custom abilities, which way is more efficient?

on the map project im working on, i have many custom abilities and also many stock abilities with modified stats. my question is, is it better to EDIT the original abilities or CREATE a new one?

All abilities you make are based off another ability. You can not FULLY create a new ability, but simply edit all the values of a pevious one to get to do what you want. You can do some nifty things and wacky things using triggers with your spells.

I think you could create any sort of spell using channle and trigger the unit-damage unit/area action helps alot in this.

i can see why people didnt understand me ^_^ my wording is kinda messed up.

im asking, i have a skill that's a modified metamorphesis, it is better to EDIT the original skill or CREATE a new one with metamorphesis as the base ability. does it make any difference at all in terms of loading and etc if i edit 50 base abilities or create 50 new entries?

I'm not sure but I would just edit the original because copying/editing a ability willl increase the size of your map. Also I dont think it would effect loading time. The first time the spell is used in the map it would then load the spell data (like when casting a complex spell for the first time you may have some lag on slower machines).

When you copy an ability, it doesn't automatically make your mapsize bigger, and anyway, spell data is insignificant compared to custom art, so it has no considerable performance effect. I prefer to leave the original abilities as they were: it's easier to find custom abilities in the editor if they are all in one place.

I kinda jump between creating/modifying. Usually i create custom ones , sometimes when i'm in more of a hurry i just use the original.

As for the loading times and map size, i'm not too sure about this. But i doubt it truly matters. It seems like custom art and triggers add the most to a map. Art leads by a large amount. As for triggers My map size has nearly doubled in the last week or two, and i've only been working on triggers since then.

Overall, it probably doesn't matter. You shouldn't need to worry about it too much.

OK, well I'm just going to explain something that is believe it says in the help file, or somewhere else on this site. Creating a new ability based off of an old ability does not increase load time, unless you've piled up at least 1000 custom abilities, then you might notice a difference.

The thing is, that whenever you edit an ability's proporty, it changes pinkish. This is the only value, other than the type of spell, that the game saves data for. So for most spells, you will only be adding on a few bytes, not nearly enough to see a diffence in any computer. The same thing for editing a pre-existing spell. It saves only what you change.

I mean imagine this. You and your friend both install Warcraft III. They go on battle.net and both get the same updates. Is there anypoint in saving the default data of spells and units, when both of you already have it coded into the game? The game looks to see if the spell field is changed, and when it comes back negitive, it uses the default value.

This is why, in my opinion, it's best to create new abilities, so that they go in a custom folder. Then you can do things like organize spells by human/orc if the spells are for Players/ Computers or anything like that. Another example Human/Orc can be for Timmy/Bobo heros, or just human/orc can be for human/orc.

I create new abilities 100% of the time. If I want to use the original ability, I can go back and use it.

More custom entries slows loading process of the map, however if you use pitzers new tool to convert those entries into slk (and you only use the custom entries in your map), you cna have a significant reduction in the loading time.

Imo its better to create new custom entries then replacing oldone, just for reference note