Faction Challenges

Faction Challenges

The Faction Challenges are literally sets of activity Challenges that you need to do to unlock the rewards that are associated with each.  Depending upon your POV these are either a pain in the butt, or a very cool addition to the game -- but luckily the process is pretty straight-forward as you are about to discover.

If you do not particularly enjoy or like these, well then there is a trick to make this easier that you should consider adopting -- while these are presented in the order in which they appear in the DNA Menu under Challenges -- meaning Assassins Guild, Mercenaries Guild, Romanies Guild, and Thieves Guild -- you are free to do them in any order you like, as long as you actually do them...  The trick being to not do them at all, or rather to allow them to do themselves with the exception of one set, the second in the Thieves Guild.  Allowing them to do themselves means just that -- continuing to play the game and when you get closer to the end, finishing them up with intent. 

If on the other hand you actually enjoy this sort of play, well then you can use these as a sort of break activity between the story missions to shake things up and make it a bit more interesting.  Just bear in mind that you do not have to do them in any specific order; you can do any Set out of sequence, but the important one for our purposes at the moment is Set 2 in the Thieves Faction since that is the one that allows you to get Thief Looting which can be very lucrative (and has an Achievement associated with it).

Some of these you will be doing as you play the game, simply because they take a lot of time, while others you will have to choose to do actively since they require special behavior.  Just try to have fun with his and bear in mind that the killing ones will come naturally as you work your way through the memories anyway.  The one that requires you to call it during memories you should try to bang out quickly just to get it out of the way, right?

Make it so!

-- Assassins Guild --

The Challenges for the Assassins Guild are perhaps the fewest in number, but also the most time consuming and the sets that require the most effort.  But they consist of activities you are going to want to be doing anyway, so it all works out in the wash.  You can work on these for sure, but you will want to ficus on the Second Set of the Thieves Challenges for now, simply because the Ability that it unlocks is for Thief Looting (Thieves in your employ will loot civilians without drawing the attention of the Guards, thus adding money to your purse, and will also loot any slain Guards bodies -- which is the important bit here but more on that in the proper section).

Challenge Set 1
-- Call Assassins during a fight 25 times

This is very basic -- but an activity you have to really be thinking about to remember to use -- the mechanism is very simple: you use LB to call them into the fight, and once the meter recharges you can do it again!  Just pick a lot of fights!

-- Call Assassins on a target 20 times

Another very basic challenge but this one requires you to lock onto the target with Left Trigger and then call in the Assassin (not in a fight).  This can easily be combined with other activities and especially with the Achievement for Thieve-Looting 50 Guard bodies.  Think of it as a bonus action, you find a group of Guards and call in the Assassin, as soon as he starts to kill the Thieves in your group will automatically join in, and then loot the bodies.  We call that a win-win!

Reward: Assassins will be more effective when sent on missions.

Challenge Set 2
-- Use Arrow Storm 15 Times

Another basic challenge -- find a target and use the command on them -- but note that it will not be available until you have recruited at least 6 Assassins and you also have to have at least 6 of them available (meaning not on a mission).  That also means you will be unlocking this later in the game, so do not fixate on it until you can actually do it.

-- Call your Assassins within a story mission 5 times

Straight forward -- just call them in five times while you are in a memory.  Of course you need to actually remember to do that, so this is one of the ones that you will be more actively pursuing or even grinding out.

Reward: Assassins Signal recharges at an increased speed.

Challenge Set 3
-- Recruit 12 Assassins

There are two types -- the regular sort and a half-dozen who have memories associated with them...  You will encounter both the regular and memory versions as you move about so there is no real path you can take to reliably grind these out.  Just let them happen when they do...

-- Successfully perform 3 Den Defenses

Normally you have to get your notoriety in the red and wait for an attack to happen -- but if you do not want to risk losing the income from your shops there is a way around this -- simply replay Sequence 02, Memory 06 three times as that Den Defense counts for this Challenge!

Reward: Unlocks the Assassins Faction Weapon.

A Melody of Faction Challenges

-- Mercenaries Guild --

Challenge Set 1
-- Use Mercenaries on Guards 10 times

You can actually just hire one group and then walk around and have them kill 10 Guard groups and be done with this for cheap money...

-- Destroy 5 Scaffolds by throwing someone into it.

This one is a little tricky in that you want to use Guards not civilians.  The easy way is to use Cherry Bombs to draw the guards close, then grab one and throw him at the Scaffold.  You will need to rinse and repeat on other Scaffolds obviously but this should not be too much trouble for you!

-- Kill an enemy using a thrown weapon

This basically means a Heavy Weapon, not a Light or Medium -- so you have two choices: buy the Heavy Weapon Pouch from a Tailor and then a Heavy Weapon from the Blacksmith and then use that, or you can grab a Heavy Weapon from a Guard and use that!

