Home Strategy WiNG’s Guide to Revelations Abilities Sets 2: Assassinate

In my last Assassin’s Creed Revelations abilities set guide, I discussed the Deathmatch game mode and how the right balance of offense and defense went a long way towards pulling off a win.

Deathmatch is a very deliberate mode that requires a good deal of patience and timing, usually leading to Silent and Incognito kills.

Assassinate is a whole ‘nother ballgame. And I’m not going to pull any punches here: the entire mode is pretty much bullshit.

 

Ability set context overview – Assassinate

If you haven’t played Assassinate yet, you can’t really appreciate just how different it is than every other mode. There are no contracts whatsoever; you can target and kill any persona you wish at any time. The only exception is someone who has targeted you first; that person becomes your pursuer, but only insofar as they don’t lock onto another target. Due to this ad hoc structure, the radar shows you where every enemy player is, allowing you to find and slay as many as you see fit.

Since players have no incentive to chase down hard-to-reach targets, spending a large portion of the match on the roof is quite normal. This is bolstered by the fact that if a player can correctly identify his/her pursuer, that pursuer is “exposed” and loses all detection meter, guaranteeing a chase if the target flees. While gamers in Brotherhood had to guess if they had successfully spotted their would-be killers, Revelations kind of fucked things up by telling you “Pursuer Exposed” once you’ve found the right guy. From there it’s easy to flee, or Mute/Smoke/Knives for the stun, focus, chain, grounded, poison kill.

The most common high level strategies appear to be either preying on the idiocy of noobs, or being the most opportunistic vulture possible in a sky full of bloodthirsty buzzards. Playing in high profile is both highly risky (since anyone can target you) but highly rewarding because it can lure out other players or trigger chases that end in point avalanches. Well, enough melodrama, let’s get to the abilities.

 

Ability #1 choice: Smoke Bomb

Didn’t see that coming, did ya? Smoke Bomb is still the best skill in the game, and in a game mode where you’re constantly switching between offense and defense, almost nothing can compete.

There’s an additional value for giving enemies lung cancer, other than the typical immobilization.* In Assassinate, the player who gets the lock-on first is automatically the pursuer, with the runner-up quickly becoming the runner-for-your-life. Sounds simple, but you’ll often round a corner directly into a foe and lock on instantly. In the 3/4 of a second before the lock takes, though, you don’t know if you really got the lock first. What if your opponent was faster? You might run up to him, only to have handed your life to him on a platter.

Smoke Bomb solves that problem with a big fat who the fuck cares? If you round the corner into another player, just Smoke Bomb. Whether you’re the pursuer or the person of interest, you have a guaranteed uncontested kill or stun, with an easy Focus bonus to boot. Sound lame and unfun? Pretty much!

 

Ability #2 choice: Hidden Gun

“Woah woah woah, what the fuck, WiNG?” I hear you say. “The Hidden Gun is bullshit noskill noobsauce that gives you no points!”

Allow me to explain. You see, Smoke Bomb is a great skill. So is Mute, Charge… all that jazz. But ultimately, there are two kinds of players you won’t be able to kill in Assassinate without degenerating the game into complete idiocy. First are players with Smoke Bomb/Mute who are running around in high profile just waiting for you to lock them so they can score 1000 points off your chase, stun, etc. Second are the players who stand on ledges and roofs waiting to drop on you the second you make yourself known. What do both these types of people have in common?

Neither of them can outsmart bullet.

Whenever people whine about getting shot, I tell them what the counter to the Hidden Gun is: not being conspicuous in the first place. You want to run around the map like an endangered spider monkey? Turns out I have a great recipe for sauteed Ateles marginatus.

Now that there are two bonuses for lead-based murder (for running targets and jumping targets), it’s not unheard of to generate variety bonuses with your hand cannon. Additionally, I don’t plan to get silent kills in Assassinate, so I’ll take the +100 points. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

 

Perk #1: Overall Cooldowns

I shouldn’t really have to explain this one, but here goes: Overall Cooldowns is still the best perk in Assassin’s Creed Revelations multiplayer. There’s no downside to it at all, and it gives you more opportunities to earn more points every single match. The end.

