Best Perks to Choose (Update 2.1)

This is our updated list of the best perks to choose by playstyle in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty after Update 2.1. See which perks you should prioritize when running specific builds, as well as know why they are the best!

Character Building Guides
Phantom Liberty Builds						Update 2.1 Builds
Best Attributes				Best Perks by Playstyle				Best Perks by Attribute
Build Element Lists
Relics				Attributes				Perks

Best Perks for DPS Builds

1. Edgerunner
2. Ticking Time Bomb
3. Sharpshooter
4. Focus
5. Spontaneous Obliteration
6. Target Lock Transfer
7. Bolt

Edgerunner

Edgerunner
Skill Tree	Technical Ability
Required Attribute Lv.	20
Effect	Allows you to exceed your Cyberware Capacity by up to 50 points, but at the cost of -0.5% Max Health per point. When you neutralize an enemy during combat, there is a 0.1% chance for each point you're over capacity that you will enter a Fury state. In this state, you gain: +10% damage, +30% Critical Chance, +50% Critical Damage. Duration: 12 sec.

Edgerunner is a vital perk for all DPS builds as it gives you two benefits.

First, the perk allows you to chip in more cyberware by raising the capacity by 50 at the cost of some of your health. You can either add a new cyberware or replace an existing one with an Iconic variant that has better modifiers.

Edgerunner's second effect is the chance to activate Fury when you neutralize a target, which grants you a damage boost. This will effectively raise your offensive prowess to help you kill more enemies.

Ticking Time Bomb

Ticking Time Bomb
Skill Tree	Technical Ability
Required Attribute Lv.	20
Effect	Charges a powerful EMP that hits nearby enemies after 3 sec. whenever you activate Operating System cyberware (Berserk, Sandevistan) or Overlock mode. Applies Stun and deals damage proportionate to the quantity and Tier of cyberware implants you have installed, -50% incoming damage while charging EMP.

If you max out your Technical Ability attribute, you can get Ticking Time Bomb to deal extra damage from a charged EMP blast whenever you activate a cyberware.

This is most useful for builds that like to get up close, as you'd want your EMP blast to reach as many targets as possible.

Sharpshooter (Assault Rifles and SMGs)

Sharpshooter
Skill Tree	Reflexes
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: +15% aim speed. At Lv. 2: Improved weapon handling. At Lv. 3: Each successful shot grants a stack of Sharpshooter, +7% stamina regeneration for 2 sec. per stack. Stacks 7 times. New stacks reset duration. All stacks are removed when the duration ends. New stamina cost added as of the 2.1 Update.

Sharpshooter is a key perk for assault rifles and submachine guns. The perk's effect of additional stamina regeneration is very useful for these weapons as they heavily rely on your stamina.

If you're able to maintain your stamina with Sharpshooter, your shots will be more accurate and you'll be able to continue shooting.

Focus (Pistols and Revolvers)

Focus
Skill Tree	Cool
Required Attribute Lv.	9
Effects	At Lv. 1: +10% headshot and weakspot damage. At Lv. 2: Unlocks Focus mode. This mode automatically activates when you aim while at full Stamina. When active: No Stamina cost for shooting, allowing for more accurate shots. When it ends: -40 Stamina Duration: 2.5 sec.

Focus is a key for gunslingers or stealth builds that use silenced pistols. The stamina lock from the perk will help you focus more on shooting while not worrying about your stamina.

While active, use the time to aim at your enemies' heads, take advantage of the bonus headshot damage, and blast those heads away in one clean hit.

Spontaneous Obliteration (Shotguns and LMGs)

Spontaneous Obliteration
Skill Tree	Body
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: +12.5% Crit Chance At Lv. 2: +10% damage against nearby enemies. At Lv. 3: Unlocks Obliterate – the ability to sometimes instantly kill and dismember enemies at low Health. The chance increases as enemy Health decreases (max. 20% Obliterate chance).

Spontaneous Obliteration lets you finish off your targets with a gory mess if you're using heavy weapons.

The perk also lowers these guns' recoil when your stamina is low, which is combos well with other heavy weapon perks that rely on low stamina.

