Best Perks to Choose | Cyberpunk 2077

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This is Game8's guide to the best Perks to choose in Cyberpunk 2077. Learn which Perks to prioritize, and how you should best expand your Skill Tree to unlock the best Perks!

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Best Starting Perks to Choose

At the start of the game, you'll only have a few Perks available to you, so be sure to spend your Perk Points wisely. Here are a few of the most important Perks to acquire at the start of the game.

Best Starting Perks Overall

Easily enough, the best perks to start with are those that increase your damage on the primary weapon you wish to use or those that increase your survivability/mobility in battle as more often, in the early stages, you will find enemies much stronger than yourself.

Rio Bravo

Perk Rio Bravo
Skill Tree Reflexes | Handguns
Required Attribute Lv. 5
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases headshot damage multiplier with Pistols and Revolvers by 5%.

The Rio Bravo Perk allows you to deal a whopping 10% extra damage with headshots from Handguns. Since your weapon supply near the start of the game will mostly include Handguns and Rifles, getting that extra damage will be a great support in the many early-game shootouts. The perk can also be upgraded 3 times for a total of 30% damage increase.

Biosynergy

Perk Biosynergy
Skill Tree Intelligence | Quickhacking
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Allows RAM to recover during combat. Recover 4 RAM unit(s) every 60 sec.

For players who prefer to get the upper hand through Quickhacks, Biosynergy will ensure you never run dry on RAM. Your RAM will recover outside of combat, but if you're hoping to use Quickhacks heavily in the heat of battle, Biosynergy is a must.

Crouching Tiger

Perk Crouching Tiger
Skill Tree Cool | Ninjutsu
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases movement speed while sneaking by 20%.

Crouching Tiger is the perfect first Perk for players focused on a stealthy approach. While the other Perks in this list won't help much when you're trying to avoid combat in the first place, Crouching Tiger will ensure that you can make your sneak kills successfully, and is sorely needed considering the painfully slow base crouching movement speed.

Pack Mule

Perk Pack Mule
Skill Tree Body | Athletics
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases carrying capacity by 60.

The good old Carrying Capacity booster is just as dependable here as in other open-world RPGs. As your inventory balloons with all the loot you pick up on each Job, you'll soon find yourself out of space, and forced to throw away items that could otherwise be sold. Save a Perk Point for when this happens, and the Pack Mule will come riding up to save the day!

Best Starting Perks for DPS Builds

Crushing Blows

Perk Crushing Blows
Skill Tree Body | Street Brawler
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases damage from Strong Attacks with Blunt Weapons by 10%.

For builds foucsed on using blunt weapons, this massive increase to Strong Attacks is a must-have perk.

Flurry

Perk Flurry
Skill Tree Body | Street Brawler
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases damage from combo attacks with Blunt Weapons by 30%.

For combo-oriented blunt weapons, this is a great perk to strengthen your combos.

Dead Center

Perk Dead Center
Skill Tree Body | Annihilation
Required Attribute Lv. 7
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases damage to torsos from Shotguns and Light Machine Guns by 10%.

For those that don't have the time to aim for the head, this perk is perfect. This is especially viable with weapons such as shotguns and submachine guns that mainly aim for the torso.

Bloodware

Perk Bloodware
Skill Tree Intelligence | Quickhacking
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Quickhacks deal 10% more damage.

When trying to deal the greatest amount of damage possible, throwing in a Quickhack on your enemy before spraying them with bullets is always a good strategy. With Bloodware, increase the damage of your Quickhacks even further.

Assassin

Perk Assassin
Skill Tree Cool | Ninjutsu
Required Attribute Lv. 7
Effect (Lv. 1) Deal 15% more damage to human enemies.

Human enemies are the most encountered enemy in the game. Having a flat 15% damage increase is a fantastic boost to invest in.

Sting Like A Bee

Perk Sting Like a Bee
Skill Tree Reflexes | Blades
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases attack speed with Blades by 10%.

When going with a Blade-based build, speed will directly influence DPS. The faster your blades the faster your enemies will fall. This perk can be stacked as well

Bullseye

Perk Bullseye
Skill Tree Reflexes | Assault
Required Attribute Lv. 7
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases Rifle and Sumachine Gun damage while aiming by 10%

It is always more effecient to fire while aiming. With this perk, your aiming is rewarded with a nice damage boost. This is particularly useful for sniper rifles.

Best Starting Perks for Stealth Builds

Crouching Tiger

Perk Crouching Tiger
Skill Tree Cool | Ninjutsu
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases movement speed while sneaking by 20%.

Crouching Tiger is the perfect first Perk for players focused on a stealthy approach. While the other Perks in this list won't help much when you're trying to avoid combat in the first place, Crouching Tiger will ensure that you can make your sneak kills successfully, and is sorely needed considering the painfully slow base crouching movement speed.

Silent And Deadly

Perk Silent And Deadly
Skill Tree Cool | Ninjutsu
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases damage dealt by silenced weapons by 25% while sneaking.

When going for a stealth build, this is a great perk to have. A silencer will allow you to take out your enemies secretly while also gaining large damage boosts when sneaking.

