TL;DR — Legendary Ships Mortar Trick
- Fire mortars where the legendary ship is going to be, not where it currently is
- This is especially effective against El Impoluto (most mobile) and the HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign twin fight
- Wait for the enemy ship to slow down, begin a turn, or commit to a charge before releasing your mortar
- Deadman’s Cohort (spray mortar from Deadman Smith’s quest) is easier to hit with but deals less damage — standard mortars hit harder when timed correctly
- Fully upgrade the Jackdaw and recruit all three naval officers before attempting any legendary ships
- There are six legendary ships in AC Black Flag Resynced including the new HMS Ipswich (story-locked, does not respawn)
Why Legendary Ships in AC Black Flag Resynced Are So Hard
If you’ve sailed toward one of the legendary ships in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced and immediately got sent back to the load screen, you’re in good company. These fights are genuinely, intentionally brutal — harder than they were in the original 2013 game, in fact. In Resynced, the legendary ships have more health, hit harder, and have more defined combat phases that kick in each time you chip down a third of their health. Ubisoft didn’t soften them up for the remake.
The good news is that the game also gives you more tools than the original did, specifically the three new naval officers whose abilities significantly change how naval combat plays out. The bad news is that even with those tools, timing and pattern reading are still the core of what makes these fights winnable — and that’s exactly where the mortar trick comes in.
The Mortar Trick: Fire Where They’re Going, Not Where They Are
The core idea here is as old as gaming itself — it’s the same timing-based skill that made arcade games like Defender or Galaga challenging, and it’s the same spatial reasoning that separates good players from great ones in any game that involves projectiles and moving targets. In AC Black Flag Resynced, mortars have a travel time and a landing delay. By the time the shot lands, a fast-moving legendary ship has already moved out of where you aimed it.
The fix is straightforward in concept and takes practice to execute reliably: instead of pointing your mortar reticle directly at the legendary ship, track its movement pattern, project where it will be when your mortar lands, and aim there instead. Here’s how to actually put it into practice during a fight:
- Observe the pattern first — every legendary ship has a predictable movement loop. Take a few seconds at the start of the fight to watch how it moves before committing to mortar shots you’re going to miss
- Wait for commitment moments — the best mortar windows are when a legendary ship has committed to an action: beginning a wide turn, starting a charge, lining up its own broadside, or slowing for a mortar barrage. These are the moments where its next position is most predictable
- Lead the target — aim your mortar reticle ahead of the ship in the direction it’s traveling, giving the shell enough time in the air to land where the ship ends up rather than where it was
- Use speed against them — a fully upgraded Jackdaw with the speed upgrade lets you control the distance between you and the target, which gives you better positioning to set up predictive mortar shots
- Brace immediately after firing — legendary ships will return fire while your mortar is in the air, so use the firing window as a cue to brace and absorb the incoming volley
This takes repetition to get right, especially across different ships that move in completely different ways. But once it clicks, you’ll start landing mortars consistently and the health bar on even the toughest legendary ships starts moving noticeably faster.
Which Legendary Ships Benefit Most From This Trick
The mortar timing trick isn’t equally useful across all six legendary ships — some fight styles lend themselves to it more than others. Here’s a breakdown of how it applies to each encounter:
El Impoluto (Northwest — Dry Tortuga, coordinates 115, 842)
El Impoluto is widely regarded as one of the two hardest legendary ships in Resynced, and it’s the one where the mortar timing trick makes the biggest difference. This ship’s entire combat identity is aggression — it charges you repeatedly, rams you head-on, sails a wide half-circle just outside cannon range, and then charges again. That predictable loop is actually your mortar window. When it finishes a charge and starts that wide arc back to line up the next ram, you know exactly where it’s going. Fire your mortar into that arc. When it closes in and you survive the ram with a perfect brace from Lucy Baldwin, it’ll back off again — another window. Rinse and repeat.
La Dama Negra (Southwest — Serranilla, coordinates 240, 72)
La Dama Negra is the easiest of the legendary ships and is a great place to practice the mortar timing trick before attempting the harder fights. Its heavily armored hull makes broadside cannons largely useless from the sides, so you want to stay behind it and use bow chasers on the stern — but the mortar trick still applies when it tries to create distance. When La Dama Negra stops moving to launch a mortar barrage at you, it presents a perfect stationary target. Aim your mortar directly at it in those moments for easy hits, and use the timing technique when it’s on the move between phases.
HMS Prince (Southeast — Navassa, coordinates 854, 55)
The HMS Prince is a ghost ship that vanishes into thick fog every time you deplete a third of its health and then bombards you with mortars while you can’t see it. During the phases where it’s visible and engaged in standard combat, the mortar timing trick applies normally. However, the most important tip for this fight is to mark the HMS Prince with your spyglass immediately when the encounter starts — even when it disappears into the fog, the HUD marker stays visible when you’re within range, letting you track it. If you completed Deadman Smith’s naval officer quest, his spray mortar variant helps significantly during the fog phases because you can reposition the strike on the fly.
HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign (Northeast — Eleuthera, coordinates 811, 858)
The twin fight is where the mortar timing trick has the most spectacular potential payoff. Because you’re dealing with two ships moving in choreographed patterns — they sail alongside each other, take a sharp synchronized turn to face you, and then separate — there are moments where both ships cross each other’s paths at the same point. A perfectly timed mortar fired into that crossing point can hit both ships simultaneously, dealing double the value from a single shot. It takes patience to set up, but when it lands it feels incredible and meaningfully speeds up the fight.
The critical rule for the twin fight is to damage both ships evenly. If you sink one while the other still has significant health remaining, the survivor sets itself on fire and starts ramming you relentlessly with no regard for its own hull — an aggressive mode that’s extremely dangerous. Keep the health bars roughly balanced throughout, and remember that you cannot board either ship to repair the Jackdaw mid-fight, so manage your hull carefully.
HMS Ipswich (Story-Locked — New in Resynced)
The HMS Ipswich is the brand-new legendary ship added exclusively to Resynced, encountered during the closing stages of the new endgame chapter A World Without Gold in Sequence 11. Unlike the other legendary ships, it doesn’t roam the open world and does not respawn after you defeat it — it’s a one-time story encounter. Like La Dama Negra, its hull is heavily armored, making standard broadside cannons largely ineffective. The trick here is to wait for it to drop fire barrels and immediately hit them with your swivel gun to deal big damage. Mortars and standard cannons can chip away at its health, but the barrel interaction is the primary damage source. Stay behind the ship as much as possible and brace whenever it fires mortars.
Standard Mortars vs. Deadman’s Cohort: Which to Use
Once you complete Tobias “Deadman” Smith’s naval officer quest — unlocked in the quest called No Box Dark Enough, which becomes available after Sequence 11: Everything is Permitted and after completing A World Without Gold — you gain access to his Deadman’s Cohort variant, a spray-style mortar that fires multiple rounds in a wide pattern rather than a single precise shell.
The trade-off is real and worth understanding before committing to one or the other in legendary ship fights:
- Standard mortars — higher damage per shot, but require precise aiming and timing to land consistently against fast-moving targets. The timing trick covered in this article is what makes them reliable
- Deadman’s Cohort — easier to land hits with because of the spread pattern and because you can reposition the strike on the fly, but deals less damage per use and demands more active attention to manage during chaotic fights
Neither is the objectively correct choice — it comes down to whether you’d rather put in the work to master timing for bigger payoffs, or accept a smaller but more consistent damage output with less precision required. For the HMS Prince’s fog phases specifically, Deadman’s Cohort’s repositionable shots are arguably more valuable than the standard mortar’s raw damage. For El Impoluto, where windows of opportunity are brief but predictable, mastering the standard mortar timing tends to win out.
Before You Attempt Any Legendary Ships — Checklist
The mortar trick helps, but it doesn’t replace preparation. Going into a legendary ship fight without a fully upgraded Jackdaw is going to end badly regardless of how good your mortar timing is. Here’s what to have sorted before you sail into any legendary ship’s coordinates:
- Fully upgraded Jackdaw — every weapon, hull armor, and storage upgrade maxed out. The Mortars Ultimate Plan is worth hunting down — it’s found in an underwater shipwreck at coordinates 600, 635 in the Gibara region during a dive. You need to have unlocked the Diving Bell with Blackbeard first
- Padre recruited (A Second Chance quest, available after Sequence 4: This Old Cove) — unlocks the charge ram ability for bonus speed and damage on impact
- Lucy Baldwin recruited (A Proper Shipwright quest, available after Sequence 4: This Old Cove) — unlocks perfect bracing, which can almost completely negate incoming damage when timed correctly. This is arguably the most important officer for legendary ship fights
- Deadman Smith recruited (No Box Dark Enough quest, after Sequence 11) — unlocks maximized broadside cannon damage and the Deadman’s Cohort mortar variant
- Full loadout of supplies before each fight — restock all weapons and hull repairs before sailing into any legendary ship’s coordinates. There’s no mid-fight reset
If you go in with everything checked off, the mortar timing trick becomes a genuine force multiplier. If you go in underprepared, even perfect mortar play won’t save you. Get the Jackdaw ready, get your officers aboard, and then take the legendary ships on one at a time. For more AC Black Flag Resynced tips and gaming news, check out what’s happening with The Finals Season 11’s new PvE bot matches, the latest on Animal Crossing’s upcoming August merch drop, and the Battlefield 6 anti-cheat update.
