Hey guys, I just unlocked this achievement after about 7 hours of total attempts. I've been a long time assassin's creed fan and have 100% almost all of them. That being said, I have some tips and tricks that will hopefully make this achievement a lot less intimidating to go after. This will be a comprehensive and detailed guide, and I will try to cover everything that i've seen people struggle with. I've split this forum into several paragraphs to make it easier for you to find tips on whatever you're searching for. I've only covered the absolute hardest challenges here, as the other ones are quite trivial and don't really require any explanation.
Some of the golds are quite challenging, don't get me wrong, but it's not as bad as some people make it out to be. If you take the time to read this whole thing, you'll see some things i've struggled with and how i overcame them. it will ultimately make it easier for you to complete as well.
A little disclaimer before you read any further. This is absolutely end-game content and I would say that some skills that are extremely helpful, if not downright mandatory, to have to complete some of these. These skills include - Miasma, Battlefield Cremation, and STEALTH RECON. A skill that actually hinders your ability to get gold medals is the "Parry damage" skill, which obviously does damage to enemies that you successfully parry. You must unlearn this skill if you have it. If you're a low level or are unable to unlock any of the skills that I have just mentioned, I would highly recommend holding off on this achievement until you are able to do so.
Some of the challenges give you a small margin for error, allowing you to mess up a specified kill on one or two enemies. But most of them are very strict and there's only enough enemies for you to complete the challenge without making any mistakes.
-------------------------------------BEAR CHALLENGES-----------------------------------
Personally, I found all of the Bear challenges to be the easiest of the 3. With the exception of one. Mainly Bear challenges consist of a lot of parrying. So it would be good to learn the different enemies' attacks and know when to parry. If you parry too early, you can always just dodge away to avoid taking damage. Parrying is a required mechanic to learn and be good at in order to get golds in the bear challenges. My mistake when first doing the bear challenges was I had the skill that does damage to enemies that you parry. So, don't make the same mistake as me.
The Lolingstone Bandit Camp Bear challenge is definitely the hardest one out of the 5, but it's still not too bad once you get the hang of it. This challenge requires you to get (9?) kills with fire damage before you finish. Luckily, your hammer has a rune on it that has a chance to create a small fire around you when you parry. So, what I did was just continue parrying until I got the fire to spawn. The enemies with spears and flails will die if they're in the vicinity of the fire when it spawns, but the enemies with daggers have a bit more health so I would always weaken them a bit before trying to parry them. Unfortunately the flame spawn chance is complete RNG, so you might get the fire on the 1st parry or the 7th. That's what really makes this challenge tricky.
The battlefield cremation skill helps a lot with this one, but isn't absolutely necessary. Sometimes you can bait the enemies into a burning corpse, but most of the time they will do their best to avoid it. If you focus on your enemies it's easy to parry their blows, so just farm parries on the first 5 enemies and kill them all with fire. I killed the next two on the ledge with the kick ability for fall damage kills and farmed parries on the yeoman until a fire spawned and killed him. In the next area, kill the 3 archers with fall damage by knocking them off the ledge with your hammer and that should complete your fall damage kills. Farm parries on the remaining enemies to kill them with fire. There's 3 enemies in the final area. Try to avoid the target and farm parries on the other little enemies. Once you have enough fire kills, just use your grappling hook ability to make short work of the boss. This one will probably take a while, so good luck. The other bear challenges are easy.
------------------------------------WOLF CHALLENGES-----------------------------------
The Wolf challenges require precision. The biggest tip I have for these is try to be either on level ground with the enemy you're shooting at or above them. Shooting upwards is incredibly inconsistent. Many times I would be shooting up at an enemy with my reticle directly on their head yet the kill would not count as a headshot. I would recommend turning auto-aim off for these if you have it on.
The second most important thing about these wolf challenges is to not fire a fully nocked arrow when aiming for weak points. if you simply tap the trigger, the arrow will still fly in a straight trajectory towards your target and do minimal damage. These enemies, especially the archers, are extremely fragile and will die easily. So definitely don't fully charge your arrow when aiming for weak points. Only fully charge your bow if you're aiming for a headshot.
