4 creative uses for Assassin’s Creed 3 MP abilities

If you’ve read our Assassin’s Creed 3 multiplayer abilities and crafting guide, you know all the basic (and even advanced) uses for every skill in the game.

Morph, for instance, doesn’t have to just be used to hide; triggering it near your target’s blend group will reveal the player by turning all nearby NPCs into your clones. It’s an elementary tactic that almost every player knows about.

But what about the real, hardcore moves? The strategies that nobody’s ever even used because they’re too insane to even risk trying?  Read on and take notes.

Identify targets with Tripwire Bomb

Some players refer to Tripwire Bomb as a poor man’s Smoke Bomb. But there’s just so much this little IED can do. With the right prep, it can fool even advanced players into sprinting straight to their doom. It can act as area denial for Artifacts, cap points, and the like. And apparently, it can also reveal targets from blend groups.

Wait, what? Yes, that’s right, Tripwire Bomb’s uncanny ability to sniff out (then snuff out) real players can be used on offense, as long as you know the ability’s radius well:

Then, you simply count to three (or whatever you’ve set your arming time to). From that point, there are a couple ways the situation could go. If you’ve hit the NPC, absolutely nothing will happen. You can approach the second persona knowing with complete confidence he’s the real deal. Approach directly through your bomb and you’ll also be protected from defensive Smoke Bomb or slap-happy contested kills.

If you’ve instead targeted the real player, he’ll either run for his life or (also likely) he’ll stand there and get smoked, because he didn’t even realize you could throw Tripwire Bombs. Either way, you’ve forced his hand and shut down the guessing game. Sure,  Firecrackers and Wipe would work better, but if you have Tripwire available, this is definitely an option!

Shut down Animus Hackers three skills at a time

This may be old news for regular readers of Top Tier Tactics, but the other 2.8 billion people on Earth deserve to know how to stop Animus Hack, don’t they?

I can’t claim to have discovered the secrets myself; that’s all PigStuffy‘s doing. In her enlightening “The Truth About Abilities” series (we’re still waiting for more episodes), she revealed that you can do more during an Animus Hack than just running and hiding. Animus Shield, for instance, will block one (but only one) deadly pulse of Abstergo-powered death. Wipe, on the other hand, will completely disable Animus Hack for its duration, giving you (or someone else) plenty of time to murder or run from the hacker. And while PigStuffy’s video proved that Disruption doesn’t actually prevent Animus Hack from taking place, it definitely makes the normal target acquisition a lot harder than normal.

So, the next time you hear “WARNING: Animus Hacked,” remember you have some actual, tactical options. Either that, or you’ll just be compelled to watch my music video about it.

Play god with Throwing Knives

It happens in every free-for-all match: you’ve got your abilities ready, but the game hasn’t assigned you a target or any pursuers. You could use this time to find a good blend group or position yourself near important parts of the map. Or, you could just fuck with everyone else in the game.

Sure, some people consider off-target debuffs trolling, but harassing other players can directly and indirectly destroy their focus, their confidence, and their score. See the player who’s winning the match about to win a chase? Chuck your Throwing Knives her way to swing things back in your favor (eventually). Think the Hessian might have a shot at beating your score? Knife him right as he leaps towards a wire for an acrobatic kill.

As long as you’re not knifing the target of one of your biggest competitors, you pretty much can’t go wrong with some mean-spirited ranged antics!

Kill pursuers with Teleport

No, Ubisoft didn’t add a telefrag option to Assassin’s Creed 3 multiplayer (though it would’ve been more than welcome). Instead, Teleport can be used in games of Wanted (and in some cases, Deathmatch) to put your opponents between a rock and a hard rock (that happens to be attached to a club being wielded by the Bear).

You see, when you’ve accumulated three or four pursuers, the entire game starts revolving around you. Your contracted killers will be hellbent on hunting you down, while the remaining handful of players will be stalking them as they stalk you. As such, anywhere you go, you’ve pretty much got a mass of murderers trailing close behind.

Normally, walking to the corner of the map in this situation would be suicidal, since you’ll most likely be boxed in by all of your killers. But Teleport changes that dynamic just a little.

89% of the time, none of your pursuers will see it coming, meaning in just a few seconds, they’ll go from putting you on a dinner plate to becoming the main course for their own assassins.  Now if they want to murder you, they’ve got to walk directly through a gate of death. And, to top it all off, you’re probably now a lot closer to your own target, who’s also preoccupied with her suddenly easy-to-kill contract.

Got any tricks of your own?

I can’t claim to be the only person improvising Assassin’s Creed 3 ability uses out there. If you have a weird (but effective) strategy of your own, let’s hear it in the comments below!