Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood/Abilities, perks, bonuses

As you level your character up, you will be rewarded with different abilities, perks and bonuses, all of which can be set in your Profile Sets. You will eventually have more enhancements than slots, so experiment with the ones that best suit your play style, the style of the players in your current session and the map you're on.

Abilities
Abilities can be used at any time during the sessions and must be activated by pressing the button corresponding to the ability. You get two ability slots in your Profile Sets, and there are many you can obtain through leveling. Each ability also has a cooldown timer after you use it, and it will be displayed in your ability icons on the screen by putting the number of seconds left until you can use it inside the icons.

[[Image:AC Brotherhood icon Disguise.png]] Disguise
The Disguise ability changes your appearance to one of the other character skins at random. This is useful to confuse a pursuer, who has to determine who his target is visually when he gets close enough. Defensively, this is best used while standing near one or more characters that look like you. This way it's not obvious to the pursuer which one is you. Note that your pursuer will hear a distinctive sound when you activate your disguise, so this can be a problem against better players.
 * Level acquired: 2
 * Duration: 12 seconds
 * Cooldown time: 60 seconds

Where Disguise is much more useful is as an offensive ability. The two unlockable versions, Long Lasting Disguise and Rapid Reload Disguise, both award the Hidden bonus when you kill your target. This is an easy way to add 200 points to your kills, and Rapid Reload Disguise has a super-short cooldown. As a side benefit, if you do have pursuers while you are trying to perform a kill, it can confuse your enemies allowing you to get the assassination where otherwise it would have failed.

[[Image:AC Brotherhood icon Sprint Boost.png]] Sprint Boost
This ability increases your speed while in high profile by 30%. Sprint Boost will give you a better chance of catching your target in chase mode or escaping your pursuer in pursuit mode.
 * Level acquired: 3
 * Duration: 5 seconds
 * Cooldown time: 60 seconds

[[Image:AC Brotherhood icon Smoke Bomb.png]] Smoke Bomb
The Smoke Bomb creates a smoky cloud 3.2 meters in diameter with a small pause between activating the ability and its creation. This will stop other characters, allowing you to escape, stun your pursuer or kill your target. You can also use the ability in hiding. Defensively, you want to throw your Smoke Bomb a bit early to account for lag, and it is also helpful to dart toward your pursuer quickly before dropping it to make sure you catch them. Smoke Bomb can defeat Charge, but it will not defend you against aerial kills. Note that the Smoke Bomb can also be dropped from above if you happen to above your target or pursuer.
 * Level acquired: 8
 * Duration: 3 seconds
 * Cooldown time: 60 seconds

Offensively, Smoke Bomb can help you acquire a Focus, especially with Long Lasting Smoke Bomb, or a Hidden, but dropping it as you walk up to a stationary blend group where you target is hiding and blending before taking the kill. It is also helpful in landing Poison on your target. A little known use for Smoke Bomb is to ferret out your target when they're seated with NPCs. When you smoke the bench, the player character will stand up slightly slower than NPCs. Finally, it can be used to determine who your target is in a group: drop the Smoke Bomb, which will stun the group, then use gentle push on the personas. Player characters can't be pushed out of the way like NPCs, so if you're quick enough you can find your target and take him out.

[[Image:AC Brotherhood icon Hidden Gun.png]] Hidden Gun
The Hidden Gun can be used on a character you're locked on to. Hold down the ability button to focus your aim and release to fire. Getting a kill in this way isn't worth a very high score, but if your target is far away or constantly running around, it may be easier and quicker to use it. You can get a slight score bump for waiting until your target is airborne before pulling the trigger. This is mainly a griefing tool, and shouldn't be used if you're trying to score well.
 * Level acquired: 11
 * Aim time: 1.5 seconds
 * Cooldown time: 90 seconds

[[Image:AC Brotherhood icon Morph.png]] Morph
The Morph ability changes all characters within a 3.2 radius of you into your character's skin. Try to find a group to use this one to increase the probability that your pursuer will pick the wrong target. You can also use this ability to counter your target's Morph ability or Blender perk. When you use it on a group that has been morphed/blendered already, all the NPCs will change to your skin, revealing your target. Combined with Disguise, you can walk slightly away from your morphed group so your pursuer's compass is still full, and he'll likely kill someone in the group or at least smoke or charge the group, instead of you.
 * Level acquired: 14
 * Duration: Permanent
 * Cooldown time: 60 seconds

[[Image:AC Brotherhood icon Poison.png]] Poison
This ability lets you poison your target for a delayed kill and a 100–300 point bonus, depending on which version you use. It's dangerous to use this ability, because it takes five seconds to kill your target, and if another pursuer takes them out before the poison gets them, you only get 50 points. You must also be much closer to your target than for a normal assassination, so it is riskier. However, the rewards are worth it, especially with Long Lasting Poison that gives you the most points. Combined with Rapid Reload Disguise, this combination can add 500 points to you kill, and is the ability set that will gain you the most points in Wanted. Another good pairing is with Smoke Bomb, which you can use offensively to let you safely get in and deliver the poison.
 * Level acquired: 29
 * Duration: 5 seconds
 * Cooldown time: 90 seconds

Perks
Perks are passive enhancements, and you get one slot in your Profile Sets for them. These perks are always in effect and there are currently two perks available through leveling.

[[Image:AC Brotherhood icon Blender.png]] Enhanced Autobash
This ability increases the number of characters you can run into while in high profile without stumbling. This is useful when you're in chase or pursuit mode and any slow down could result in failure. You can always just use the unarmed hand button to shove people as you're running, but this perk will help you out if you can't get to it in time.
 * Level acquired: 20

[[Image:AC Brotherhood icon Enhanced Autobash.png]] Blender
The Blender perk changes one character in a group to your character skin when you blend in with them, unless one of them already has the same skin as you. This is a good way to quickly fool a pursuer you know is close to you without wasting one of your abilities to disguise yourself or morph the whole group.
 * Level acquired: 30

Streak bonuses
Streak bonuses only go into effect after you've obtained a streak in the session. The two types of streaks are kill streaks and loss streaks. Kill streaks are when you kill a series of targets in a row and loss streaks are when you have a series of lost contracts in a row. There are two slots in your Profile Sets, one for each type of streak, and there are currently four streak bonuses available through leveling.

[[Image:AC Brotherhood icon Streak Bonus 100.png]] Streak Bonus +100
This bonus is applied once you have killed three targets in any manner. The bonus adds an additional 100 points to your score for each successive kill until you lose a contract.
 * Level acquired: 5
 * Streak type: Kill streak

[[Image:AC Brotherhood icon Streak Bonus 300.png]] Streak Bonus +300
This bonus is applied once you have killed three targets silently (you will see the Silent score). The bonus adds an additional 300 points to each successive silent kill until you lose a contract or kill a target without the Silent bonus.
 * Level acquired: 13
 * Streak type: Kill streak

[[Image:AC Brotherhood icon Extra Sensitivity.png]] Extra Precision
This bonus will increase the precision of your compass until you make a kill.
 * Level acquired: 4
 * Streak type: Loss streak

[[Image:AC Brotherhood icon Reset Cooldowns.png]] Reset Cooldowns
With this bonus active, any abilities currently on a cooldown timer will be reset every time you die, until you make a kill.
 * Level acquired: 12
 * Streak type: Loss streak