To tailor your character to your playstyle, you'll need to invest points in the appropriate attributes and skills. In Cyberpunk 2077, you can identify three main character types: shooter, hacker and stealth.
Out of the five attributes, you can choose several skill trees consisting of dozens of abilities. It can be challenging for a beginner to understand what to choose for each playstyle. In this Cyberpunk 2077 guide, we will show you what to pick to create the perfect character that matches your playstyle.
By choosing the right level of certain attributes and skills, you can work on unlocking the right abilities for the builds you need.
Attributes affect your base stats and skills. As you level up, you get attribute points. For example, increasing the strength level adds five health points per level, and each increase in technical ability increases the armor stat by 5%.
Skills are a group of abilities related to an attribute. By performing actions related to the skill, such as hacking or running, you increase their level. As you level up, you will receive rewards related to these actions.
Abilities are embedded in each skill and represent either passive buffs or new abilities. Leveling up your character or skill brings ability points.
All three groups work together to help you create the desired character type.
In this guide, we will consider two main paths for character development: through assault rifles and submachine guns or through revolvers and critical damage.
In this build, we will use smart submachine guns and assault rifles to shoot enemies while on the move. The bullets of such weapons can track enemies, so we won't need to aim precisely. But be prepared to constantly be on the move without needing to slow down to aim.
Continue to level up strength and reflexes, adding a bit to cool. We need to increase movement speed, dodge chance, and critical hit chance. This also allows us to gain high-level abilities necessary for this build.
Strength is necessary to increase your health, stamina, and access to some abilities from the Athletics category, which will help increase your damage and keep you alive.
Cool is necessary to take advantage of the Cold Blood ability and several other related abilities that make it more effective. Additional critical damage and resistances are just a nice bonus.
Your attributes should look something like this:
Level up Reflexes and Strength evenly. This is because we need the passive effects from them, which will not only help you survive but also improve your damage. Leave Cool for last because it requires serious point investments to notice a significant difference.
Next, take Bulletjock, Duck Hunter, Shoot, Reload, Repeat, Feel the Flow, Named Bullets, and Long Shot.
Take the abilities Regeneration, Invincible, Epimorphosis, Divided Attention, Cardio Cure, Multitasker, Dog of War, and Wolverine.
Here, take Dead Center, Momentum Shift, and Speed Demon.
Use Cold Blood, Will to Survive, Critical Condition, Rapid Bloodflow, Defensive Clotting, Frozen Precision, Cold and Calculating, and Coolagulant.
For this build, you absolutely need to use smart weapons. Take a smart submachine gun or a smart assault rifle. Submachine guns usually have a higher rate of fire, while assault rifles have greater range. Try both options and see what you like more, or just take one of each type. Add mods to increase critical hit chance or critical hit damage.
As for armor, ideally, you want to look for bonuses to critical hit chance or increased critical hit damage.
The Smart Link implant is extremely important for this build to use auto-aim. Make sure to buy it from a ripper as soon as possible. The Synaptic Accelerator slows down time when you enter combat. This can allow you to kill one or two enemies before they even move. Kerenzikov is also a great choice.
The Threat Detector Mod really helps because it allows you to see hostile targets. With this mod, you will always know who to shoot next. The Biomonitor automatically heals you when your health drops below a certain point, allowing you to continue fighting without stopping to heal.
Before a serious shootout, you can use various daemons to reduce the enemies' defenses, allowing you to deal more damage. You will likely run into ammo issues with this build, and the easiest way to deal with it is to craft ammo. You can go into the crafting menu, find the appropriate type of ammo, and assemble it. You can use other smart weapons for this build, but then you will need to invest points in passive skills for the required weapon type. Finally, if you are having trouble finding smart weapons, you can buy them in the store.
This build deals incredible damage using revolvers. This build is suitable for fans of accurate shooting and high critical damage. Powerful revolvers are used as weapons because they deal incredible damage per shot and often can kill enemies with one shot. Especially if you hit the target in the head or a weak spot. This is because the headshot damage multiplier (damage multiplier differs for different revolvers) is higher than for any other weapon.
The firepower of the revolver combines with the Cold Blood ability. You will get increased armor, critical hit chance, critical damage, health regeneration, and, of course, even more headshot damage.
The attributes needed for the build are Reflexes, Cool, and Body. Reflexes are necessary to increase your critical hit chance and get some abilities for the pistol. Cool is needed to increase critical damage and unlock some abilities. Body is necessary to increase your health and armor, making you harder to kill.
Your attributes should look something like this:
To get some of the best abilities, you will need to invest a significant amount of points in Cold Blood, as they are only available after skill level 9. Priority is given to Reflexes, but take some great abilities from Body right away without investing any points, so try to level Body last.
Reflexes are our second main attribute, as there are abilities for the pistol here. High-level abilities bring more benefits than low-level ones. Therefore, first level up only the newly unlocked high-level abilities, and then finish leveling the lower-level abilities.
