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Every unit has unique cast animations for each their spell. The cast animation of a spell starts playing as soon as a target for the spell is chosen, if it requires one, or its hotkey is pressed, if it does not require a target. This animations are not bound to spells, but to the ability slots of each unit and hero. The length of the animations vary for each spell as each of them are unique, made for the spell the unit usually has in the slot the animation is bound to. Although "cast animation" only sounds like a visual part of the game, it does have a mechanical influence on the gameplay.

Every spell takes a certain time the casting unit has to go through in order to successfully apply the effects of the spell. This time is commonly known as cast point or cast time. This cast time is set for each spell individually and has nothing directly to do with the visual animation of the spells. However, since the animation starts playing immediatly, it indicates the cast point of spells.

In almost every case, the length of cast animations exceed the cast point of spells. Upon reaching the cast point, the animation does not stop immediatly, but continues playing. For most spells, the unit still stands still during this part of the animation. This is commonly known as cast backswing.

Cast point
All spells require the casting unit to spend a certain amount time before the spell's effects are applied. This time window is known as cast point or cast time. Only once the unit reaches this point, the spell takes effect. The length of the cast time can vary heavily and is set for each spell individually. But usually, a unit's spells share the same cast point.

An ability only applies its effects, goes on cooldown and expends mana when the casting unit successfully reaches the cast point of the spell. This means when the unit gets interrupted by disables before reaching the cast point of the spell, the cast gets canceled, the spell's effects do not get applied, it won't go into cooldown and not draw mana. The player also can manually stop the spell cast by issuing a stop or halt command. When the spell cast gets interrupted during the cast time, the visual cast animation ends as well.

Cast backswing
The part of the animation which still plays after a unit reached its spell's cast point is referred as backswing animation. This part of the animation has no impact on the cast spell, so canceling it has no negative effects. Infact, canceling the backswing has benifits for the player, as it allows the unit to perform orders quicker. The player can cancel the backswing by issuing any order to the unit during the backswing. Disables, including silence, will cancel it as well. However, queued orders do not cancel it. If orders are queued, the next order will be executed after the backswing finishes.

Since the backswing is the part of animations after reaching the cast point, the length of it depends on how long the animation takes. For example if the entire animation of a spell takes 1 second, and the spell's cast point is at 0.3, the backswing will take 0.7 seconds. But if this spell's cast point would get increased to for example 0.6 seconds, the backswing would take 0.4 seconds, since the entire animation still takes 1 second. This leads to various different backswing durations, especially when a unit has multiple spells with differing cast times.

As mentioned earlier. The animations are bound to units, and cast points are bound to spells. As an example, uses the same visual animation (which has a length of 1.1 seconds) for all spells he gains through. This means if he uses for example the ability (which has a cast point of 0.5) from the Harpy Stormcrafter, the cast backswing takes 0.6 seconds. However, the Harpy Stormcrafter animation for its Chain Lightning has a of 0.97 seconds, so its backswing for it takes 0.47 seconds. Now when steals the Chain Lightning spell from Doom with  and then casts it, the backswing will take 1.07, since Rubick uses no cast time for stolen spells and the animation he uses lasts for 1.07 seconds.

This goes for every animation and ability. But since Ability Draft is the only game mode where abilities can have a different slot or be on different heroes, this only matters in that game mode. In all other game modes, it only matters for Doom and Rubick, since they are the only 2 heroes which can acquire spells of other units.

There are many abilities which are set to ignore backswing animations. In these cases, the animation will still play after raching the cast point, but the unit can freely move and act during that.

Instant cast
Quite a few spells have an instant cast time, meaning their effects are instantly applied as soon as the spell hotkey is pressed or a target is chosen for the spell. Some of these instant cast spells do not interfere with any other action the unit take. This means that they can be cast while channeling a spell without interrupting the channeling.

Only spells which require no targeting at all may not interrupt channeling spells upon cast. If a targeted spell (be it unit, ground or area targeted) has an instant cast time, it will interrupt channeling spells. As for spells which require no target, there is no set rule for which of them doesn't interrupt and which does, but most of the time, if the spell ignores backswing animation, it also does not interrupt channeling spells.

All toggle abilities fall under this category. Toggle abilities never use a cast time and cast backswing and do not interrupt channeling spells when toggled.

Channeled abilities
Just like with most other spells, a unit starts channeling a spell after having reached the spell's cast point. If the unit is interrupted before reaching the cast point, the spell does not start channeling and does not go into cooldown and use mana. Only after having reached the cast point, a channeling spell goes on cooldown and draws the mana. When a unit gets interrupted during the channeling, the channeling stops.

Item abilities
Item abilities are always cast instantly once their hotkey is pressed or a target is chosen. They never have a cast point or cast backswing.Also, just like regular instant castable abilities, some items which do not require a target do not interrupt channeling spells upon using.