Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes Innate Abilities: How to unlock the secret skills

Innate Abilities are a secret feature in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes that you may have never heard of unless you have extensively browsed information about the game on the internet. These are not related to Unique Abilities that are inherent to each playable character and are widely visible on their tutorial notes.

Innate Abilities would not even be mentioned at all until you do stumble into one of them. Once you do, it will be included in the character's equipable ability lineup just like any other regular abilities. This guide will help you find the following:

How to obtain Innate Abilities in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

A character's innate ability is unlocked by mastering (three-starring) a Master-tier class outside of their preferred line. But as mentioned above, none of the visible menus in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes would show any hints for obtaining Innate Abilities. Even when you are viewing a character's learnset for the correct class, it still would only show combat arts and regular abilities that can be learned like in any other classes.

We've found out that the original Fire Emblem: Three Houses SRPG holds the key to clues on determining the innate ability class for many characters in this action spin-off. There is a good correlation between Three Houses' Budding Talents and the innate abilities in this game. For example, Ferdinand and Hilda had a Heavy Armor budding talent in Three Houses, and both of them learn the same innate ability by going all the way through the Armored Knight line in Three Hopes.

But while every recruitable character in this game has an innate ability hidden in one of the classes, not all of them had a budding talent in the original Three Houses. Another exception also applies to Constance, who had a Brawling talent in Three Houses but that could not be translated in Three Hopes as female characters do not have a gauntlet-based Master class here. And not to also mention that Three Hopes have several brand-new playable characters that were not available at all in Three Houses.

Also note that while the unlockable Dancer class is also in the Master tier, it has no innate abilities tied to any characters. Several people may learn an exclusive Rally ability, but that does not count as an innate ability since it is clearly visible in the learnset.

List of available Innate Abilities and their descriptions

There are 12 innate abilities available in total in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes. However, each character can only learn one of the abilities. We have made two lists below with different sorting methods: one grouped by the ability names and the other based on the characters.

  • Gather
    Brings nearby enemies in front of the unit before starting the first regular attack.
    Master class: Trickster
    Characters with this innate ability: Linhardt, Monica, Manuela, Shamir
     
  • Proficient Witstrike
    Calculates damage for all attacks using the unit's Mag stat.
    Master class: Mortal Savant
    Characters with this innate ability: Lorenz, Lysithea, Sothis
     
  • Exalted Breath
    Fills Awakening Gauge based on the amount of HP healed with magic for the user or their allies.
    Master class: Holy Knight
    Characters with this innate ability: Dorothea, Catherine, Raphael, Byleth
     
  • Range Master
    Increases attack range.
    Master class: Dark Knight (Holy Knight for Seteth & Marianne)
    Characters with this innate ability: Hubert, Caspar, Ashe, Seteth, Marianne, Shez
     
  • Flyswatter
    Increases both Awakening and Warrior Gauge fill rates when attacking enemies that have been launched into the air.
    Master class: Falcon Knight
    Characters with this innate ability: Petra, Leonie, Constance
     
  • Ironclad
    Nullifies enemy attacks that would break through the unit's guard.
    Master class: Great Knight
    Characters with this innate ability: Ferdinand, Hilda
     
  • Inspiring Agility
    Enables dash attacks for all classes.
    Master class: Great Knight
    Characters with this innate ability: Bernadetta, Dimitri, Rodrigue
     
  • Heaviest Hitter
    Strong attacks will produce Stun Gauge at a high rate.
    Master class: Wyvern Lord
    Characters with this innate ability: Annette, Claude, Hapi
     
  • Domineer
    Increases damage dealt to enemies on foot.
    Master class: Wyvern Lord
    Characters with this innate ability: Jeritza, Arval
     
  • Sharpshooter
    Critical hits will instantly defeat non-commander units.
    Master class: Bow Knight
    Characters with this innate ability: Ingrid, Mercedes, Yuri
     
  • Prepared to Die
    Rapidly restores the Warrior Gauge when HP is at 25% or below and the Warrior Gauge is less than one bar.
    Master class: War Master
    Characters with this innate ability: Dedue, Jeralt
     
  • Nullify Magic
    Nullifies enemies' offensive magic.
    Master class: Gremory / Dark Bishop (Dark Knight for Flayn)
    Characters with this innate ability: Edelgard, Felix, Sylvain, Flayn, Rhea, Ignatz, Holst, Balthus

Innate Abilities for each character in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

If you want to know how a specific playable character in Three Hopes gets their innate ability, then this list is for you. We have also included the Master class required for each character to unlock the secret ability.

Black Eagles / Scarlet Blaze / Adrestian Empire

  • Edelgard - Gremory: Nullify Magic
  • Hubert - Dark Knight: Range Master
  • Ferdinand - Great Knight: Ironclad
  • Caspar - Dark Knight: Range Master
  • Linhardt - Trickster: Gather
  • Bernadetta - Great Knight: Inspiring Agility
  • Petra - Falcon Knight: Flyswatter
  • Dorothea - Holy Knight: Exalted Breath
  • Monica - Trickster: Gather
  • Jeritza - Wyvern Lord: Domineer
  • Manuela - Trickster: Gather

Blue Lions / Azure Gleam / Holy Kingdom of Faerghus

  • Dimitri - Great Knight: Inspiring Agility
  • Dedue - War Master: Prepared to Die
  • Felix - Dark Bishop: Nullify Magic
  • Sylvain - Dark Bishop: Nullify Magic
  • Ingrid - Bow Knight: Sharpshooter
  • Annette - Wyvern Lord: Heaviest Hitter
  • Mercedes - Bow Knight: Sharpshooter
  • Ashe - Dark Knight: Range Master
  • Rodrigue - Great Knight: Inspiring Agility
  • Seteth - Holy Knight: Range Master
  • Flayn - Dark Knight: Nullify Magic
  • Catherine - Holy Knight: Exalted Breath
  • Rhea - Gremory: Nullify Magic

Golden Deer / Golden Wildfire / Leicester Alliance

  • Claude - Wyvern Lord: Heaviest Hitter
  • Hilda - Great Knight: Ironclad
  • Lorenz - Mortal Savant: Proficient Witstrike
  • Lysithea - Mortal Savant: Proficient Witstrike
  • Marianne - Holy Knight: Range Master
  • Ignatz - Dark Bishop: Nullify Magic
  • Raphael - Holy Knight: Exalted Breath
  • Leonie - Falcon Knight: Flyswatter
  • Holst - Dark Bishop: Nullify Magic
  • Shamir - Trickster: Gather

Ashen Wolves and other characters

  • Yuri - Bow Knight: Sharpshooter
  • Balthus - Dark Bishop: Nullify Magic
  • Constance - Falcon Knight: Flyswatter
  • Hapi - Wyvern Lord: Heaviest Hitter
  • Shez - Dark Knight: Range Master
  • Byleth - Holy Knight: Exalted Breath
  • Jeralt - War Master: Prepared to Die
  • Sothis - Mortal Savant: Proficient Witstrike
  • Arval - Wyvern Lord: Domineer