The legendary ships are among the toughest challenges in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. Even with an almost fully upgraded Jackdaw, two or three mistakes are often enough to lose a battle. In this guide, we’ll show you the locations of every legendary ship, the requirements for unlocking each encounter, and the most reliable strategy for every fight. We’ll also explain why some guides refer to four encounters, five ships, or even six ships, depending on how they are counted.
How Many Legendary Ships Are There in Black Flag Resynced?
The different totals listed in other guides are caused by different ways of counting them:
- Four encounters: Four legendary ship battles appear on the world map.
- Five open-world ships: The northeastern encounter features both HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign.
- There are four open-world Legendary Ship encounters featuring five official Legendary Ships. HMS Ipswich is an additional story-exclusive boss ship, bringing the total number of major naval boss ships to six.
The four open-world encounters are:
- El Impoluto
- La Dama Negra
- HMS Prince
- HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign as a single two-ship encounter
HMS Ipswich, on the other hand, is not a regular open-world ship. You only encounter it during the new endgame questline A World Without Gold.
All Legendary Ships and Locations
The following overview lists every legendary ship, its coordinates, and the requirement for unlocking the encounter.
| Legendary Ship | Region | Coordinates | Unlock Requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Impoluto | Dry Tortuga | 115, 842 | Capture the Dry Tortuga fort |
| La Dama Negra | Serranilla | 240, 72 | Capture the Serranilla fort |
| HMS Prince | Navassa | 854, 55 | Capture the Navassa fort |
| HMS Fearless & Royal Sovereign | Eleuthera | 811, 858 | Capture the Eleuthera fort |
| HMS Ipswich | Quest-related | No open-world location | Play or complete the A World Without Gold questline |
Preparation: How Strong Should Your Jackdaw Be?
The legendary ships are significantly tougher in Resynced than they were in the original game. They have more health, deal considerably more damage, and some of them enter new attack phases during battle.
For that reason, you shouldn’t attempt these battles as soon as they become available. On Normal difficulty or higher, your Jackdaw should be almost fully upgraded. I recommend waiting until you have the most important ship upgrades and have recruited at least Lucy Baldwin. This makes the battles considerably easier.
Fully Upgrade the Jackdaw
To unlock the highest upgrade tiers, you need all twelve Ultimate Ship Plans. These plans can be found in locations such as underwater shipwrecks and buried treasure chests. You must then purchase the corresponding upgrades from a harbormaster using Reales and materials.
You should also upgrade the harbormaster at Great Inagua so that every required upgrade tier and purchase option is available there.
The most important upgrades are:
- Maximum hull armor
- Maximum broadside cannons
- Maximum swivel guns
- Maximum mortar
- Fully upgraded Ram
- Maximum ammunition storage upgrades
How to Find and Defeat El Impoluto
- Region: Dry Tortuga (northwest)
- Coordinates: 115, 842
- Unlock Requirement: Capture the Dry Tortuga fort at approximately 223, 722
- Reward: 12,000 Reales, El Impoluto ship model, and Jackdaw cosmetics
El Impoluto specializes in aggressive frontal charges and is one of the most dangerous enemies in the game. In my opinion, it’s the toughest single legendary ship. Its ramming attacks punish even the smallest steering mistake. The ship builds up speed, rams the Jackdaw at full force, then pulls away before preparing another charge.
During each charge, El Impoluto also fires its bow cannons. In later phases, it adds longer barrages with incendiary rounds.
Strategy for Defeating El Impoluto
First, learn the repeating attack pattern of charge, ram, and turn. Don’t immediately chase the ship when it pulls away. Instead, use the extra distance to fire a mortar volley.
When El Impoluto charges straight toward you again, you have several options:
- Use Perfect Brace at the last possible moment.
- Drop fire barrels directly into its path.
- Fire a mortar at the expected collision point.
- Slow the ship with chain shot from your bow chasers.
- Dodge to the side at the last second and immediately unleash a broadside.
Your own Ram Dash can also deal heavy damage. However, a head-on collision is risky because even a fully upgraded Jackdaw can lose a significant amount of health. It’s usually safer to absorb the impact with Perfect Brace and launch a counterattack.
Whenever possible, sail past El Impoluto at an angle. This reduces direct ram damage and creates a brief opening for broadsides, incendiary rounds, and swivel guns. Chain shot can temporarily immobilize El Impoluto, giving you enough time to follow up with a mortar strike, Ram Dash, or a full broadside.
