"In that case, however, there might be another problem - a player has to regularly break the game flow to get into the menu and select another ability. I personally find the idea of switching from one ability to another very compelling if there's a fun way to do it on the fly during combat."
Yes, this. I was thinking about your feedback and an idea occurred to me, maybe I can increase the slots for abilities/spells so that player can quick change them without going into the menu. So you`ll have your two spells equipped and say a secondary quick slot on each spell that you can quickly switch to, this way there would be potentially 4 spells you can access.
I want the player to use as many spells as possible, this way I can do some awesome ones (I don't know if you used hyperspeed for example) without fear of them breaking the game, since they have a limited uses. BTW spells don't have cool-downs, unless the spell is actively running (i.e. the ones that have an effect on player for a certain amount of time) as soon as the animation is finished you can cast them again immediately, uses, mana and life are the limiting factors.
I'm also improving the tutorial area to show players can:
a- Jump in mid air, no need to be on the ground
b-chain dashes and jumps to reach very far away platforms (ie dash, jump, dash, jump, dash, jump, dash, dash)