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Disarming Rodrigo Borgia of the Papal Staff

stabguy's picture
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJowUveU9uA

This video is based entirely on KaiyuiKurosaki's earlier story How to Wield the Papal Staff Against Rodrigo Borgia. The idea is to use the Smash attack with a Heavy Weapon to knock the Staff out of Borgia's hands. Before we get to that, let's take it from the top...

The video begins at the last save point before the fight with the Brutes on the Vatican Wall. If you have a skip procedure I suggest you use it here. It's hard to do everything correctly in one playthrough. Backup your savegame at any point shown in the first two minutes of this video.

When you arrive at the scene of the big fight with the Brutes, it's tempting to double air assassinate the first two guards. Doing so causes Ezio to cross an invisible line that spawns the two Brutes and two other guards, which means he'll be fighting eight guards at a time. In order to keep the fights manageable and prevent the Heavy Weapons from being lost in a pile of dead bodies, I postpone crossing the line until the first six guards are eliminated.

The Brutes run out with their Heavy Weapons drawn. Practically every way of killing them results in them dropping their weapons where Ezio can pick them up. One thing you don't want to do is to disarm them and then counter, leaving the Heavy Weapon stuck in the corpse. You can also lose access to their weapons by throwing them over the wall or into a collapsible structure.

Once you're Anonymous you can pull the lever on the balcony to open the door. Select a Heavy Weapon from a dead Brute. It doesn't matter which you choose because all of them can do a Smash attack. Brutes may be carrying any of the following:


From left to right: Labrys, Bearded Axe, Bastard Sword

Make your way through the two corridors without being detected. If necessary, you may temporarily drop the Heavy Weapon to assassinate guards with Hidden Blades.

Now comes the hardest part: Jumping through the Sistine Chapel without dropping the Heavy Weapon all the way to the floor below. Fast Walking and Sprinting cause Ezio to drop it, but Running is okay. The trick is to Run and just tap the Legs button when you need to jump. Go ahead and practice in the hallway: Run and Jump. If you drop the weapon here at least you can pick it up.

Use this technique to make your way to the suspended platform above Borgia. Target lock him and use the Run/Jump tap one more time to drop behind him. Quickly swing the Heavy Weapon before being detected.

From here on, the cutscenes are glitchy. Ezio stands next to Borgia instead of being blown back. You can make Ezio turn in place so I turned him to face the camera. The Apple magically appears in Ezio's hand, his clones spawn offscreen, and the Apple disappears again.

Pick up the Heavy Weapon and hold [Armed Hand] to wind up a Smash attack while Borgia is preoccupied with Ezio's clones. Borgia moves around quite a bit so it's sometimes hard to land the Smash attack. Don't worry as you have plenty of time. When it does land, the Papal Staff goes flying out of Borgia's hands. Watch where that thing lands! Disengage from fight mode, drop the Heavy Weapon, and pick up the Papal Staff.

The fight itself is rather disappointing. The Papal Staff acts like a long weapon with the Sweep attack. Borgia remains unarmed. I've never seen him pick up the Heavy Weapon. It would be interesting if he used a Smash attack to break the Papal Staff into two pieces. I tried to demonstrate the different attacks with the Staff but there really aren't that many.

More glitchy cutscenes: Borgia clutches the Papal Staff but he isn't really holding it. He bangs it on the ground a few times. The Apple also disappears as he places it on the end of the invisible Staff. Finally, Ezio uses his Armed Hand to push the buttons on the wall, all while holding the Staff in that hand.

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IanXO4
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grt video stab! i was a little surprised to see that you didnt show the alternate way of getting the staff, since it is a lot easier for most ppl to perform. should i make this vid?

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stabguy
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IanXO4 wrote:
should i make this vid?

Go for it! (I confirmed that it worked but it didn't fit well into my video.)

You won't even feel the blade.

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aurllcooljay
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Heh heh heh, you just walked past the guards unnoticed. So many exploits have been found Ubisoft is probably scared of thehiddenblade by now.

"I feel eyes on us. They could be here right now and we wouldn't even know it."
(Stabguy and Ian standing in the middle of them)
"Are they talking about us?"

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I've never been able to do that poison trick on Rodrigo so it's cool that there's another way to weild the Papal Staff. Props to Kaiyui for discovering this! I'll be sure to try it out for myself.

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Jedted wrote:
I've never been able to do that poison trick on Rodrigo so it's cool that there's another way to weild the Papal Staff. Props to Kaiyui for discovering this! I'll be sure to try it out for myself.

I found an easier way to wield the staff so you don't have to worry about bringing a heavy weapon to Rodrigo and hitting him with it. This will probably help you if you were detected and did not back up a save to an earlier point.

Just bring an axe into the chapel or if you couldn't get one lure a brute to the back of the chapel poison him then punch him. This won't alert the other brutes but stay far enough from the monks as they will react and desync you. You might have to repeat the poison and punch because sometimes when the brute drops his heavy weapon it falls through the floor. Rinse and repeat until you get your heavy weapon then just walk through and blend with the crowd until you get to the front. Good luck Jedted, Wink hope you will wield the papal staff.

At this point drop your two handed weapon(don't worry I found out that the axes or broad swords that are carried by the brutes disappear during the first cutscene but the one you carried will remain modeled even if you drop it) and charge at the pope with full speed. Equip the HIDDEN BLADE so you don't accidentally run up and punch him; after the cutscene pick up your weapon and disarm Rodrigo.

Unfortunately though, you won't get the weird cutscene at 4:00 if you tried this method. But that's pretty much the only difference besides the difficulty in performing the first method and this one.

Oh yeah and thank you soo much for putting in your time and effort to create this video Stabguy. I really appreciate this and every other video you make. I hope to see more especially in Brotherhood. Thanks again Stabguy Big smile