There are many dangers Assassin's Creed: Black Flag resynced. From soldiers to dangerous animals to rival pirate crews, there are plenty of things trying to cut your criminal career short. However, top predators in the Caribbean are legendary ships that you can fight.
Acting as the ultimate naval challenge, legendary ships are the toughest bosses in the game and offer you unique cosmetic rewards if you can defeat them. One of these boss fights is with a pair of HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign, who can easily overwhelm you due to their numbers and damage output.
If you're looking to dive into these legendary ships, here's what you need to know.
How to defeat HMS Intrepid and Imperial Sovereign
As the name of these boats suggests, it's a 2v1 battle with both ships attacking you at the same time. HMS Fearless (black sail) and Royal Sovereign (white sail) can be very difficult to deal with, as you can find yourself under constant cannon fire if you're not careful. However, you can actually use their teamwork against them to defeat them in the best way possible.
It is said, Before you attempt this fight, I strongly recommend upgrading Jackdaw as much as possible. These ships are stronger and tougher than Man O' Wars, meaning you want a nearly maxed-out Jackdaw if you want to claim victory in this battle. Prioritize upgrading your ship's hull armor, heavy shot, cannon numbers, swivel gun, and cannon damage first, as they will be your primary way of fighting these bosses.
When the fight begins, make your way to the left or right of the pair to avoid being broadsided on either side of you, and then drop anchor. For this fight, we're actually going to be basically static for the entire fight. This makes it infinitely easier to deal damage and manage these two enemies at once if you're traveling around.
The pair will always follow the same attack pattern with you anchored, moving to trap you between them as they fire their cannons. Once they finish their volley, the ships will pass you and then turn around to repeat the same attack. It will not change until one of them is destroyed. Because of this, you can sit there and shoot them as they go without taking unnecessary cannon fire.
After you are positioned and stable, focus on turning the ships, so that you are always facing the direction they are coming at you. This is because after you launch broadside as they pass, you can use the front guns while shooting one of them from behind. Considering Frontal Heavy Shot does a lot of damage, being able to hit it consistently will speed up the boss fight quite a bit.
Roaming with them also gives us two additional advantages, the first being that we can place fire barrels in the path of any ship as we return to align ourselves with them. Any boat that goes down that side will run into the fire barrel, taking more damage and causing it to do more damage.
The second reason we want to roll with the pair is that we can flank them with normal cannon fire from a distance before they face off in the same direction. Mortars are also a good choice, as the pair follows such a predictable path; You can almost always land mortars once you learn their patterns and motions.
All told, it's a great moment for strategy when the royal sovereign goes to launch a broadside from either side of us.. When they come into range, fire your heavy shot cannon at one of them and then be ready to perform a perfect brace to negate their incoming cannon balls. Both ships fire at roughly the same time, so if you can time your brace before one of their attacks hits you, then most of the damage can be negated.
Remember, you can actually shoot both sides of your cannon, looking at one side, firing, then move the camera to the other side of the Jackdaw and fire those cannons. This, if timed correctly, allows you to hit both ships as they pass. Time is very tight, and you need to perform the correct brace after firing the second set of cannons.
Correct bracing is the key to success. If you cannot consistently perform this defensive maneuver, you will almost certainly fail. While the Royal Sovereign's attack pattern is exceptionally predictable, it's at the cost of their stupid amount of damage if you don't block it. AWhen they try to flank you, always prioritize performing a perfect brace even if you don't have time to shoot them.
The last key strategy for this fight is to try to damage the pair equally. You don't want to just focus on one ship and leave the other at full health. This is because when one sinks, the other becomes incredibly aggressive and will try to thoroughly ram you. This breaks the predictable path they follow, making the fight harder than it needs to be.
After they lose a third of their health, both ships will begin deploying their own fire barrels as they travel. This is, in fact, their disadvantage, because if you stay still you will never be in the path of those barrels. Additionally, you can use your swivel gun to shoot their own barrels and damage one of the ships as they pass by them.
Eventually, you will drain their health until one of them is destroyed. I strongly recommend only sinking one ship when the other can be brought down with a concentrated volley of cannon fire. This is because when one of the boss ships is destroyed, the other will immediately try to get you better and more aggressive.
Minimizing it with one dive after another will ensure that you don't have to worry about getting rammed and can quickly close this fight. When HMS Intrepid and Royal Sovereign are destroyed, you'll earn their unique sails, figurehead, hull, wheel, and 12,000 Reales in your pocket.
