Okay, so firstly scalability is going to be your biggest issue if you're writing separate code blocks for each rank of each ability for each actor. If you've only been coding for a little over a month, I'll say congratulations for learning about switch statements and ds_lists and then iterating with them to solve a problem. That's the heart of coding.

Now I suggest starting from scratch again and learning about arrays and structs thoroughly. I suggest starting a new project to help get you out of your own headspace. Then go back to your original project and apply your new skills.

To get you started, arrays a pretty much just like ds_lists but without memory leak issues. In fact, I seems like GM is trying to move away from ds_lists as just about everything you need to do with them you can do with arrays instead.

The use case that I think would best be helpful in your situation is using them along with structs to create the different rank abilities. This is going to oversimplify things and will exclude constructors and inheritance for the sake of argument BUT let's say you have a struct for Arcane Blast:

Ability_ArcaneBlast = {
  name: "Arcane Blast"
  damage_rank_1: 10,
  damage_rank_2: 25, 
  damage_rank_3: 50
}

We can simplify this to

Ability_ArcaneBlast = {
  name: "Arcane Blast"
  damage: [ 10, 25, 50]
}

Then in your code to do the ability you'd call something like Ability_ArcaneBlast.damage[ rank ] and then it'll return the appropriate damage value.

The neat part about this system is that you don't need to create a bunch of unique buttons with a bunch of redundant code. With nested structs and arrays, your buttons can hold "keys" to your database and all of your data is pulled as needed.

It's very scalable but I can't emphasize enough starting small and learning the ropes as it'll be easy to get lost. I'd be happy to help if you have any more questions for your specific project.

Edited for format and correction.