 

Perk #2: Kill Buffer

Kill Buffer allows you to preserve your Kill Streak between deaths, with a penalty of negative one. So, if you’re at eight assassinations and drooling over the prospect of that sweet Animus Hack, you won’t be set back to square one when I shoot you with the Hidden Gun. Instead, you’ll respawn with seven kills’ worth of momentum. I haven’t found many other streaks to be particularly useful (though I’ll discuss those below a bit more), and Kill Buffer lets me carry the higher-scoring streaks that are oh-so rewarding.

 

Win Streak: +550 7-streak

This wasn’t a particularly hard choice, though if you highly value your second perk slot, I’d suggest dropping this to the +250 5-streak bonus. But between gunnings, stunnings, and well-timed runnings, it’s not hard to build a seven-item itinerary of violence. Kill Buffer ensures you’re rarely robbed of your precious points, and this streak gives makes each of your brutal acts worth about 80 points more than normal. In a game with ten to twenty kills, that’s often enough to secure a higher podium spot.

 

Loss Streak: Score x2

I’m still a sucker for the score-doubling loss streak, even more so in Assassinate. Why? Because with so much possibility for chains, revenge, focus, grounded, and other bonuses, a single kill under Score x2 is almost guaranteed to hit 2,000 or 2,5000 on a regular basis. Will any other loss streak give you that many points? I don’t think so.

 

Other considerations

I know a lot of players run Poison, but I find that’s only because they’re playing against low-level competition. Yes, Poison gives you much more points than Hidden Gun every 65 to 90 seconds, but at risk of exposing oneself to enemies and losing a killing streak. Additionally, it’s not unheard of to get Poached by nearby foes who witnessed your venomous intentions. Then what?

Many players run double defensive skills (Smoke/Mute, Mute/Charge, Smoke/Knives), and I don’t fault them. I’ve used these builds as well, many times. Ultimately I find that these players have no solution for enemies on roofs, which are quite common in Assassinate. Throwing knives can work, but often require very specific positioning.

I can understand dropping Kill Buffer for Silent Hunt or Resistance/Resilience. There’s so much running in Assassinate, Silent Hunt can easily pay for itself in points, assuming you haven’t been exposed. And escaping stuns or Smoke Bombs faster denies enemies points (and may even save your life). There are probably decent uses for Easy Chase Breaker and Sentry as well.

What do you use in Assassinate, and why? How does it fare against players who know what you’re trying to do to them, and how do you adjust to anyone that tries to counter your gameplan?

 

Receive Top Tier Tactics updates

Enter your e-mail for a FREE daily digest!

* And possibility they’ll cook meth for you afterwards.

37 replies to this post
  1. Ability 1: smoke bomb
    Ability 2: poison/ hidden gun

    Perk1: overall cooldowns
    perk 2: resistance

    I find this ability set quite useful because 1.) smoke bomb= defense and also offense 2.) poison and hidden gun= offense. I would call this set mostly offensive since in assassinate, you can smoke bomb your pursuer, stun them, and then lock on and kill them all within 10 seconds. As far as perks go, overall cool downs is obviously a number 1 choice and resistance is actually quite handy if someone stuns you and is about to lock on and kill you, but you get back up unexpectedly and kill stun them. and kill them.

  2. I’m going to try these out today!

    I’m in the same camp with the smoke/knives, trying to outplay the other vultures, but those skills are not are useful anymore in my 30+ ranks against Lv50 players. Hidden Gun might be the thing I need to put a end to roof-runers, while still getting time to stalk prey.

  3. I use charge and smoke bomb, overall cd and kill buffer, +550 7 kill streak and the x2 score. It’s my double defense ability set.