How to Find and Defeat La Dama Negra
- Region: Serranilla (southwest)
- Coordinates: 240, 72
- Unlock Requirement: Capture the Serranilla fort at approximately 317, 120
- Reward: 12,000 Reales, La Dama Negra ship model, and Jackdaw cosmetics
La Dama Negra is heavily armored along both sides of its hull. While broadsides still deal damage, they are far less effective than against other legendary ships. Even critical hits from your swivel guns are significantly reduced against its armored sides.
Its bow and stern are the ship’s main weak points. The biggest mistake is constantly trading broadsides. That’s what makes this fight much harder than it needs to be. Stay behind the ship whenever possible and focus your attacks on the stern.
Strategy for Defeating La Dama Negra
Try to get behind La Dama Negra and follow its course. From there, you can repeatedly target its exposed stern with your bow chasers and chain shot.
La Dama Negra is slower than most other legendary ships, making it easier to stay on its tail. However, don’t underestimate its mortar attacks. Orange targeting circles on the water show where the shells will land.
- Focus your attacks on the bow and stern.
- Stay at close to medium range.
- Block mortar attacks with Perfect Brace
- Use chain shot to temporarily stop the ship.
- Fire your mortar whenever La Dama Negra slows down.
- Shoot its dropped fire barrels with your swivel guns while the ship is still within the blast radius.
During the later phases, La Dama Negra starts dropping fire barrels behind it, making the stern much more dangerous. Don’t blindly sail through them. Destroy them first or approach from a slight angle instead.
How to Find and Defeat HMS Prince
- Region: Navassa (southeast)
- Coordinates: 854, 55
- Unlock Requirement: Capture the Navassa fort at approximately 701, 194
- Reward: 12,000 Reales, HMS Prince ship model, and Jackdaw cosmetics
The battle against HMS Prince consists of several phases. At first, it behaves like an exceptionally powerful warship, attacking with broadsides, mortars, and sea mines.
After taking enough damage, HMS Prince retreats into dense fog and bombards you from long range with mortars. Later in the fight, it repeats this pattern with greater speed and from an even longer distance.
Strategy for Defeating HMS Prince
At the start of the battle, mark HMS Prince with your spyglass. This makes it much easier to track the ship through the interface once you get back within range.
During the fog phases, don’t simply sail straight toward the ship. Instead, try to cut off its course. Head diagonally toward its expected route while blocking incoming mortar shells with Perfect Brace.
- Mark the ship with your spyglass as soon as the battle begins.
- Stay at medium range whenever the fog is gone.
- Use chain shot to interrupt its escape.
- Keep moving during the fog phase and watch for mortar impact markers.
- Cut off the ship’s route instead of chasing it directly.
- Use Ram Dash once you get back within range.
- Follow up with broadsides and incendiary rounds for maximum damage.
The fog phase is not the time for reckless attacks. Your main objective is to survive and close the distance again. The first fog phase feels more chaotic than it actually is. Stay calm and avoid blindly chasing the ship.
How to Defeat HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign
- Region: Eleuthera (northeast)
- Coordinates: 811, 858
- Unlock Requirement: Capture the Eleuthera fort
- Reward: 12,000 Reales, Brothers in Arms ship model, and Jackdaw cosmetics
In this encounter, you’ll fight HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign at the same time. The two ships work together to surround the Jackdaw and bombard you from both sides.
Although each ship has less health than the other legendary ships, their combined broadsides can deal devastating damage, even if you time Perfect Brace correctly.
The Two Most Important Rules
- Never sail between the two ships. Doing so exposes you to broadsides from both enemies at the same time.
- Keep both ships at roughly the same health. Once one of them sinks, the surviving ship catches fire, becomes far more aggressive, and repeatedly tries to ram you.
I found this battle much easier once both health bars were reduced evenly. That way, the dangerous final phase only lasts a few seconds.
Strategy for the Two-Ship Battle
Stay outside their formation and always focus on whichever ship is currently on the outside. Sail alongside it, fire a broadside, and immediately drop fire barrels behind you.
Chain shot is especially useful in this encounter. Temporarily stopping one ship breaks up their coordinated formation and isolates the other ship for a short time.
- Never sail between both ships.
