The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Nope. He blocked it D:

So you have to disarm him again?

Yes. I could NOT dual wield tho . Also, Over at the Ubi forums, someone posted about this trick:
Go to villa fight training, go to Moves, then picking up weapons. After you exit, you shouldn't have a weapon any more! It worked for me

How is that helpful?

It's helpful in that it allows you to drop your sword.

For me, I have to hit Start and quit the game before picking up the sword in that training mission, otherwise I end up with a sword after. It's a bit of a pain, but fortunately it doesn't take much longer.

I figured this out a couple weeks ago and have been using it to ditch any swords I've accidentally picked up along the way during my second playthrough. However, I cannot get rid of my short blade in any way. Even Brutes won't seem to disarm it. So I'm stuck with the basic dagger forever.

This may sound weird... But I've never been disarmed before...
Its never happened to me... So the brutes can disarm you?
Also, when I'm buying weapons to add to my collection. I just buy them from the smith at Monteriggioni then run up to the villa and equip my good old Altairs Blade
The reason why I've never been disarmed before is probably due to my fight style. If in a fight with 3 or less guards, I'll normally just either hidden blade counter them, or disarm one of them, kill him, then dodge and attack either with the stolen weapon or my own. I rarely ever use my sword unless in a large fight...

This is really strange. I just beat the game and I never got disarmed once, and I always take out the Brutes last because they are so slow they're not really a problem for me.

The key to making brutes not a factor is in speed. Brutes take so long to attack that one quickstep in pretty much any direction will dodge even the strongest of the Brute attacks (i.e. the smash move). As for the disarm move you should know never to attack a Brute directly. If there's a menacingly bigger guy than you that's covered head to toe in metal armor, attacking him directly is not going to be effective at all. The disarm move is more of a reminder like "no, sorry, that's not going to work, think of something else."

That being said, I can easily think of five ways to kill a Brute without attacking him directly:

1. Smoke bomb to hidden blade
2. Throw sand+side/behind quickstep+hidden blade
3. Brutes and seekers usually go hand in hand, so disarm a seeker and sweep the brute, then take him out on the ground.
4. Quickstep a brute's smash attack, unlock, leap assassinate
5. Quickstep any brute attack, backstab kill with any sword

Brute's really aren't all their made out to be. Yes, they're strong, but they're also idiots. If Ian can kill the Pope with a whole squad of them in the same room and still remain anonymous, than I'm pretty sure anyone can take down a brute as long as they use Ezio's speed.

Agiles, brutes, seekers, archers, regulars, and captains all have their week points, you just have to look hard enough. Agiles wear practically no armor, so attacking them directly is like cutting through butter because you can almost always nail a combo kill on them. Seekers are very conservative attackers and are only good with long weapons, so disarming them and taking them out on the ground is always very effective. Brutes, as stated earlier, are tremendously slow, so utilizing Ezio's speed in the ways previously mentioned will take them out quickly. Archers are the equivalent of agiles, but they aren't nearly as fast, so combo kills are also very easy. Regular guards will run after 2-3 combo kills, so they're not really a factor in combat. Captains, for some reason, just can't stop the hidden blades. So with some nifty countering, a captain can be made short work of.

What I'm trying to say is that fighting is an art, and some masterpieces need to be painted in different styles to get the best result. Attacking a brute head on is like painting the Mona Lisa in Cubism. No offense to artists out there, but the classic Mona Lisa is going to beat the Mona Lisa with a mouth where her nose should be any day. Approach a brute with speed and they can't fight back, attack them directly head on and they'll make you pay.

Quickstep beats everything in this game. It's overpowered, like countering was in the first game, except that quickstep doesn't automatically kill the enemy like AC1's counters did. I try to quickstep as little as possible because it just makes the game too easy and it's a little too flamboyant to be doing over and over. It ruins the visual appeal of the game for me. I usually only quickstep when I'm being attacked from behind and blocking wouldn't work.

