Oh, You should definitely try using meshes.
It’s very simple actually. The main thing is to start. This will not only open up a lot of possibilities for you in terms of functionality, but will help with the optimization of effects.
And as for the destruction, I myself do not understand much about it. I just used some Chaos to create the ground breaking animation. If you want to use Houdini for this, they have a page on artstation with tons of detailed tutorials to help you figure it out. ArtStation - SideFX Labs