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How to beat all legendary ships in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced
Looking to beat every legendary ship in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced? Follow our complete guide with winning strategies, upgrades and combat tips.
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced has Edward Kenway sailing the Caribbean as he finds himself embroiled in a war between the Templars and the Assassins. As a pirate, however, there are still plenty of activities to let your inner scallywag out. Legendary ships are among the toughest bits of side content in Black Flag Resynced. Requiring a highly upgraded Jackdaw and some excellent naval combat skills, these are recommended as an endgame challenge. This guide explains how to beat the four legendary ships, how each one is unlocked, and some general tips to make things a little bit easier.
01
How to unlock each legendary ship battle in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced
The four legendary ships are found in the corners of the map, each one being unlocked once you’ve captured the nearby fort. Each legendary ship and the fort you’ll need to complete before they’re unlocked are listed below:
- El Impoluto: Dry Tortuga Fort
- HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign: Eleuthera Fort
- HMS Prince: Nevassa Fort
- La Dama Negra: Serranilla Fort
02
The best order to take on the legendary ships
While you may unlock the legendary ships in a certain order, it doesn’t mean you should take them on this way. We'd recommend taking them on in the order listed below:
- La Dama Negra
- HMS Prince
- El Impoluto
- HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign
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How to beat La Dama Negra
La Dama Negra should be the first of the four you take on
© Ubisoft
Found in the south-west corner of the map, La Dama Negra combines heated shots and mortar fire to take chunks out of your ship. This also comes with the added challenge of facing off in the middle of a storm, making it difficult to see La Dama Negra from a distance. This forces you to get up close, which puts you in range of its heated shots.
The strategy here is to get up close and focus on the ship’s front and rear sides. It has armour plates on its broadsides, which massively reduce any damage your weapons deal. Focus on using your chain shots to temporarily disable the ship, and then follow up with a mortar strike while it’s unable to escape. Raining down mortar fire from above is a great way to steadily reduce its health.
As you enter the second phase, La Dama Negra will begin throwing out explosive barrels behind it to prevent you from approaching from behind. This forces you into a head-on collision, or to stay at its sides and use your mortar fire. If you’re particularly quick, you can shoot the explosive barrels as soon as they’re thrown off the back of the ship to deal some damage, but this can be tricky.
In the second and final phases, La Dama Negra will go even more on the offensive, with mortar strikes and heated shots. Whenever you see the orange glow on the water, try to avoid it or brace for impact to reduce the damage the Jackdaw takes. Continue to focus on the front and rear of the ships with your broadside cannons and use your mortar strike whenever you’ve got the chance, and La Dama Negra will soon fall.
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How to beat HMS Prince
HMS Prince will try to escape
© Ubisoft
The HMS Prince is only slightly more difficult than La Dama Negra because it can take a while to defeat. That’s not necessarily because it has more health, but because it’ll try to escape after you take out the first and second thirds of its health.
Much like La Dama Negra, visibility is limited here due to fog. The best way to counter the HMS Prince is to use its limited mobility against it. Stay within short-to-medium range and keep up sustained fire from your broadside cannons, heated shots, heavy shots and chain shots to immobilise it for the occasional mortar strike.
In return, HMS Prince will primarily use its broadside cannons and mortar from afar. Staying relatively close makes it easier to avoid the orange glows on the water when it launches its mortar, and gives you just enough time to brace when it fires its broadsides.
As noted above, HMS Prince will try to escape into the fog after depleting its first and second thirds of health. During these phases, focus on dodging and evading incoming mortar fire and closing the gap. Using your spyglass to mark the HMS Prince as soon as the encounter begins makes it much easier to track it down when it escapes into the fog, as its marker will show up on your HUD when you start to get closer.
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How to beat El Impoluto
El Impoluto has a dangerous ram attack
© Ubisoft
El Impoluto is in the north-west of the map and rams you as its primary method of attack. Thanks to a tight turning circle and being relatively quick, it can be quite hard to land attacks.
I’d recommend using the chain shot to immobilise El Impoluto and quickly follow it up with a mortar strike and some blasts from your broadside cannons. The main challenge in this battle is to avoid the ram attack. This can deal massive damage, especially if you don’t brace. One effective strategy for avoiding the ram is to use your chain shot and shrapnel barrels to interrupt the ram attack and damage the ship’s sails.
El Impoluto also tries to predict where you’ll be at the point of impact and charge towards that point. If you’re quick enough, you can hoist your sails or quickly turn away to avoid the attack. This can leave you alongside El Impoluto, allowing you to fire off a few rounds of your broadside cannons.
After each section of its health bar has been depleted, El Impoluto will fire off a huge volley of heated shots. As soon as the flare goes up, start sailing away as quickly as possible to avoid the attack, before turning around and repeating the process.
The key to conquering this fight is to immobilise El Impoluto as often as possible and avoid the ram. Manage this, and you’ll find the battle becomes a lot easier.
06
How to beat HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign
HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign provide one of the game's toughest battles
© Ubisoft
HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign are found in the north-east of the map and make up one of the toughest battles in the game. The main challenge here is keeping track of both ships. While focusing on attacking or evading incoming fire from one, the other can be on your blindside lining up an attack.
The main mistake to avoid is letting the two ships get either side of the Jackdaw. If they do, they’ll use their incredibly powerful broadside cannons to make light work of your ship, even if you brace. As such, always try to keep the Jackdaw perpendicular to one ship. This allows you to drop barrels in front of one of the ships, fire your broadsides at the front or rear, and line up a mortar strike.
Another easy way to prevent yourself from getting flanked by the two ships is to use your chain shot to immobilise one of them. This makes the ship a sitting duck for mortar strikes, broadside cannons, or a ram.
Watch out for the fire barrels that each ship drops as their health gets lower. They’ll use these to try and trap you between them for a barrage of broadside attacks. Use your swivel cannons to quickly take care of them to avoid taking damage and escape.
One final thing to keep in mind is that once one of the ships has been defeated, the other will set alight and constantly try to ram you. The best way to manage this is to focus on dealing damage to both ships equally throughout the fight. That way, once one has gone down, the other will be much easier to defeat while it’s in this more aggressive phase.
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Tips to make the legendary ship battles easier
The main trick to emerging victorious from the legendary ship encounters is to learn their offensive patterns and target their weaknesses. However, there are a few things you can do to further turn the tide in your favour.
- Make sure that the Jackdaw is fully upgraded. At the very least, you’ll want to have fully upgraded your hull armour, broadside cannons and swivel cannons. This will allow your ship to take more of a beating before finally going down, as well as really maximise its damage output for the most part.
- Use your naval officer abilities. Padre, Lucy, and Tobias each have incredibly useful naval combat abilities that make the legendary ship battles much easier. Padre Ram-Dash allows you to charge for huge damage, Lucy allows you to brace just before taking damage to massively reduce damage taken, while Tobias’s Extra Salvo and Cohort Mortar upgrades give your broadside cannons and mortar a significant firepower boost.
- Make the most of your mortar. It can be easy to use your mortar and hope for the best, but given the cooldown, you’re far better using your chain shot where possible to immobilise a ship first. This improves your chances of hitting the ship, delivering decent damage in one fell swoop.
- If all else fails, lowering the game difficulty makes the legendary ship battles far easier. Doing so doesn’t prevent you from getting the ‘Devil of the Caribbean’ trophy/achievement for defeating all legendary ships, making it a convenient last resort for trophy/achievement hunters.
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