The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Since poison can sometimes be tricky to use...seeing as u need to sneak close to ur target to get the poison off. (This is probably easier in wanted, i only play manhunt) but i think u SHOULD get the points even if ur stunned and lost ur contract. Because u took the time to get in close enuf to poison ur target.

Here is something you need to know about poison. The game takes everything into account the second you poison them, its like you press square instead. Unless that player gets killed by someone else ( or by you, I have done it loads by mistake) then you will get all points.

Now here is how stealth gauge works. If you poison them while discreet, the cough away and it moves to silent, you will get discreet bonus. It can also work in your favor, say its wanted, you can poison them in incognito and sprint away to discreet ( havent dared try chase) and you will get an ingonito kill

With focus, if you poison them after the focus gauge is filled ( the attack prompt is full) you get focus. However if you poison them, and it fills up while they are coughing you get the normal kill

Same goes for hidden, walk into their hiding spot then poison, you get hidden. Poison then go into hiding spot, you get normal bonus. Note you can also get acrobatic if you are on a ledge and poison them.

I know I answered more than you needed but I hope this clears up future questions.

Always glad to learn from Jack Reacher himself

Nice explanation Jack. Although seeing how the trick with poison is to be extra stealthy and if you get stunned it means you weren't really stealthy enough(your target spotted you) you'd think they'd atleast dock you some points for that kill.

Not sure if that's possible but it seems a little unfair when your target gets 200 pts for the stun but you can still potentially get 600 pts for the kill.

Just because they stun u after u poison them, doesn't necessarily mean they spotted you. I've run into some people who just mash the stun button whenever somebody gets close to them (whether it be npc or player) it's more of a panic reaction in some cases.

If you get the poison kill, then does it even matter if they get their measly 200 points? I mean, unless they scored a Greater Variety then I wouldn't worry about it.
On contrast, if you stun on react it's always cool to get that extra 200 point cushion .

As the poisoner i wouldn't complain but if i was lucky enough to stun someone after they poisoned me then i'd feel cheated if they got the full points for the kill.

Well you can pretty much only stun your pursuer if you smoke them or surprise stun them just like on a normal kill, or if you stun at the same time they poison. I almost always stun poison pursuers, only to die afterwards. It's also happened often enough where I've noticed I've been poisoned, even who it was, but not being able to stun them. I understand that it would be way to difficult to pull off a poison kill without getting stunned if you weren't immune to stun after the poisoning, but I still find it very annoying.
I never run with poison myself, I just don't like an ability that just adds 200 (or 300 even, that seems pretty over the top to me, but that's another topic) points to your kill. I prefer more utility based abilities like throwing knives and smoke bomb (which can be used similarly to gain 150 bonus points on a kill as well as to stun a pursuer). Sure, poison is more difficult than a normal kill, but getting a non-aerial focus kill without smoke bomb is even harder and that's worth only 150 points.
I'd almost go as far as to suggest that when using poison you would be immune to stun after the poisoning has happened, but stun being a higher priority over poison, just like a normal kill has a higher priority than a stun. That would maybe make it difficult enough to allow for a 300 bonus point kill, because the danger of being stunned is so high. Poisoning from the front would pretty much be impossible, though.

Here, let me lay this out for the majority still confused about the situation of poison vs. stun.

Poison is an on-contact ability that has no animation on one side and a simple, instantaneous animation on the other. The act of poisoning is comparable to moving sideways while in a group or grazing somebody as you pass them by. Stun, on the other hand, has startup and after a certain amount of delay will be executed as input on the controller. Once the target has been poisoned, the damage is done. It's the same deal as explained earlier in the vein of running away after your target has been poisoned: The game doesn't calculate based on the current state of the characters but the state on which the ability was applied.

If you stun on-reaction (which is completely viable in most cases, especially when 'hidden' or after a sprint passed a slow-reacting assailant) and the game considers your assailant as neutral, you will get the stun since the game recognizes you as 'safe' or 'untouched' after the appropriate amount of startup has been achieved to successfully pull off the ability. They have been locked in the counter and you will gain points as such because of the successful stun, but because of the moment of which the poison was applied with an instantaneous animation that DOES NOT HAVE TO FULLY COMPLETE TO BE CONSIDERED APPLIED, your character will still seem neutral to the game. To the game, your assailant when applied to you still has the contract until about .05 seconds AFTER the initial poisoning. To your assailant, however, the game considers the target already dead and waits for one of two things to occur: The poison kills or it is intercepted.

Whether or not poison is "cheap" (an opinion which should have no bearing on the actual game because the object is to win), is up to you. However, from my observations I have drawn the above conclusion.