Strike From The Shadows

Perk Strike From The Shadows
Skill Tree Cool | Ninjutsu
Required Attribute Lv. 7
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases your Crit Chance by 7% while sneaking.

Not only do many silencers add an increased Crit Chance, with this perk, the possibility of landing a critical attack while sneaking is even further increased.

Big Sleep

Perk Big Sleep
Skill Tree Intelligence | Breach Protocol
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Unlocks the Big Sleep daemon, which disables all cameras in the network for 3 min.

While you may be able to take out all the enemies, sometimes the cameras will provide a bit more trouble. Invest in this perk in order to take out all the cameras. It can be stacked to increase the time.

Turret Shutdown

Perk Turret Shutdown
Skill Tree Intelligence | Breach Protocol
Required Attribute Lv. 9
Effect (Lv. 1) Unlocks the Turret Shutdown daemon, which disables security turrets in the network for 3 min.

Turrets can be as problematic as cameras, except they have guns. With this perk, you can effortlessly eliminate the headache of having to deal with them.

Assassin

Perk Assassin
Skill Tree Cool | Ninjutsu
Required Attribute Lv. 7
Effect (Lv. 1) Deal 15% more damage to human enemies.

Human enemies are the most encountered enemy in the game. Having a flat 15% damage increase is a fantastic boost to invest in.

Best Starting Perks for Hacking Builds

Bloodware

Perk Bloodware
Skill Tree Intelligence | Quickhacking
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Quickhacks deal 10% more damage.

When trying to deal the greatest amount of damage possible, throwing in a Quickhack on your enemy before spraying them with bullets is always a good strategy. With Bloodware, increase the damage of your Quickhacks even further.

Biosynergy

Perk Biosynergy
Skill Tree Intelligence | Quickhacking
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Allows RAM to recover during combat. Recover 4 RAM unit(s) every 60 sec.

For players who prefer to get the upper hand through Quickhacks, Biosynergy will ensure you never run dry on RAM. Your RAM will recover outside of combat, but if you're hoping to use Quickhacks heavily in the heat of battle, Biosynergy is a must.

I Spy

Perk I Spy
Skill Tree Intelligence | Quickhacking
Required Attribute Lv. 5
Effect (Lv. 1) Reveals an enemy netrunner when they're attempting to hack you.

Nothing can be more frustrating than getting hacked by an unknown attacker. With this perk, you can see exactly who is hacking you and take them down.

Weak Link

Perk Weak Link
Skill Tree Intelligence | Quickhacking
Required Attribute Lv. 7
Effect (Lv. 1) Reduces the required cyberdeck RAM for quickhacks used on devices by 1 unit(s).

While mainpulating devices with Quickhacks is a great strategy, it can wear down on your RAM. Reducing the number of required RAM will allow you to do more with your Quickhacks without waiting for your RAM to recover.

Best Overall Perks

Mass Vulnerability

Perk Mass Vulnerability
Skill Tree Intelligence | Breach Protocol
Required Attribute Lv. 3
Effect (Lv. 1) Unlocks the Mass Vulnerability daemon, which reduces the Physical Resistance for all enemies in the network by 30% for 3 min.

This will increase your over-all damage to all of your opponents, making missions much easier to accomplish.

Sniper

Perk Sniper
Skill Tree Cool | Ninjutsu
Required Attribute Lv. 9
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases damage from headshots fired from outside combat by 10%.

This bonus specifically suits stealthier builds - but works with all ranged weapons. This is particularly useful for handguns and rifles with silencers and snipers. This skill can also be upgradable to increase the bonus to 50%. Combine this with Frozen Precision, you will double your total headshot damage output, almost ensuring a single-shot kill for your snipers no matter what (except bosses).

Frozen Precision

Perk Frozen Precision
Skill Tree Cool | Cold Blood
Required Attribute Lv. 11
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases headshot damage by 5% per stack of Cold Blood.

This bonus applies to all ranged weapons which makes headshots even more deadlier. Combine this with a gun that has a high headshot damage multiplier, you can essentialy wipeout an area in a matter of seconds.

Invincible

Perk Invincible
Skill Tree Body | Athletics
Required Attribute Lv. 12
Effect (Lv. 1) Increases max Health by 15%.

A perk that will be useful no matter what build.

True Craftsman

Perk True Craftsman
Skill Tree Technical Ability | Crafting
Required Attribute Lv. 5
Effect (Lv. 1) Allows you to craft Rare items.

An essential perk to craft stronger weapons and items.

Grease Monkey

Perk Grease Monkey
Skill Tree Technical Ability | Crafting
Required Attribute Lv. 12
Effect (Lv. 1) Allows you to craft Epic items.

An essential perk to craft even stronger weapons and items.

Edgerunner Artisan

Perk Edgerunner Artisan
Skill Tree Technical Ability | Crafting
Required Attribute Lv. 18
Effect (Lv. 1) Allows you to craft Legendary items.

This is the best perk to get towards the end game as it virtually allows you to get the strongest of weapons, armors, and quickhacks in as long as you have their crafting specs. With this, you can truly make V the legendary merc of Night City!

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