Reward: Cost of hiring Mercenaries decreases.


Challenge Set 2
-- Disarm and kill a Guard with his own weapon 5 times

Just start in bare hand and take his weapon away then kill him with it five times.

-- Kill 25 Byzantime Almogovar

This is a bit more tricky and a LOT more time consuming -- as these are the ones with the polearms and large axes.  You will need to kick them in the tender bits a few times in order to attack them, but hey, nobody said this was fair.

-- Perform a Hook and Throw 10 times

This should come naturally as you fight, as it is a common Counter-Kill move.  Just do a lot of Counter-Kills with the Hoookblade armed.

Reward: Unlocks Mercenary Faction Ability.


Challenge Set 3
-- Perform 10 Double Assassinations

This is probably the one that you will have trouble with, because timing is everything...  All that I can say is keep trying and eventually you will get them?  If that is not useful advice how about this -- follow groups of Guards until they pass under an arch and are briefly side-by-side then stop forward and double kill them.  Once you get good at this you will be able to kill all four with two double kills!

-- Kill 5 Guards in under 10 seconds in melee

This does combine with the move below, so simply concentrate on getting that one done and you will get this one done!

-- Perform 10 combo kill streaks of at least 5 kills each

It will not take you long to get good at this, moving the joystick towards your next target and killing them one after the other requires some rhythm but once you have it down, you have it down.

-- Kill 25 Ottoman Janissary

These are the big guys with the strange masks -- there are a half-dozen in the first area (Galata) and a camp with several on the other side of the map.

Reward: Unlocks Mercenary Faction Weapon.

Unlocking the Fast Fingers Achievement

Unlocking the Fast Fingers Achievement

-- Romanis Guild --

Challenge Set 1
-- Use Romanies on Guards 10 times

Straight forward but requires you to find the 10 groups to use.

-- Evade using stealth (crowd/hiding spots) 10 times

Again this is straight forward -- just run and hided in a group of people or a hiding spot.

-- Kill 20 guards using the crossbow without being detected

This is easiest to do on the rooftops using Eagle Vision to spot single Guards as that way they die and there is nobody to detect you!

Reward: Cost of hiring Romanies decreases.


Challenge Set 2
-- Use Tactical Bombs to escape guards 10 times

You may want to wait on this until you complete the Bomb-Crafting Mission and can make your own as it is easier that way.

-- Kill 5 Stalkers without getting stabbed

The single toughest of all of the Challenge elements -- watch the video for an example on how to do this.  You cannot really grind this, but you WILL get enough attacks as you play through the game to unlock it.

-- Kill 15 guards using poison

Easiest way to do this is from rooftops using darts.  Nuff Said.

Reward: Unlock Romani Faction Ability


Challenge Set 3
-- Kill 20 guards using bombs without being spotted

Use Lethal Bombs on groups of Guards from the rooftops tossing them down to the street.  Impact fuses work best here.

-- Assassinate 10 guards from behind

This you should get naturally and not have to grind at all...

-- Assassinate 5 guards from blend spots

This you will have to actively do as it does not really come naturally.

-- Kill 3 enemies dazed by a single smoke bomb before it dissipates

This should not be too difficult since they are not actively defending themselves if you simply drop the bomb while walking through a group...

Reward: Unlocks Romani Faction Weapon.


--Thieves Guild --

Challenge Set 1
-- Use Thieves on Guards 10 times

Remember that the Thief Groups are both on the ground AND on roofs.

-- Sprint uninterrupted for 300 meters

Find a relatively open place and run in a circle until it unlocks (watch the video, it really does work).

-- Perform 15 Hook-and-Runs

You can do this pretty much all in one go off of the same Guards if you want to, but it should actually come naturally from playing through the game.

Reward: Cost of hiring Thief Faction decreases


Challenge Set 2
-- Perform 40 Leaps of Faith

Just find a Leap Spot that is convenient and grind it out, or wait for it to come naturally in the game.  It will come naturally towards the end...

-- Climb a total distance of 1 km

This should automatically unlock as you play -- no need to grind it at all.

-- Steal 250 coins with Counter-Steal

This you will need to actively grind, but it should not take more than ten minutes or so to unlock.

Reward: Unlocks the Thief Faction Ability.


Challenge Set 3
-- Perform a dive of at least 30 meters

This will come naturally, no need to grind it.

-- Kill 25 Guards using Throwing Knives

This should come naturally but you can grind it if you want.  Be sure to loot the Guards you kill to restock as there is no sense in paying for what you can get for free.

-- Perform an Air-Assassination on 5 Guards from a beam

You will want to do this from a beam and then check the stats to see if you got credit for it because it works from some beams and not from others.

-- Perform 10 Zipline Assassinations

This should come naturally as you play the game -- no need to grind it.

Reward: Unlocks the Thief Faction Weapon.