Target Lock Transfer (Smart Weapons)

Target Lock Transfer
Skill Tree	Intelligence
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: 10% larger targeting reticle for Smart weapons. At Lv. 2: Switching from aiming to hip-fire does not disengage target-lock on headshots and weakspots. At Lv. 3: Switching from one smart weapon to another no longer interrupts target lock.

Target Lock Transfer, along with Acquisition Specialist below it, increase the size of a smart weapon's targeting reticle and improves its targeting lock mechanic.

This is a must-have for smart weapon builds since it makes aiming and target locking a whole lot easier, and you can focus on other things like positioning and healing.

Bolt (Tech Weapons)

Bolt
Skill Tree	Technical Ability
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: +20% charge speed for Tech weapons. At Lv. 2: +15% damage for charged shots with Tech weapons. At Lv. 3: Unlocks Bolt shots. To fire a Bolt, release the trigger for a charged shot right before it fully charges: counts as a fully charged shot, +30% damage, -50% penalty for penetrating cover.

For tech guns, the Bolt perk lets you fire off Bolt shots that has increased damage than a regular shot.

Get this perk to improve the damage output of tech weapons and give them more attack variety.

Best Perks for Stealth Builds

1. Ninjutsu
2. Vanishing Act
3. Deadeye
4. Juggler

Ninjutsu

Ninjutsu
Skill Tree	Cool
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: +15% crouch movement speed. At Lv. 2: +15% Mitigation Chance when crouched. At Lv. 3: Unlocks the ability to spring while crouching. Press LSHIFT while crouching. Crouch-sprinting allows you to move more quickly while staying silent, but it consumes Stamina.

Leveling up Ninjutsu to its max level lets you crouch-sprint, which is very useful for stealth builds as it allows you to easily stay away from your enemies' lines of sight, including cameras, even when you are practically running around.

You can also crouch-sprint to reposition and sneakily eliminate enemies one by one while remaining in the shadows.

Vanishing Act

Vanishing Act
Skill Tree	Cool
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effect	Optical Camo activates automatically and consumes its charge gradually while crouch-sprinting or sliding

The Vanishing Act perk is another vital skill for stealth builds, and drastically improves the Optical Camo cyberware.

The perk gradually uses the cyberware's charge when crouch-sprinting instead of having to activate it every time you want to use it.

With this, you don't have to wait for your Optical Camo to fully recharge when you want to be invisible again; simply crouch-sprint to continue being hidden.

Deadeye (Pistols)

Deadeye
Skill Tree	Cool
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: +10% headshot and weakspot damage At Lv. 2: -25% Stamina cost for shooting. At Lv. 3: Unlocks Deadeye mode, which is active above 85% stamina. When active: +20% headshot damage +20% weakspot damage No bullet spread

While playing steathily, you ought to kill targets in one hit to avoid active combat and your target alerting other enemies. Deadeye powers up silenced pistols and lets you easily kill enemies in a single headshot, as long as you maintain high stamina.

Juggler (Throwing Knives)

Juggler
Skill Tree	Cool
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: -15% recovery time for throwable weapons At Lv. 2: +20% headshot and weakspot damage with throwable weapons. At Lv. 3: Instant Cooldown reset for all throwable weapons after neutralizing an enemy with a throwable weapon via headshot, Crit Hit, or Poison.

Similar to silenced pistols, Juggler powers up throwing knives and lets you eliminate targets one after the other if you are able to kill them in one knife throw.

Kill an enemy to instantly get your knife back, then repeat until you've eliminated everyone.

Best Perks for Tank Builds

1. Adrenaline Rush
2. Calm Mind
3. Pain to Gain
4. License to Chrome

Adrenaline Rush

Adrenaline Rush
Skill Tree	Body
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: +35 Max Health. At Lv. 2: +20% Health Regen bonus to all Health Regen effects from all sources. At Lv. 3: Unlocks Adrenaline Rush mode. In addition to their base effects, Blood Pump cyberware and health items now also give Adrenaline equal to 30% Max Health. (up to a max of 50% Max Health). Adrenaline is indicated by a yellow bar and acts like extra health by absorbing damage. It also decays over time. Adrenaline Rush remains active as long as you have Adrenaline available.

