I am pausing my SKScene using the following code:
self.paused = YES;
However, according to this answer by Andrey Gordeev, one can also pause a
The effect is the same. You still have the paused property on the scene because it's a subclass of SKNode and the scene may need to be paused during transitions, either through the SKView setting that controls whether scenes are paused during transitions or manually.
I would wager that pausing the view would also be able to "freeze" a currently running transition, which is about the only thing you can't pause by pausing the scene(s) alone.
Therefore pausing the view may also pause all internal timers and draw calls, so a paused view may be better to conserve battery, though that's a guess based on how cocos2d handles a paused director vs paused scene.