I never tried to grind all my pets to 25. That and I like questing (had old loremaster) I would find it horribly tedious to level myself from pet battling alone. /shudder