A useful perk that fits all builds is Adrenaline Rush, which essentially gives you extra health whenever you use a health item.

As a tank, you can use this to regularly keep your health afloat.

Calm Mind

Calm Mind
Skill Tree	Body
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effect	When Adrenaline Rush is active: +3 sec. delay before Adrenaline begins to decay.

You can keep your extra health from Adrenaline Rush for a little longer with Calm Mind. With this, you can use a health item before jumping into a firefight, and you'll still have most of your extra health before it winds down.

Pain to Gain

Pain to Gain
Skill Tree	Body
Required Attribute Lv.	20
Effect	When Adrenaline Rush is active: +20% Health Item recharge after neutralizing an enemy.

Adrenaline Rush relies on your health item for it to activate, so the faster it replenishes, the better, as you'll have another charge to use if your health drops.

With Pain to Gain, you can quickly recharge your health item by neutralizing enemies.

License to Chrome

License to Chrome
Skill Tree	Technical Ability
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: +10% to all cyberware stats modifiers. At Lv. 2: +40 armor. At Lv. 3: Unlocks a new cyberware slot for the Skeleton. All Skeleton cyberware have boosted stats.

The License to Chrome perk under the Tech tree gives you several defense boosts and allows you to equip another cyberware for your skeleton, which are all defense-boosting items.

Use the slot to chip in cyberware that grant you more armor, health regen, or even an insta-revive with a Second Heart.

Best Perks for Netrunner Builds

1. Hack Queue
2. Eye in the Sky
3. Carhacker
4. Overclock
5. Blood Daemon

Hack Queue

Hack Queue
Skill Tree	Intelligence
Required Attribute Lv.	9
Effects	At Lv. 1: +1 Max RAM. At Lv. 2: Unlocks quickhacks queues, allowing 2 quickhacks on a single enemy. Queued quickhacks automatically upload in the order they are added, +30% upload speed for the second quickhack queue.

Hack Queue lets you merge quickhacks into combos without waiting for uploads to end.

This is useful to help you focus on other enemies to hack or even shoot while your initial target slowly succumbs to all of your queued quickhacks.

Eye in the Sky

Eye in the Sky
Skill Tree	Intelligence
Required Attribute Lv.	4
Effect	Automatically highlights nearby Access Points and cameras. When uploaded through cameras, Control quickhacks, Covert quickhacks and the Distract Enemies quickhack have: -1 RAM cost, +50% duration.

If you're aiming to be a stealthy netrunner, Eye in the Sky will help you a lot by improving the quickhacks uploaded through cameras.

You'll have an easier time eliminating enemies without going out of cover since you'll have reduced RAM cost and extended quickhack duration.

Carhacker

Carhacker
Skill Tree	Intelligence
Required Attribute Lv.	4
Effect	Unlocks Vehicle quickhacks, allowing you to take control, set off alarms or even blow them up. The availability of a given quickhack depends on the Tier of your installed cyberdeck.

As a netrunner, you'll have extra mileage out of your cyberdeck if you have the Carhacker perk.

Not only can you use quickhacks on your enemies, you can also use them on vehicles, either as a distraction or to weaponize them.

Overclock

Overclock
Skill Tree	Intelligence
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: +10% RAM recovery rate. At Lv. 2: +10% quickhack damage. At Lv. 3: Unlocks Overclock mode. If you have a cyberdeck installed, press E to activate. In this mode, you can use quickhacks even with insufficient RAM, but each RAM unit over your max costs 10 Health instead. Duration: 14 sec. Cooldown: 30 sec.

Overclock essentially ignores how many RAM units you have at the cost of some health.

If you're bulky enough with reliable health regen and position far away from your enemies, you'll be able to endlessly upload quickhacks without worrying about dying or managing your RAM. If you have the Race Against Mind perk, you'll even be able to deal more damage!

Blood Daemon

Blood Daemon
Skill Tree	Intelligence
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effect	When Overclock is active: +40 health for each quickhack queued on an enemy at the time you neutralize them.

Blood Daemon gives you some recovery if you're able to eliminate enemies that have queued up quickhacks on them.

The more quickhacks an enemy has, the more health you'll get, so try to stack up as much quickhacks as possible to recover more HP.

