healer-man/docs/WOW_GCD_CATEGORIES_2026-10-09.md

WoW rank-specific global cooldown categories

Shared source issue #3 owns this combat correction. Native integration belongs to Codex/healer-man-godot#114.

Imported rank identity

scripts/generate-wow335-abilities.mjs imports Spell.dbc StartRecoveryCategory alongside StartRecoveryTime. The expanded 239-field local enUS layout shifts semantic fields 205/206 to raw columns 211/212. The extracted DBC SHA-256 is 9f0088da35c5ed0b5106cd20e422611489e435b74043e520e02221e0ce1b1af1. The additive import joins all 2,229 selected learned rank IDs with no missing rows and preserves every original generated value and byte after removing only the inserted gcdCategoryId fields. This is an additive metadata import, not a regeneration of spell effects, costs, stats or equipment.

wow335AbilityCatalog.ts maps the category into every rank and initial ability; abilityCatalog.ts selects gcdCategoryId with the learned rank's spell ID, time and effects. Devotion Aura 48941 is category 38/time 1500 at levels 74–78; 48942 is category 133/time 1500 from level 79 through 80. Categories are not derived from name, character level or the first rank of the chain.

Combat ownership

wowGlobalCooldown.ts owns matching-category admission and timer creation. Player state, PartyMember and CombatActorState carry optional globalCooldownEndsByCategory keyed by decimal category string. For WoW, globalCooldownEndsAt is the category-133 projection. Starting category 38 or 0 preserves the independent category-133 scalar and timer.

An exact category is checked even when the attempted spell's own duration is zero. A zero-duration action creates no timer. Explicit category 0 is a real key: a positive-duration fixture starts key "0" and other categories remain available. None of the current 2,229 learned rows has positive duration in category 0, so ordinary learned category-0 actions continue working during category 133. Legacy entries lacking a category use 133 when duration is positive; a missing-category zero-duration entry retains its bypass.

Player castAbility and party readiness/commit call the same helper. Cast completion and Sudden Doom's internal free Death Coil keep their existing execution exemptions. Actor authority adapters carry category maps in both directions; initialization, reset and native player switches preserve actor ownership. NPC next-action scheduling remains its existing rotation cadence.

Raw WoW durations below 1000 ms remain unchanged, including five 500 ms Shadowfury rows and Backdraft/party haste paths. Positive non-133 WoW timers retain their raw duration. Ordinary category-133 timers retain their existing haste policy and one-second floor. Runewaker/RoM timing remains scalar-only; this change does not merge stat formulas, allocation, gear pools or rigs.

The matching-category behavior follows the pinned primary AzerothCore category manager and Spell admission/creation. This is category policy evidence; complete original-client hit tables, spell-attribute haste parity and companion rotation parity remain separate.

Validation and publication

Focused regressions live in src/game/wowGlobalCooldown.test.ts. They include exact rank selection and public source character initialization/casting. Native evidence covers the public Ready Discipline cast path and separately labeled category-38/133/0 UI fixtures. The offline native diagnostic profile catalog currently fixes its characters at level 80, so its GPU fixture is not a live level-74 profile claim or additional Paladin certification. Balance certification remains the existing five Ready WoW specializations.

The published source checkout and installed mirror's combatStore/partyRuntime are equal after CRLF normalization. The native byte-guard manifest instead patches the exact pre-114 installed mirror and preserves its mixed line endings. Native source pins identify installed bytes, not a claim that source Git HEAD alone recreates every asset/export in the native installation. See the owning issues for final commands, validation counts, evidence and review status.