The Brute disarm move is not a counter. You can freely attack Brutes without any risk to yourself whatsoever, as they can only do the failed counter on you and you do not take damage from it (whereas the AI does). And they do not do the counter very often. I usually combo-attack Brutes to kill them and rarely encounter any resistance.

The Brute's disarm move comes the same way the knockdown move does. It's just a regular attack, but with a big wind-up. They do the knockdown move more often, and even that move they don't do very regularly. I really wish they would have increased the frequency of these attacks. They're the only things that make Brutes better than regular guards. Sure, you can't counter Brutes with medium weapons, but they can be disarmed and killed even from full health. In my mind, they are less of a threat than regular armored guards.

Agh, I was in a secret location, fighting a brute, he disarmed me, and my Mace of the Bull flew UNDER A HAY CART! I was not happy.

But yeah, FLAE, it's not as if the Brute only disarms you if you attack him. Brutes just smash your hand with their weapon, making you drop your sword.

As a side-note, can non-seekers that were disarmed, then picked up a dead seeker's spear still sweep? And similarly, can non-brutes who picked up a brute heavy weapon smash or disarm? And can a Brute disarm you, if he was disarmed and then picked up a medium or small weapon? Might be worthy of some experimentation...

I know brutes only have the skills of the weapon (ie no smashing with swords/maces/short weapons) but a seeker who picks up a short weapon then uses it like an agile.

Apparently, the brute's disarm move even works on your hidden blades. I got my left hidden blade "disarmed" while fighting a brute, but the blade was there again right after the combat had ended.

This may or may not be what you experienced, but I've had weapons 'disabled' during fights (even fights with just regular guards). All I had to do was switch to a different weapon then back to the original and it was back again.

Could you do a one hidden blade counter then? That's cool.

I saw the brute do the disarm move, striking my left hand. After that the blade was gone until the fight was over. May have been just a coinsidence, cause as you say, I wasn't really disarm, my weapon just got disabled

I don't know about any of this, frankly I rarely pay attention to what weap I am using...if I have trouble fighting a guard I just go unarmed and counter...AND...I find that more fun anyway. Maybe because it's new and Ubi chose to repeat some of the animations from AC1 that I'm not excited to see again. What I do know is I choose not to get pwned If I can't fight through the defenses of a brute or seeker, I just go unarmed and use their own weapons against them.

I've been trying to pull of one of the "spear breaks, use sharp have to pwn brute" counter, but it's very hard, because you can't actually purchase a spear. I've been trying to run around the city with a spear I picked up from a seeker in hand, but then if you so much as jump into a haystack, you lose it. So I haven't been able to even use a spear at all against brutes, because in a fight with both seekers and brutes, the seeker hangs back and doesn't attack, so I can't disarm him, and if I kill him, half of the time his weapon disappears into water, into a haystack, or even underground.

Now, this would be a lot easier if you could

1) Purchase a spear (WHY THE HECK CAN'T WE?!)
2) Claim a guard's spear as our own, so we don't drop it if we want to or hide from guards.

Hah, I just realized, if we could replace our weapons with that of guards, then

Go near the Doges Palace in Venice. You can hidden blade a seeker, then run to the brutes.

Also, if unarmed, you can use half a broken polearm/spear as your main weapon. You lose it when you travel though.

I knew that, but that acts like a sword, not a spear.

Fair enough then

I've never been disarmed on both my playthroughs. And I heard about it, I was like standing there, Blocking, waiting to be Disarmed, it never happened

Easiest way for me to kill a brute is to disarm him and stab him with his own weapon/Throwing Knives/Gun. Throwing knives kill I think any enemy (not bosses) in two hits.
Gun will kill ANYTHING (not bosses) in one hit, provided you actually hit the guy.

Actually the gun can assassinate targets, as can the throwing knives this time around.

Awesome.

This was really annoying, I was disarmed but I didn't noticed I had even been disarmed till a good time later when I started a side mission and realised my sword had gone! I agree wholeheartedly with Asaic's idea however.

Fingers crossed for AC:III! Trying to pre-order before the darn thing gets released!