Next, take High Noon, Gunslinger, Rio Bravo, Desperado, Long Shot Drop Pop, A Fistful of Eurodollars, Grand Finale, Wild West, Westworld, Brainpower, and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Use Cold Blood, Will to Survive, Critical Condition, Rapid Bloodflow, Defensive Clotting, Frozen Precision, Cold and Calculating, and Coolagulant.
Take the abilities Regeneration, Invincible, Epimorphosis, Divided Attention, Cardio Cure, Dog of War, and Wolverine.
Obviously, for this build, you will need some kind of revolver, and which one you choose doesn't matter much, especially at an early stage. However, keep in mind that the damage per second indicator can be misleading because you need maximum damage per shot. Ideally, you want one shot — one kill, so the rate of fire is less important. You need to look for revolvers that have a critical hit chance and critical damage. Some may have a higher headshot damage multiplier.
You will also want to pick up some appropriate modifications for this weapon. This is also important because the Westworld ability will only work if you have a fully modified weapon. Be sure to avoid mods that reduce your damage, such as silencers.
As for armor, ideally, you need to look for bonuses to critical hit chance or critical damage. Of course, it's better to have more armor, but you will still have good survivability. However, if you are playing on a very high difficulty level, you should pay more attention to armor.
There are optics modifiers that can really benefit this build. Pay attention to Trajectory Analysis because it further increases headshot damage by 50%. However, it costs 20800 eurodollars, which is quite expensive.
Synaptic Accelerator slows down time when you enter combat. This can allow you to kill one or two enemies before they even move.
With this build, you can use cover in shootouts because you need to make headshots to maximize your damage, and revolvers don't have many bullets in the magazine. Cover allows you to aim precisely while minimizing the damage you take.
Always aim for the head to kill with one shot. Revolver damage decreases with distance to the target, so make sure you're close enough to deal good damage. If needed, run and hide behind cover closer to the enemy. You will have great movement speed thanks to high reflexes, so this shouldn't be a problem. If you find a revolver you really like, you can upgrade it.
In the world of Cyberpunk 2077, technology is a weapon. Players who want to engage in hacking are called netrunners—they should focus on increasing their intelligence. The higher the Intelligence attribute, the more memory your cyberdeck has available for using hacking skills. Think of cyberdeck memory as mana in role-playing games. The more memory you have, the more hacking skills you can use.
Before you decide to play as a hacker, be sure to complete the quest The Gift. As a reward for the quest, you will receive the quickhack Ping. This ability is an essential tool for players who want to become netrunners. When you use it on an enemy or any technology, such as a camera, it reveals all nearby enemies and devices. This will give you a clear understanding of what is happening around you.
Once you get it, go to the inventory/cyberdeck to install it. It is one of the most useful tools for the netrunner build, and you should get it as soon as the mission becomes available.
A netrunner (quickhack specialist) is a long-range build that uses scripts and daemons to weaken or instantly kill enemies.
Daemons allow you to hack the network in the area you are in, often weakening entire groups of enemies or causing mass shutdowns of everything on the network. You start the game with the Icepick daemon, which reduces your memory consumption, but you will also get others.
To take advantage of this daemon, you need to launch the protocol and complete the hacking mini-game that appears on the screen. This is done by matching numbers in straight lines, and if you do it correctly, you will gain an advantage. Using this daemon should be the start of every fight. Note that as your cyberdeck size increases, you will be able to do this more easily and input more daemons.
Scripts are abilities that can be loaded into your cyberdeck. All cyberdecks are different; some allow you to insert more scripts, some give special bonuses, or have a larger memory capacity.
Scripts can be crafted, bought, or found in the open world, and they come in different rarities, just like other gear in the game. The higher the rarity, the better the version, usually improving stats or adding various effects.
In combat, memory is a resource consumed to use scripts. You can see the amount required to use each script. Memory costs can be influenced by abilities and demons, as well as the difficulty of the enemy you are facing. Lower difficulty enemies require less memory, while higher difficulty enemies require more.
By taking abilities that replenish RAM, you can repeatedly apply scripts in combat, allowing you to control the battlefield and even kill enemies without firing a single shot.
The only stat you really need to become a netrunner is intelligence, as the vast majority of abilities affecting scripts are within it. Additionally, intelligence passively increases your memory, damage, and script duration. The rest of the points are better spent on another skill tree that revolves around weapons, ideally ranged, as it is better to keep your distance in combat.
Your stats should look something like this:
The priority here is intelligence because you won't be able to regularly use scripts without significant investment in abilities. Reducing script costs, increasing recovery speed, and memory capacity are extremely important. After that, level up reflexes to use abilities that enhance your weapon efficiency. Once that's done, increase body for better survivability.
Intelligence / Quickhacking
Next, take Bloodware, Forget-Me-Not, Signal Support, Subliminal Message, Mnemonic, Critical Error, Anamnesis, Optimization, and Master Ram Liberator.
