Anomalocaris

I actually had my first adjutant tutelage occur yesterday. Shez taught Dark Spikes Tau to Marianne. On the first use. Guess I got lucky. On the subject of dark magic, can anybody actually learn Quake Sigma, or is it still exclusive to Thales?

Yes, it's just the way the game handles that particular character. For what it's worth, there's a surprising amount of unused battle lines in the game for Thales, Cornelia, Solon, and Kronya that only make sense if they were intended to be playable; lines for being given orders on the battlefield, partnering up, racking up KO milestones, and other things. More than any other NPC characters besides obviously the Forbidden Five. It's a group of four rather than a group of three like the placeholders suggest, but I wouldn't be surprised if we got some kind of villainous TWSITD campaign or something.

Thanks, that's good to know.

On the topic of combat arts and spells, if anybody knows the durability costs at levels 1, 2, and 3 for each one, that'd be useful to have. I only have a scant few listed.

Yeah, I'm noticing that too. Well, still good to know which units can teach them.

I should probably rework the tutelage section to list who can pass down which arts/spells, now that we know it seems to be a character-by-character basis.

The five missing characters (Hanneman, Alois, Gilbert, Cyril, and Anna) have almost-complete character data and can even be added to your roster via hacking. Whether they're planned to be added in an update or are just leftovers from porting over Three Houses' character data is unknown. There's also three placeholder slots (currently occupied by three male Byleth clones) that are probably reserved for actual new DLC characters. Curiously, the roster order places them between two of the NG+ units. Edit: Link to the hacked roster; note that there's spoilers for bonus units here.

I outlined it on the wiki, but:

I think people are just conflating it with Crimson Flower, not realizing the color part of the name changed too. Doesn't help that Azure Gleam kept the "Azure" from Azure Moon.

If you do, can you confirm for us what chapter he unlocks for you? Azure Gleam's final route-exclusive character (Catherine) doesn't join until Chapter 9, so assuming you recruited everybody else at some point you'd get Gatekeeper after Chapter 9 if our theory is correct.

I just found a very unusual quirk in the game's model viewer while scrolling through all of Hilda's class options, and did some further testing. Not sure if it applies in-game, but it applies in the model viewer at least: Normally, characters are allowed to retain their personal outfits as long as they're in infantry classes. However, some characters seem to get forced into generic classwear even if it should logically be allowed: specifically, if you try to put certain female characters (Academy-phase Dorothea, Petra, Mercedes, and Hapi, and both versions of Hilda) into classes that stand in a potentially-revealing pose (Noticed it with Soldier, Thief, and Assassin, could be others I haven't used yet), it forces them into the generic classwear. This only happens with those five characters as far as I can tell, and only in those class/phase combinations, so I have to assume it's an intentional preventative measure against anybody trying to get upskirt angles, though I don't think the limited camera control would allow that anyway. Curiously, it doesn't apply to Soldier Leonie. Possibly because it's her starting class and they didn't want to prevent her from using her Academy outfit during the Prologue?

I think you've misunderstood how it works. All of the weapon prowess skills are worth one level each; learning them more than once is how you level it up to 2 and 3. So to reach Sword Prowess Lv3, you need to learn the Sword Prowess skills from Myrmidon, Mercenary, and Thief. That's three separate instances of the skill, which combine together into Lv3. My Felix has done so and has Sword Prowess Lv3, whereas units who only went through one path are at Lv2.

Pretty sure it's from Myrmidon, Mercenary, and Thief.

Oh, that's all? Guess I expected something more.

I've started my second playthrough, this time doing Golden Wildfire, and noticed something odd. Claude has a listed support with Dimitri. Now, I don't know the full details of Golden Wildfire, but I assume you can't actually recruit Dimitri. Are there support conversations exclusive to character combinations only possible on NG+?

I forgot to mention this when I detailed what I'd want from a proper Free-Play Mode, but yeah. Being able to freely switch genders (or even names) once the story is finished would be nice.

Valkyrie was my least favorite of the four Abyss classes because of how redundant it was with Dark/Holy Knight, but I'd really like it back now because of how Dark/Holy Knight were made lance classes here instead of tome classes. We don't have a proper mounted tome class now.

Standing theory is he unlocks once you've unlocked every other character at some point, which for Scarlet Blaze or Golden Wildfire players would be when Monica/Manuela or Holst joins during Chapter 4. The only real way to test this for sure is if somebody does Azure Gleam as their third and final route, in which case they wouldn't get Gatekeeper until recruiting Catherine in Chapter 9. If he joins earlier than that, then we know it's something else. I did Azure Gleam as my first route so it can't be me, haha.