Best Perks for Melee Builds

1. Wrecking Ball
2. Epicenter
3. Finisher: Savage Sling

Wrecking Ball

Wrecking Ball
Skill Tree	Body
Required Attribute Lv.	9
Effects	At Lv. 1: -15% stamina cost for attacks with Blunt Weapons. At Lv. 2: Allows you to barrel into enemies while sprinting and blocking with Blunt Weapons, causing damage and a chance to knock them down.

Wrecking Ball allows you to be very agile even if you're wielding a melee weapon, with an added bonus of having the chance to knock down enemies you'll collide with.

Epicenter

Epicenter
Skill Tree	Body
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effect	When Quake is performed from the midair (a Superhero Landing), its area of effect and damage scale with your fall speed and fall distance.

While its base perk Quake is already very useful as an AoE attack for melee weapons, Epicenter drastically improves it by allowing you to use Quake midair.

It also synergizes well with Reinforced Tendon's double jump as you'll have an easier time scaling tall platforms to get as much height as possible before using Quake.

Finisher: Savage Sling

Finisher: Savage Sling
Skill Tree	Body
Required Attribute Lv.	20
Effect	Unlocks a Blunt Weapon Finisher. Press F when an enemy's Health is low. Enemies affected by Stun are more susceptible. Restores 20% Health. Hold F to throw the enemy instead, killing them and damaging other enemies where they land.

Savage Sling is useful not only as a finisher for a single target, but also as a way to potentially one-shot a group of weak enemies after throwing a corpse at them, meaning you'll have less things to deal with.

You also restore some health after executing it, so you can regain back HP lost when positioning yourself.

Best Perks for Blades Builds

1. Bullet Time
2. Bullet Deflect
3. Finisher: Bladerunner
4. Flash of Steel

Bullet Time

Bullet Time
Skill Tree	Reflexes
Required Attribute Lv.	9
Effect	Whenever time is slowed, Bullet Deflect does not consume Stamina and deflections automatically hit enemies for Crit Damage.

Bullet Time synergizes well with blades builds that use Sandevistans. While time is slowed down and you're deflecting bullets, you will not consume stamina, which is then reserved for use whenever you start hacking-and-slashing.

Bullet Deflect

Bullet Deflect
Skill Tree	Reflexes
Required Attribute Lv.	9
Effect	When your Stamina is above 33%, blocking projectiles will Deflect them to wherever your reticle is aimed. Well-timed blocking just before being hit increases the damage you deal with deflected bullets.

When blocking bullets with your weapon, Bullet Deflect is useful for damaging enemies simply by aiming towards them. All you need to mind is your stamina and your timing if you want to deal bonus damage with the bullets you send back.

Finisher: Bladerunner

Finisher: Bladerunner
Skill Tree	Reflexes
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: -15% Stamina cost for attacks with Blades. At Lv. 2: +20% attack speed with Blades. At Lv. 3: Unlocks a Blade Finisher. Press F when an enemy's Health is low. Restores 25% Health.

The Bladerunner finisher is useful not only for quickly killing a target, but also to recover some health after executing it.

If you're able to perform Bladerunner one after another, you'll be able to focus mainly on attacking without worrying about using your health item.

Flash of Steel

Flash of Steel
Skill Tree	Reflexes
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effect	+25% movement speed and attack speed for 6 sec. after performing a Finisher.

Flash of Steel grants you bonus movement and attack speed after performing Bladerunner, which you should utilize to eliminate other enemies near you or to quickly reach someone from faraway.

Best Utility Perks

1. Painkiller
2. Air Dash
3. Renaissance Punk
4. Pyromania

Painkiller

Painkiller
Skill Tree	Body
Required Attribute Lv.	4
Effect	Unlocks slow Health Regen in combat.

Painkiller is a useful perk for any playstyle as it allows you to get health regen during active combat.

If you don't get this, you'll have to completely rely on health items, which you will not be able to spam anymore as they now need to be charged per use.

Air Dash

Air Dash
Skill Tree	Reflexes
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: -20% Dash Stamina cost. At Lv. 2: +20% Dash speed. At Lv. 3: Unlocks the ability to Dash in midair.

