You can skip animation by mashing the space bar. when you do this your character is already standing there waiting to buff and for the timer. So far I am able to pull people out of stealth because you see them disappear than you land an AOE in the general area and make them resurface. Not too sure about the rest, my ability that cancels other ability’s with casting timers is instance so it would be hard to fake out with half way casting an ability than stopping hoping I wasted it. I think as we adjust to the game we'll get use to the mechanics, I came from Aion not WoW and any game with a PVP stat like WoW and this is not a real PVP game anyways. Needing a stat for playing against other players is a retarded idea Bliz came up with to be lazy, and it gets copied because Bliz is rich. I am however, pleased with the degree of balance at launch in the classes, Troopers and BH seem to be the big classes atm, but not enough to dominate.