    I mostly rely on stuns to get my points, usually there would be 3+ templars in the area, so after I charge my target/pursuer I drop my smoke bomb, and most times, the third person would rush in and get caught in it, giving me an extra stun.
    After that it’s a matter of hiding and being an opportunistic prick until my smoke bomb finish cooling down. Then I would use that smoke bomb on a lone templar, and get another kill. Rinse and repeat…

    I tried to use throwing knives and mute, but my internet connection is pretty bad, so it’s not very effective. I need skills that gives a big error margin, like smoke bomb and charge.

  4. About the “Pursuer Exposed” I’m pretty sure, it was similar in Brotherhood, you didn’t hear the voice but you could see the red arrow above your pursuer.

    I use smoke bomb/poison (300 pts) with overall cooldowns and resistance to avoid giving a nice focus bonus if I’m stunned.

    • Yeah in Brotherhood it had the red arrow and a text notification if you had those turned on, but that’s still considerably more subtle than the voice.

      I don’t use anything because I don’t actually have Revelations! >_>

      • I don’t have it either; been holding out for a price drop on steam. However every time I watch one of WiNG’s videos I’m more and more tempted to buy it.

  5. “a single kill under Score x2 is almost guaranteed to hit 2,000 or 2,5000 on a regular basis.”

    Either there is a typo here or some crazy maths at work :)

    • It’s easily possible.
      Smoke stun, lock, get (attention, math at work!):

      Kill: 100
      Grounded: +50
      Focus: +150
      Silent (should be possible): +250
      Poison: +250
      Chain: +50
      (Variety): +200, I think.
      x2: 1700 (2100)

      Add poacher bonuses at will.
      Well, it’s no 2k, without adding variety, but that’s about as much as I can think of. Also, you have to add 200 points for a stun.
      Maybe get a brutal escape for 200 additional points, too.

      About buying the game, do it. Just do it.

      • Exactly. There is a pretty wide mix of bonuses that can land you 2000 points. Even a non-stun based kill with +100 kill, +350 Incognito, +150 Focus, +300 poison is 1800 already.

      • Is there enough time to get an incognito? That seems awfully close timing and risking getting stunned yourself.

      • I was referring to the “25000”, lol.

        And yes, I caved in and bought the PC version the other day.

      • *applauds*
        Got around that time too^^ As a christmas present from Toraka (thx buddy)
        My Gamer-Tag in uPlay (I vote for namechange to ItKindaSux) is Lord_Dodo123 if you (or anyone) wants to add me =)

  6. Wing I am not sure if this is your forte, but I want an exceptional game to kind of compliment ACR. Don’t get me wrong it is a good game but, like you, I want another game and need advice. I was thinking about MW3 or Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. I am not sure which is better and I want your opinion on this please. If you are not sure I understand, but I hope you can help me out.

    • Skyrim is an RPG with no multiplayer, MW3 is a shooter with no singleplayer. To be honest, I’d say Skyrim. It really is Game of the Year. But that’s down to what kind of game you want.

      You could also pick up Morrowind for, like, 10 moneys or so. Still best TES to me. But get a guide for that one on how to effectively develop your character.

    • Battlefield 3 is much more tactical than MW3. Personally I hate open world games like Skyrim. Not that it’s bad, but I get bored playing them. I’d recommend BF3 in a heartbeat.

    • @Bigtime067: A singleplayer that is about as long as it takes you to download the game.

      @Chiromancy: I have heard it should be pretty good (check this site!). Other than MW3, it’s a more realistically, team-based shooter in giant environments with vehicles. So about the opposite of what MW3 is. Stop comparing them.

      I have played neither. But I suppose that BF3 should be better suited for a pick up, especially the fan base. Or at least you won’t get flamed for playing it.

  7. Good news everyone.

    Ubisoft just released a patch even bigger than WING’s DLC. What for?
    For unlocking additional versions of Antioch, Rome, Venetia and Mt. St. Michel. Woo hoo *sarcasm off*.
    So now you get to stab people at day, dusk and dawn. Inb4 screenshots of three versions of the same map with the same game mode in the voting screen.

    And some Bug fixes. Like the Honorable Death spam I am sure everybody has witnessed at least once.

