Cast Time, etc

Well, I'm trying to make various abilities with a cast time before they go off, with the unit doing things during the cast time.

-Normal Cast Time will make the unit just stand in place boringly, not allow for animations, and not fire the EVENT_PLAYER_UNIT_SPELL_CAST event.

-Channel's follow through time or any Channeling spell (eg. blizzard) will fire the EVENT_PLAYER_UNIT_SPELL_FINISH event when you cancel it.

is there any happy median between these two, or does it have to be simulated with triggers?