Air Dash allows you to dash in the air, which is very useful when maneuvering through buildings and platforms, moving across the field during fights, or even when exploring.

This perk works well with Reinforced Tendon's double jump, as you'll be able to dash on the ground and then in the air during your second jump, extending the lengths you can leap across.

Renaissance Punk

Renaissance Punk
Skill Tree	Technical Ability
Required Attribute Lv.	9
Effect	+4 Cyberware Capacity for each Attribute at 9 or higher.

Early in the game, you won't have much space to fit in a lot of cyberware before reaching the limit. If you get Renaissance Punk, you'll be able to equip more cyberware if you have attributes leveled up to 9 or higher.

At most, you'll have 20 additional cyberware capacity if you get all your attributes to at least level 9, but that would mean spreading out your attribute points to every attribute and losing access to some high level perks.

Pyromania

Pyromania
Skill Tree	Technical Ability
Required Attribute Lv.	15
Effects	At Lv. 1: +8% recharge speed for health items and grenades. At Lv. 2: +10% explosion radius for grenades and the Projectile Launch System. At Lv. 3: +5% movement speed and +10% explosion damage for 12 sec. After hitting an enemy with an explosion in combat. If you take damage from the explosion, the effect adds 2 stacks instead of 1. Effect and duration can stack 5 times.

If you have a high Tech attribute with some perks to spare and like to make explosions, you can grab Pyromania to improve grenades and get a faster grenade charge rate.

You can then use grenades along with your main weapons to dish out damage against a group of enemies.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Related Guides

Tips and Tricks Guides

All Tips and Tricks Guides

2.0 and Phantom Liberty Guides

• How to Get Vehicles for Free
• All Phantom Liberty Endings
• How to Get the Tower Ending
• How to Get the King of Swords Ending
• How to Get the King of Wands Ending
• How to Get the King of Pentacles Ending
• How to Get the King of Cups Ending
• How to Purchase Vehicles
• How to Get Capacity Shards
• How to Play Trauma Drama and Rewards
• Should You Help Songbird or Reed?
• How Long To Wait for Songbird

Character Building

• Character Creation Guide
• Best Starting Attributes
• Best Perks by Playstyle
• How to Get Perk Points Quickly
• How to Level Up Fast
• Weapon Customization Guide
• How to Respec
• Which Gender to Choose?

Gameplay Guides

• Beginner's Guide
• Battle System and How to Fight
• How to Get Money (Eddies) Fast
• How to Raise Street Cred
• Missables and Unrepeatable Events
• Stealth Guide
• Hacking and Breach Protocol Guide
• List of Free Cars and Locations
• How to Drive Cars and Bikes
• How to Escape the Police
• How to Avoid Being Hacked
• How to Store Items
• Double Jump or Super Jump?
• Ripperdoc Locations and Cyberware List
• List of Tarot Cards and Locations
• How to Increase Carrying Capacity
• How to One-Shot Every Enemy
• Where To Find Skill Shards
• Where To Find Perk Shards
• How To Duplicate Items
• Which Weapons and Clothing to Keep?
• Bounty Hunting
• List of Radio Stations
• Skill Progression Tier List
• Is Dual Wielding Possible?
• List of Missable Quests and Side Gigs
• All Missable Weapons
• How to Get Carrying Capacity Shards

Best Gear Guides

• Best Quickhacks
• Best Cars and Vehicles

Story Completion

• How to Start the Phantom Liberty DLC
• All Game Endings and How to Unlock
• How to Get The Devil Ending
• How to Get The Temperance Ending
• How to Get The Star Ending
• How to Get The Sun Ending
• How to Get the Secret Ending
• Romance Guide
• How to Get 100% Clear
• Best Side Jobs to Complete
• How to Get All Johnny Clothes
• All Choices and Effects

Just for Fun

• How to Play the Doom Easter Egg
• List of Hairstyles
• Easter Eggs and Cameos
• Console Commands and Cheats
• The Sixth Attribute
• Joytoy Locations
• New Apartment Locations and How to Unlock
• Slang Explained: Dictionary of Night City Street Talk
• How to Get Nibbles the Cat Pet
• All Binocular Locations

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