From my experience, some of the actions that lock any manual utility from battle sprites (could be more, don't know what else to try):

- In the middle of attacking (+)
- Holding charge attack (+)
- Holding your shield up (+)
- In the middle of shield bashing (-)
- In the middle of a dash (-)
- Holding any kind of throwables like pots and vials (+)

(+) and (-) is just my opinion of where such a change would be most meaningful. Ideally, total battle sprite independence would be awesome.

Basically, I think being able to use battle sprite abilities independent from the knight's actions would do a lot for the general combat fluidity from battle sprite utility. As of right now and for the past decade+ it's just been a very clunky feature to interact with, needing to stop everything you're doing just to use a battle sprite ability.

Best wishes

Honson the owl weirdo