Next, take Mass Vulnerability: Resistances, Turret Tamer, Total Recall, Totaler Recall, Cloud Cache, Mass Vulnerability: Quickhacks, Head Start, and Buffer Optimization.
You can upgrade the weapon type at your discretion; you might want to consider the shooter skill branches. In the Athletics / Strength branch, choose all abilities that increase health.
The weapon you choose is not very important because you will focus on quickhacks, but you will need something to deal damage. Play around with different weapons and see what you like best. Don't be afraid to switch them up as you don't need to stick to one type of weapon.
As for armor, you need to look for bonuses to critical hit chance or critical damage as soon as you get the Critical Error ability. Choose items with good armor ratings, especially if you are playing on very hard difficulty.
The most important part of your equipment is, of course, your cyberdeck, which will allow you to slot in your chosen quickhacks. Additionally, pay attention to frontal cortex implants, such as the Limbic System Enhancement, which increases your critical hit chance.
At the start of the fight, always debuff enemies and increase the damage they receive. This does not break stealth. Then choose a target and use quickhacks to debuff or kill it, continuing the fight. It would be good to have at least one cheap quickhack in your cyberdeck to counter enemies even if you have very little memory left. Some quickhacks work better against human enemies, while others are more effective against robots. It's good to have at least one quickhack of each type.
In this build, a silenced pistol or revolver will be used as a weapon. If you enjoy sneaking around, systematically taking out targets one by one, then this build is for you.
Playing as a stealth character requires using both physical and cybernetic abilities to stalk enemies. If you want to play the game in a more cunning and non-lethal way, consider increasing the Cool attribute. There are also other skills from different attributes worth considering.
The principle of this build is that you start the fight by disabling all cameras in the area so you aren't spotted while sneaking. Then you use the Ping quickhack (where to find it is mentioned in the previous build) to determine the location of all enemies in the area and decide who to kill first. Then silently move through the location and take out enemies one by one.
You should be able to kill each enemy with one bullet from your pistol or revolver if you are close enough, so maintain distance and don't attack from afar. Often enemies will be alerted to your presence, but they won't know where you are unless they see you. So all you need to do is remain unseen.
For this build, you need the following attributes: Cool, Reflexes, and Intelligence. Cool gives you increased stealth damage and unlocks important abilities. Reflexes give you additional critical hit chances and unlock abilities for using a pistol. Intelligence makes your quickhacks more effective and allows you to use better daemons, which you will need for this build.
Your attributes should look something like this:
You don't need to upgrade one specific attribute faster than others; you can evenly distribute your points as you level up. You need Cool and Reflexes to remain equal, but with a slight lead over Intelligence.
Next, take Strike From The Shadows, Sniper, and Ghost.
Use Cold Blood, Frozen Precision, Merciless, and Critical Condition.
Choose High Noon, Rio Bravo, Desperado, Long Shot Drop Pop, A Fistful of Eurodollars, Wild West, Westworld, Brainpower, and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Choose Biosynergy, Forget-Me-Not, and Signal Support.
The weapon you need for this build is a pistol or revolver with very high damage per shot, don't look at damage per second. You need to kill enemies with one shot, so damage per second is not important. Pay attention to the Headshot Damage Multiplier, make sure your weapon has a multiplier of 3 or more.
Additionally, revolvers and pistols can be modified by installing a silencer. This allows you to stay quiet. They significantly increase your stealth damage. The downside is that they reduce normal damage, so you need to avoid direct firefights.
As for armor, ideally, look for bonuses to critical hit chance or critical damage. Additionally, you can modify some clothing items to get extra effects.
There is a great implant for this build — Limbic System Enhancement, which increases your critical hit chance.
Pay attention to Trajectory Analysis, as it increases headshot damage by 50%. However, it costs 20,800 eurodollars, which is quite expensive. Synaptic Accelerator, which slows down time when you enter combat, will also be useful. You can also install Tyrosine Injector, which extends the breach protocol duration by 100%. This will give you more time to keep cameras disabled.
Distance to the enemy is an important factor in this build because as you move away from the target, your bullets will deal less and less damage. For this reason, you should get as close to the target as comfortably possible to make a lethal shot until you get the Wild West ability.
Be sure to disable cameras before you start moving into a group of enemies. It often seems like there are no cameras around, but they are often not so easy to spot. Make it a habit to do this every time if the number of enemies is more than three.
If you are detected, you can simply retreat and wait for the enemies to forget about you. This doesn't always work, but it often happens that if they can't find you quickly, they just return to their usual activities. If possible, always shoot from stealth to get the extra damage.
Another great addition to this build is the legendary sniper rifle: Overwatch. You can get it for helping Panam in the quest Riders on the Storm. It has a silencer, so you can use it to hit a target from afar without alerting other enemies.