Ability System

Expert guidance for building flexible, extensible ability systems.

NEVER Do

NEVER use _process() for cooldown tracking — Use timers or manual delta tracking in _physics_process(). _process() has variable delta and causes cooldown desync in slow frames.
NEVER forget global cooldown (GCD) — Without GCD, players spam instant abilities. Add a small universal cooldown (0.5-1.5s) between all ability casts.
NEVER hardcode ability effects in manager code — Use the Strategy pattern. Each ability is a Resource with execute() method, not a giant switch statement.
NEVER allow ability use during animation lock — Check is_casting or animation_playing before allowing new casts. Interrupting animations breaks state machines.
NEVER save cooldown state without time normalization — Save "cooldown_end_time" (OS.get_unix_time() + remaining), not "remaining_time". Prevents exploits (change system clock, reload game).
NEVER use Singletons (Autoloads) for combat managers — Centralizing combat state in a global object makes tracking bugs difficult and breaks encapsulation. Keep abilities and stats scoped to the scenes that actually use them.
NEVER use Object Pooling with GDScript — GDScript uses reference counting memory management, so you generally do not need to pool instantiated abilities or projectiles. Simply instantiate and queue_free().
NEVER rely on deep inheritance trees — Avoid having a BaseAbility -> MagicAbility -> FireAbility inheritance hell. Use node composition instead.