[General] whats the difference between those line damage spells

[PurrsandMlems]

i shall ask this out of curiosity.
are there any differences beyond object editor data for those three spells:
Carrion Swarm
Shockwave
Crushing Wave

the last one in particular seems to be simply reskinned Shockwave.

 

[Fleck]

i shall ask this out of curiosity.
are there any differences beyond object editor data for those three spells:
Carrion Swarm
Shockwave
Crushing Wave

the last one in particular seems to be simply reskinned Shockwave.

Shockwave does terrain deformation create a small but permanent leak, so having far too many of them may cause some performance issues.
Source: Things That Leak

So yeah it's better to use Carrion Swarm or Crushing Wave but these two skills also create special effect on units affected by these skills and you really can't remove unless you edit the original skills. To circumvent this special effect issue, you may consider using triggered versions of these skills. I recommend this resource: Shockwave/Carrion Swarm System v1.1

 

[Chaosium]

In terms of AI usage I believe they tend to cast Carrion Swarm more frequently than Shockwave

 

[nchp1903]

Breath of Frost is the best, since it can apply buffs and no terrain deformation. Crushing Wave is reskinned Carrion Swarm, yes, but the Art - Target can only be changed according to the vanilla Carrion Swarm if I remember correctly.

You can also refer to ScrewTheTrees's doc for A.I usage and stuff.