I've read that a lot of people have trouble with the Odin's Mine wolf challenge. You must hit every weak point on every enemy and kill every enemy with a headshot. In a way, shooting the weakpoints actually makes the challenge easier. Once you hit their weakpoint and they're on the ground on one knee it makes it incredibly easy to follow up with a headshot. It's true that sometimes the enemies are prone to committing suicide or just taking a random 60 damage from a randomly exploding oil jar. I only had issues with enemies killing themselves in the very starting area before you even enter the mine.
The 3 enemies in an elevated position are standing on flimsy scaffolding, so be careful not to shoot it. I went up the right side and stood on level ground with the archers to make it easier to kill them. If you see an enemy fall and die restart the challenge. Inside the cave, there are lots of torches and oil jars. Do your best to avoid shooting oil jars and avoid shooting an enemy if a torch is in your arrow's flight path. If the arrow hits fire before it hits your enemy, it will set them on fire and the fire will kill them. The archer's weakpoints are on either one of their arms and the melee enemies are their legs. Eventually you'll get really good at hitting the weakpoints and following up with a headshot. Just keep baiting the enemies to rush towards you and this one really isn't too bad.
The standard bearer at the end has two weak points. One on his arm and one on his leg. Once you get him to kneel, drill him in the head with an arrow and kill the other enemies in the surrounding area. The standard bearer is incredibly good at blocking arrows with his shield so what I did was I returned to the previous area, climbed the scaffolding, and shot him in the head while he was searching for me and his back was turned. I've also heard that other people have said that the standard bearer's weakpoints regenerate if you go far back into the cave, but I can't confirm this.
The other Wolf challenges aren't too bad and they're pretty straightforward. The other one that's pretty annoying is the Templebrough fort one. It requires explosive kills and sometimes the oil jars inexplicably explode when you start the challenge. If this happens, just restart. Kill the first two enemies directly in front of you with the oil jar. You need 5 explosive kills, but sometimes the second explosive kill doesn't register on the first two enemies. Just check your progress. If you're at 66 instead of 132 after shooting the first oil jar just restart. Luckily it's the first thing you do. Afterwards, just run around on the ground and herd enemies towards oil jars but be careful not to get more than 5 explosion kills as you need to headshot/poison every other enemy available.
------------------------------------RAVEN CHALLENGES----------------------------------
The Raven challenges are stealth based. Only a couple are somewhat difficult. Just be patient. You're not on a time limit. The skill that highlights enemies when crouched is invaluable. Hide and study the guards' patrol pattern. It won't change. Do your best to adapt to whatever situation happens and don't forget to use your whistle with the left d-pad to lure enemies towards you. It is possible to emerge from cover and get "detected" by an enemy if they are staring directly at you. Don't worry, as long as you're either in the process of assassinating them or firing a sleep arrow at them when they detect you, it won't technically count as a detection.
Special assassination animations such as assassinations from cover i.e around walls or in haystacks or bushes and also ledge assassinations should be integrated into your play style as they provide an enormous benefit to take enemies out where they would be more difficult to take out otherwise. Use these techniques to your advantage every time you have the opportunity to.
Another important thing to note is that the AI are especially aware when it comes to hearing loud noises. you should avoid dropping from high places near enemies because they will hear the impact and detect you. Also try to avoid water whenever possible as traversing water makes a lot of noise. Sometimes you can use these sound cues to bait enemies to come to a certain area, but it’s risky and should be avoided if possible.
The AI are programmed to investigate dead bodies and this is something that can and should be used to your advantage. If you kill an enemy in an advantageous spot, wait for a nearby guard to find them and kill them in the same spot. I’ve had encounters where I was able to kill 4-5 enemies in the same exact spot. Also, make sure you wait for the assassinate prompt to appear before attempting an assassination. The last thing you want to do is try to assassinate someone and instead throw a light attack near them and get detected.