Yeah, it's even more dumb here I think, since you're locking entire gameplay styles behind gender-locks, not just a bunch of numbers and stats. The more I think about it, the more I think the best solution is an update that adds a new node to the Tactics Instructor that makes gender-locked classes available on the unit. Something like "transcend the gender barrier and learn how to ride a pegasus/cast fancy magic as a male, or punch stuff/cast dark magic as a female" lol. I wouldn't mind having to spend gold at the Tactics Instructor for it, that'd turn it from a pointless, absolute restriction into just unlocking new classes, at least.

With how many conversations he's mentioned in after being completely unheard of back in Three Houses, I think they are actually setting him up as a future DLC character. Even him being a bard could be setting up a Bard class that comes with him, like how the Ashen Wolves each brought a new class with them.

While removing gender-locks would be a far more preferable solution (maybe a purchaseable upgrade from the Tactics Instructor?), I just wanna point out that even if War Cleric were the only female Gauntlet class you could still make it work; just make it so that while male units in War Monk only learn a few new abilities and Combat Arts, female units in War Cleric learn a whole bunch of them at each interval, including all three tiers of Gauntlet Proficiency and other things related to the Brawler/Grappler/War Master line. It would be pretty exaggerated, but class learnsets are personalized for each unit and there is precedent for learning more than one ability/CA at a Class level-up.

I gave each of my characters an "alternate" classline on my first playthrough, in addition to their preferred class. Shez: Fluegel/Brawler Dimitri: High Lord/Swordmaster Dedue: Armored Knight/Brawler Felix: Swordmaster/Thief (He's the only one using two classes of the same weapon type) Sylvain: Holy Knight/Dark Mage Annette: Mage/Brigand Mercedes: Priest/Archer Ingrid: Pegasus Knight/Swordmaster Rodrigue: Holy Knight/Priest Yuri: Thief/Archer Balthus: Brawler/Mage Constance: Mage/Dancer Hapi: Mage/Armored Knight Seteth: Wyvern Rider/Holy Knight Flayn: Priest/Dark Knight Catherine: Swordmaster/Wyvern Rider Shamir: Archer/Thief Jeritza: Death Knight/Mage Spoiler character: Brawler Other spoiler character who joins alongside the first: Dancer (lol) For the out-of-house recruits I deliberately avoided raising them in their preferred classes, so I could "save" those classes for their native routes. Linhardt: Dark Knight Bernadetta: Thief Dorothea: Dark Knight Petra: Pegasus Knight Lorenz: Dark Mage Ignatz: Brawler Raphael: Armored Knight Marianne: Pegasus Knight Side note, for anybody playing Azure Gleam, I recommend side-classing Annette as an axe class. Besides obviously allowing her to use Crusher, her Paralogue actually seems to assume you've done so, because her side of the map is filled with nothing but lance enemies.

Lorenz, Raphael, Ignatz, and Marianne are recruitable on Azure Gleam. I've added them.

Looking into Combat Art tutelage and noticed something odd. Shez has the speech bubble indicating valid teachable Combat Art on Windsweep and Mortal Struggle, but Dimitri (who has level 3 in those as well) does not. I can't think of any reason that would be unless CA tutelage is on a character-by-character basis instead of anybody being able to teach anybody else...

So aside from new classes and characters, I think the thing I'd most want to see as an update (preferably free) would be a proper Free-Play Mode. The way I envision it working is: Unlocks once you've cleared your first route (or maybe all three routes?), and can be accessed when starting a new game on that file. Choosing that takes you to a special version of the base camp where every character you've ever recruited is available and can be interacted with (even if it doesn't make sense, like having Edelgard and Rhea in the same camp). Every character can be trained, given gifts, taken on expeditions, assigned chores, or fed food. The mode plays as Casual Mode by default, or at least offers you a way to resurrect dead characters so you aren't stuck unable to use your full roster. The regular shop's stock of items is now infinite. Anna's secret shop is still finite, but can be replenished. In addition to replaying story battles at the Records Keeper, the War Map has been replaced with a mode that offers you randomly-generated missions. Any character can show up as an enemy or ally on these maps, even characters in your playable roster or minor NPCs like Ladislava, Acheron, or Count Varley. Some missions are similar to the giant monster missions that sometimes appeared on the War Map. In addition to standard rewards such as weapons and minerals, many battles also offer replenished Training Points, Activity Points, or Anna's shop supply as rewards, allowing those features to be used indefinitely. You may exit the mode at any time and start a new story playthrough.