- Keep both health bars at roughly the same level.
- Use mortars whenever both ships turn together or sail close to each other.
- Stop one ship with chain shot, then follow up with Ram Dash.
- Detonate dropped fire barrels with your swivel guns while a ship is still within the blast radius.
- Never chase the ships directly through active fire barrel fields.
- Once the first ship sinks, immediately go on the offensive against the second.
Before sinking the first ship, make sure the second one has only a small amount of health left. This allows you to finish the dangerous final phase with one or two powerful attack combinations.
How to Defeat HMS Ipswich
- Location: Only appears during the A World Without Gold questline
- Open-World Coordinates: None
- Reward: HMS Ipswich ship model
- Reales: No additional Reales reward
- Respawn: No
HMS Ipswich is an additional high-level naval battle introduced in Black Flag Resynced’s new story content. It never appears as an open-world encounter and cannot be fought again once its story mission has been completed.
Like La Dama Negra, HMS Ipswich has extremely heavy hull armor. As a result, regular broadsides and mortar fire deal only limited damage.
Strategy for Defeating HMS Ipswich
The biggest weakness of HMS Ipswich is its own fire barrels. Play defensively at first and wait until the ship drops barrels behind it. Then use your swivel guns to detonate them while HMS Ipswich is still within the blast radius. At first, the battle feels unusual because constant cannon fire accomplishes very little. The exploding fire barrels deal the real damage and are the key to winning the fight.
- Stay behind the ship whenever possible.
- Avoid spending too much time alongside its broadsides.
- Wait for it to drop fire barrels.
- Immediately detonate the barrels with your swivel guns.
- Use Perfect Brace against incoming mortar attacks.
- Use your regular weapons only as supporting damage.
The exploding fire barrels deal far more damage than repeatedly firing at the ship’s armored hull. Patience is much more important than nonstop attacking.
Rewards for Every Legendary Ship
| Legendary Ship | Reward | Ship Model | Respawns |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Impoluto | 12,000 Reales | El Impoluto | Yes |
| La Dama Negra | 12,000 Reales | La Dama Negra | Yes |
| HMS Prince | 12,000 Reales | HMS Prince | Yes |
| HMS Fearless & Royal Sovereign | 12,000 Reales | Brothers in Arms | Yes |
| HMS Ipswich | No Reales reward | HMS Ipswich | No |
Each of the four open-world encounters also rewards you with a complete cosmetic set for the Jackdaw, including:
- Sails
- Hull
- Wheel
- Figurehead or bowsprit decoration
You can equip these Jackdaw cosmetics through the ship customization menu. The ship models are added to the art collection at the Great Inagua mansion and appear in the Fleet Planning Room.
How to Respawn Legendary Ships
The four open-world Legendary Ship encounters eventually respawn, allowing you to fight them again.
If a legendary ship icon is no longer visible on your world map, try the following method:
- Sail directly to the ship’s known coordinates.
- Wait a moment to see if the encounter loads.
- Open the world map.
- Fast travel to a different location.
- Return to the legendary ship’s region.
Changing regions forces the area to reload, which can trigger the encounter to respawn. HMS Ipswich is excluded from this mechanic because it only appears during its dedicated story mission.
How to Unlock the Devil of the Caribbean Trophy
To unlock the Devil of the Caribbean Silver Trophy or Achievement, you must defeat the following four legendary encounters:
- El Impoluto
- La Dama Negra
- HMS Prince
- HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign
Even though you sink two ships during the final encounter, it still counts as a single legendary boss battle. HMS Ipswich is not one of the four world map encounters and is not required for the trophy. Devil of the Caribbean is one of the required trophies on the road to the Platinum Trophy in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced.
Our Verdict
The legendary ships are among the toughest challenges in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. However, with a fully upgraded Jackdaw, all three new officers, and the right strategy, you can reliably defeat every open-world legendary encounter. If you’re still getting used to the new ship abilities, I recommend starting with La Dama Negra. El Impoluto and the battle against HMS Fearless & Royal Sovereign demand much more precision and rank among the hardest encounters in the entire game.
Also remember that HMS Ipswich only appears during the A World Without Gold questline and is not required for the Devil of the Caribbean trophy. Defeating every legendary ship rewards you with exclusive ship models and Jackdaw cosmetics while completing one of the game’s biggest endgame challenges.
