There are some techniques I've used to track my targets & avoid my pursuers.
Movement
How you move in AC:B is the biggest tell that you're not just an NPC (Non-Player Character) clone. The clones never run. The clones never fast-walk. They tend to walk in the middle of a path, taking wide turns around corners. Occasionally, one will peel off and walk into a standing or sitting group, or leave a group to continue walking around the Environment.
Trying to move like an NPC is extremely hard. You really have to fight the quick-twitch kill skills that other games teach you. The only time I run is when I don't have any pursuers on me and when I'm a long distance from my target. Otherwise, I just casually walk around the map. I try to blend in with moving groups as I walk around the map so my pursuers can't easily single me out. I also leave the walking group to join a standing group of people on occasion. These standing spots give you a great chance to watch your back for your pursuer without having to worry about walking just like an NPC.
Finally, the hardest part about moving around is not letting your target know you're a Templar. If they're running around like an idiot and making it super easy to spot and track them, that's their fault. Most folks are a bit smarter than that, and will be standing, walking, or sitting next to an NPC that looks just like them. If you don't have any means to tell which one is your target, either (a) guess and hope you're right or (b) just keep walking. Stopping to ponder who you'll kill will give you away, since the only place NPCs stop walking is if they're in a standing group.
Also, don't ever walk directly at your target. Folks seem to have a good sense when someone is walking directly towards them with the intent to kill.
Abilities
There are a number of unlockable & upgradeable abilities to help you hunt your target & elude your pursuer. Every time you start a round (or you re-enter the round because you just died) you get to choose 2 abilities to help you. These abilities are:
- Disguise - Look like a different NPC clone for a short while.
- Sprint Boost - Run really fast for a short while
- Smoke Bomb - Everyone around you stops and coughs for a short while
- Hidden Gun - Shoot somebody
- Templar Vision - Highlight your attackers in red & your targets in blue for a short while.
- Morph - Change all clones around you to look identical to you.
- Firecrackers - Blind any nearby players, and make the NPC clones near you cower on the ground.
- Throwing Knives - Injure someone so they walk very slowly for a few seconds.
- Charge - Blitz through a croud & automatically kill/stun your target/pursuer.
- Decoy - Make a nearby NPC look like you and run frantically away.
- Mute - Nobody near you can use abilities or kill/stun for a few seconds
- Poison - Prick your target with a poison pin & watch them die a few seconds later.
The specifics are best explained here, but that's the gist of it.
Abilities for Wanted
You need a good balance of offense & defense when you play Wanted. I've found that the higher you are in the rankings, the more Templars will come after you. So I usually start with erring on the side of offense & then lock down in a very defensive mode once I'm doing well.
For offense, Poison is amazing for getting really high-point kills. They're difficult to pull off since you have to be very close to your target to do it, but the extra points are worth it. This is especially true if you have a string of bad luck and you get a Score x2 multiplier. It's also the only way to kill a target without exposing yourself for 2-3 seconds to your own pursuer.
If you don't have Poison yet (it's the last Ability to unlock) then I'd probably go with Throwing Knives for my offensive ability. It will slow down a far-away target so you can still creep up too them without drawing too much attention.
I also carry either Mute or Smoke Bomb with me for defense. If I can spot my pursuer, I usually go for the stun; I'm not very adept at running away. Both of these abilities give me the advantage if I can see my pursuer coming. Smoke Bomb has proven to be more effective for me, since my pursuer can't move at all if he's caught in it, but Mute draws substantially less attention to myself. I typically equip both of these when I'm in defensive lock-down mode.
Abilities for Manhunt
Since you'll be exclusively on Offense or Defense for an entire round, my choice of abilities shifts dramatically. Your pursuers will be less subtle, since they don't have anyone looking to kill them. Also, your targets will be more likely to be in groups, hiding places, or otherwise giant clusters of identical clones. They don't have anyone to go after, so they can spend the entire round happily standing still.
For offense, I usually go with Templar Vision and Charge. I try and use Templar Vision from far away or from a rooftop; generally anything that will hopefully be a bit out of sight. When I use Templar Vision, I glow bright white, and basically tell my targets that, no matter where they're standing, I've just found them. If they see me, they're likely to run, and then I'll have to chase them, and the whole super-stealthy assassinate thing gets messy. So I keep my distance, use Templar Vision, and mark which of the folks in the crowd are our targets so my teammates can casually walk up and stab them in the back.
While that ability is recharging, I use Charge. It's substantially less subtle. If a crowd of target NPCs walks by, I'll just bet that one of them is a player and run at them like a rhino on fire. It works more than you'd think.
Defense is a different story entirely. I used to use Morph a lot, until I realized that it just told other players to use some ability on the crowd (like Firecrackers, Charge, or Templar Vision). I still use it on occasion, but when I do, I usually morph a stationary group of people, then move on and stand in a different stationary group. So my decoy group of clones will hopefully get a pursuer to give themselves away by using one of their abilities on a harmless crowd.
I really like the idea of Decoy, but it hasn't been as effective as I would imagine. It's just a bit cumbersome to select the nearby NPC and send them off running in a direction that isn't directly at you. But when I do send a decoy in my pursuer's direction and watch them fall for it, it's quite satisfying.
I also still like Mute & Smoke Bomb.
Abilities for Alliance
I haven't really played much of this mode. Apparently nobody else does, either. The wait times for starting this game type are unbearable.
Chest Capture
Again, I don't play this game mode a lot. There just aren't a lot of folks who want to play it. When I do, it's really the only good mode I've found for Disguise.
I've used Disguise in other game modes before, mostly at the end of a chase so that my pursuer will lose track of me, but I've only had moderate success. Usually, my target or pursuer will see me put on the disguise, or I'll lose the disguise just before I can close in for the kill. I need to work on my timing.
It works well for this game mode, though, since I just need to make the approach unnoticed. I can hang around for a while without killing anything and still make a bunch of points.
Phew. 2 AC:B posts behind me. Now I can finally get to discussing the new game modes released in the latest DLC, The Da Vinci Disappearance. But that will just have to wait for another post.
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