Cast bars, interrupts, and the first two classes

The cast bar is in. Cast times are server-authoritative. Interrupted casts lock the spell school for a few seconds, and casts cancel mid-channel when the target breaks line of sight or moves out of range.

Two classes, two playstyles

Swashbuckler pressures in melee, builds rage as it swings, and the build punishes you for stepping out of range. Spellslinger controls space from range, cast-locks threats, and burns through mana faster than it regenerates during a fight. They share zero core abilities.

Buffs, debuffs, and CC

The buff system shipped at the same time. DoTs tick. HoTs heal. Crowd control runs on proper diminishing returns out of the box, so the second hard CC on the same target lasts half as long. Nullify locks the caster out of the spell school they were channelling.

The simulation suite we wrote alongside spits out raw numbers on which abilities are landing the way we wanted and which are not. We are leaning on it heavily already.