Personally, I had the most trouble with the Odin's mine Raven challenge. You must air assassinate every single enemy and the enemies patrol patterns always seemed to overlap each other, meaning that one was always looking at the other. And they don't stay in the same spot for more than a couple seconds. Not to mention the air assassination animation takes soooo long and the enemies you kill are always out in the open, leaving you extremely vulnerable to detection. This made things quite annoying as you have to be very very quick with your kills to avoid getting caught. You get a sleep arrow for this one, but the sleep arrow always attracts other guards to their position to wake them up. It's also incredibly inconsistent when it comes to how many guards come to investigate a sleeping/dead enemy. Just adapt to whatever happens, it's almost impossible to have consistent results in this first room. This one sucks, i'm not going to lie to you. It seems like all the stars have to perfectly align to get a good run. But it gets much easier after the second area.
What I did was assassinate the first enemy who is essentially a free kill then went up on the cliff to the right and waited for the other guard to find his body. Once he went to investigate, I fired a sleep arrow at the far guard because he always seemed to detect me if i didn't. Assassinate the guard that goes to investigate your first kill and then immediately climb back onto the ledge and hide in the bush. Now one of a multitude of things will happen. Either the 2 guards in the next area will come to wake him up but see the dead body in the other room and immediately run to investigate, or they will just wake him up and not see the dead body. If the former happens, this is the best case scenario.
stay hidden and wait for them to be leaned over the body and fire a sleep arrow at them to incapacitate them both. Air assassinate one, and hide back up on the ledge, At this point the far guard will have woken up and will likely, but not always, come to investigate the other sleeping enemies. If he comes to investigate, assassinate him, and then go back on the ledge and assassinate the other sleeping enemy. if you can do this successfully, the hardest part is done. But like i said, it's incredibly inconsistent and the same thing happens almost never. just do your best to adapt to whatever happens.
assassinate enemies if they're not being watched and fire a sleep arrow at one guard and assassinate the awake one when he goes to investigate (if there are only 2 guards in that area). I wish i could write a more straightforward guide for this one, but it's almost impossible to have consistent results. The AI are either hyper aware or completely oblivious and there’s not really any in between.
The other Raven challenges aren't too bad. Just channel your inner stealth lord and assassinate enemies when the others arent looking and whistle to bait enemies into your hiding spots. be patient.
The other notable one is the Templebrough fort one. This is where the miasma skill is almost mandatory. When the challenge starts, jump into the bushes directly below you and fire a fully charged poison arrow at the guard's head that is in front of you. There are several enemies in this area. and you need 5 poison kills before you complete the objective. If youre lucky, all 4 of the surrounding guards will come to investigate the commotion. when the initial poison target finally succumbs, he will spawn a giant poison cloud in the surrounding area. Just stay hidden in the bush until all of them are dead. You want at least 4 poison kills off of the initial arrow. If you don't get at least 4 i would just restart. kill your remaining poison target in the initial area. I would always go for the guy patrolling the bank on the far right if i still needed a poison kill as he's isolated and won't attract any attention. otherwise i would just assassinate him.
When you get up to the fort itself, ledge assassinations are your best friend. There are guards patrolling the walls on either side that can be easily taken care of by waiting on the ledge and taking them out when they’re standing over top of you. It might seem like they should be able to detect you when you’re right below them, but they can’t. Study the patrols in the fort and definitely utilize the ledge assassinations when you see that a guard stops at the edge of a wall for a few seconds. There are layers to the fort, and I was able to use ledge assassinations on both the lower and upper sections of the fort to great success. Make sure that all of the guards on the lower section are dead before moving up to the upper level.
good luck with this one. just analyze the guards patrols, there's pretty much always an opportunity for a free kill if youre patient enough.
TL;DR: Bear challenges are easy if you know how to parry, raven challenges require meticulous observation and patience. wolf challenges require precision (and a bit of luck). If you get stressed out, take a break. These things are always easier if you do them with a clear head.
If you have any questions or feel that i've missed something crucially important, feel free to leave a comment. Good luck