    Although it does not mention anything about a real gamebreaking bug that I’ve been experiencing. Sometimes, a specific Templar will glitch out and be constantly invisible to me. I can’t do anything to make him visible, the compass will fill, but not light up to indicate LoS. I also can’t interact in any way. I can only wait for somebody else to kill them, which appears to work fine. They still won’t be visible though.

    • Toraka I like the new patch but I was playing earlier and I put some pretty potent poison sold by Top Tier Tactics in some guys pocket and nothing happened and he stayed alive and I did not receive my points. This has occurred several other times too.

      IT PISSES ME OFF!

      • Or that wonderful bug where if you throw a smoke bomb and a pursuer is just at the edge coughing, you can’t stun them because they constantly dodge like they had thrown it and Resilience is displayed above their heads.

        Sometimes, that games just sucks from glitchiness.
        Also, why couldn’t they just have made it a 5-second peace time when everybody first spawns? I constantly get killed because I have a slow computer and thus take long to get out of the whiteness.

        But then I just stop being sad and make others take a sword to the face. Or boolet. Whatever works.

        You could not believe how much you can piss off the enemy team by 60%-ing the VIP when he has already entered the Checkpoint circle, but did not cap it yet.

  8. Hey Wing, love your guides, but I’m beginning to wonder if we’re playing the same game here – you said that Deathmatch is a slow game with plenty of opportunity for racking up kill bonuses: my experience has been exactly the opposite – the tiny maps and clear identity of your target usually make it a killfest, massacres every 10 seconds and so on, making this easily my most hated mode. On the other hand I’ve found that Assassinate is much slower, with lots of opportunity for stalking. Sure you get the occasional rooftop noob, but it’s not as big a problem as you portray it. Maybe the pc experience is different, maybe it’s just me – I’m only level 32 thus far.

    • I feel Assassinate is faster because if you wait too long in Assassinate, you tend to get surrounded. Lots of defensive skills and disguises, morph, poison, etc in Deathmatch leads to lots of Incognito kills.

      I do find higher level players tend to play either MUCH more aggressively or MUCH more passively than lower level players, though.

  9. Interesting guide. Just from personal experience, I never see roof noobs in this mode. I’m usually put with prestiges, like myself.

  10. I’ve personally found more experienced players to be more tactical I was (in my opinion) a reasonable player at brotherhood I managed level 40 before it died and it took like half an hour to get a game with mostly top 3 in matches. Starting multiplayer in ACR was completely different, I find myself getting killed because I’m not running, there’s no clones and new players are just running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off.

  11. Assassinate is the best mode it requires the most skill and patience with no compass. Barely anyone roofs or runs once they learn how to play. And poison/smoke. I hated assassinate in brotherhood at first but after spending hours on the mode it’s now my favorite.

  12. okay, can someone please help validate this for me?

    I think there MIGHT be a method to avoid a stun if your contract is about to do so.

    I just played through a sequence in ACII where you dodge enemy counter-attacks by HOLDING THE RIGHT TRIGGER (R1 on the PS3) and then pressing the A button.

    Can someone test this and help me confirm it? I’m booting up ACR now and i’m about to test it out.

    • I haven’t tested this, but from logic, it shouldn’t be possible. Essentially allowing you to completely avoid being stunned with anything but Smoke Bomb does not sound really balanced or fair towards the target, does it?

  13. This may be a good set for stopping stun-baiters and such but if they’re trying to stun-bait a prestige 7 they’ve got another thing coming. I run mute Smoke, Killbuffer Resilience/OCD 7 non silent and score x2

  14. An intriguing discussion is definitely worth comment.
    I think that you ought to publish more on this subject
    matter, it may not be a taboo matter but generally folks don’t talk about such issues. To the next! Best wishes!!

  15. We absolutely love your blog and find the majority of your post’s to be exactly what I’m looking for. can you offer guest writers to write content available for you? I wouldn’t mind composing a post or elaborating on a lot of the subjects you write related to here. Again, awesome website!

Leave a Reply