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Nov 13, 2023

Cyberpunk 2077 Netrunner Build Guide

A complete Cyberpunk 2077 Netrunner Build and Guide to the class. Designed to help you create a stealthy, long-range mercenary that can bring even Adam Smasher to his metallic knees. This guide will

A complete Cyberpunk 2077 Netrunner Build and Guide to the class. Designed to help you create a stealthy, long-range mercenary that can bring even Adam Smasher to his metallic knees. This guide will tell you everything you need to know about making a Netrunner throughout your playthrough!

This guide is updated for Patch 1.63!

Netrunners primarily rely on an extensive arsenal of Quickhacks to neutralize their targets, though they can lean on high-tech weapons as a backup.

The overall playstyle feels most similar to that of a ranged caster, like a wizard or sorcerer in another setting, but the gameplay is distinct. You get this incredible feeling of walking into a room and making all the enemies collapse to the ground with a thought as you wreak havoc on their cybernetic enhancements, all before they even knew you were there.

A stealthy approach is efficient and can be completely non-lethal, but it’s far from the only way to play a Netrunner. You can also sow chaos by hacking devices to cause distractions while the enemies near you freak out as they watch helplessly as their comrades combust before their eyes. Different Quickhacks (and subsequently Cyberdecks) lend themselves better to whichever approach you choose.

Stat-wise, you’ll be focusing heavily on Intelligence with a secondary emphasis on either Body or Cool along with Technical Ability for crafting.

Both Body and Cool can get you to a sufficient and relatively similar level of survivability, and while the way they get there is different, you really only need to invest in one of them to get your needs met.

Quickhacks are your primary method of attacking. Each one cost some amount of RAM and has an associated cooldown. They are akin to spells that cost some amount of mana and have associated cooldowns.

You don’t really have to worry about casting or channel time since time is slowed while you have your scanner out and all of the Quickhacks apply instantly. However, each Quickhack takes a different amount of time to actually produce symptoms after infection as the hack is loaded into the victim’s Cyberware.

Enemies don’t notice they are under the effect of a Quickhack unless or until they experience physical symptoms, and some effects, like Reboot Optics, are treated as benign glitches in the hardware rather than hostile actions by an attacker.

While an enemy can eventually become affected by multiple Quickhacks at the same time, only 1 Quickhack can be uploaded to a given target at a time.

When you combine these factors together, you end up with a mindset that’s focused on pre-casting. That is, uploading as many Quickhacks as possible before enemies notice and start coming after you by applying the ones that have the longest upload times first and the shortest upload times last.

I’ll be focusing on the Legendary rarity in the guide, but most Quickhacks exist as all 4 rarities, so you can just use the rarest version you have access to. You can obtain Quickhacks from a variety of sources including crafting, Netrunner vendors, and as drops from Access Points.

Crafting is by far the easiest, and you don’t need to keep the Perk Points invested in order to use them as you do with weapons and clothing, so you can just spend the point, craft the Quickhack, and then pay a few eddies to respec out of it.

Breach Protocol is different from all the other Quickhacks I’ll be talking about. The effects (called daemons) apply to the entire network instead of individuals. Each daemon applies some sort of debuff to humans or devices connected to the network.

In order to breach the protocol, you’ll need to complete one of those little hex code puzzles that you may have seen when you jacked into a Computer or Access Point to hack it.

Each sequence you are able to find and input before you run out of time and buffer (number of inputs) will upload the associated daemon to the network. Typically, it is possible to upload all of the daemons on the list, but especially later in the game, you either have to get crafty and efficient to upload them all or be more selective.

The build I’ll be focusing on assumes that you’ll be using Breach Protocol as often as possible since the daemons (debuffs) it applies are significant, but they aren’t nearly as valuable if you don’t plan on dealing damage directly with your Quickhacks.

Fear not, if you don’t want to use Breach Protocol, you can still make a solid Netrunner build, though you will be far more reliant on your weapons to actually defeat enemies. Your Quickhacks will end up being ultimates and/or applying debuffs directly with Quickhacks as opposed to with the daemons. If you’re on PC, don’t forget you can also just install a mod that autocompletes the Breach Protocol puzzles too!

Breach Protocol has a couple of other quirks too. Rather than being something that you have to equip like the other Quickhacks, Breach Protocol is a base function that’s built into every Cyberdeck. It never costs any RAM either and while its cooldown is relatively short, it’s only usable once per network.

The core idea with Breach Protocol is that by hacking the network, you’re building a long-lasting tunnel through the network’s security, and once you’ve made that tunnel, you’re free to start dropping bombs down through it.

You’ll almost always be using Breach Protocol as your first or second hack since enemies don’t notice the infection and you want the debuffs applied before you start dealing damage. The possible daemons that can be uploaded by Breach Protocol include:

You unlock more of these or upgrade them daemons by spending Perk Points in the Breach Protocol tree (first tab of Intelligence) or by equipping the associated Legendary rarity Quickhack that gives it as a passive effect.

These are your bread-and-butter Quickhacks, you’ll be using most of these in nearly every encounter. Along with the rest of the components of the build I recommend, you’ll be able to (non-lethally) defeat all foes with Quickhacks alone.

You may notice that I’m only listing 5 primaries despite Legendary Cyberdecks having 6 Quickhack slots. This is deliberate. There really isn’t a strong contender for the 6th slot that I’ve found to be consistently useful and have an actual impact on combat outcomes. This approach also gives you a ton of flexibility to customize the build to your liking without compromising its integrity.

Short Circuit is your main single-target damaging Quickhack. Thanks to its high base damage and various damage boosts along with Daisy Chain and the combined 25% cooldown reduction from the Quickhacking Skill Progression levels, you’ll be able to spam one-shot almost all enemies with this hack alone.

The EMP effect is really just a super weak DoT that adds a few ticks of damage for effects that have a chance to trigger with each tick.

The legendary passive effect synergizes best with weapons that have high rates of fire or deal damage multiple times per shot, like SMGs and shotguns.

Contagion is your main multi-target (AoE) Quickhack. Thanks to perks like Diffusion and Plague along with the Netwatch Netdriver MK.5 Cyberdeck, you can easily spread a single Contagion throughout most or all of a compound.

If you have more spreads left than surviving enemies in range, Contagion can even jump back to enemies it’s already hit!

The legendary passive is nice, but it really only increases the effectiveness of Contagion and Reboot Optics (and Cripple Movement). Unfortunately, it doesn’t synergize with the Netwatch Netdriver MK.5 Cyberdeck.

Overheat is your highest DPS Quickhack thanks to its short cooldown and high damage output. However, it takes time for the damage to go out, so it’s really only worth using if Short Circuit is on cooldown. Typically, this will happen in the early game while you’re still unlocking the cooldown reductions and against bosses.

Its upload time is slightly longer than Short Circuit, so you can apply Overheat to one enemy before applying Short Circuit to another, though it usually isn’t necessary.

The legendary passive aids with your survivability, though its value is diminished because it only works against targets burning from Overheat, not other sources.

Ping is typically your cheapest Quickhack. Its main effect and benefit is revealing all enemies on the network, it’s a wallhack. If you ping a device, you’ll also reveal all devices and enemies on the network, but this can make the environment a little too noisy sometimes, so I only recommend pinging devices if you can’t find an enemy.

The Legendary passive effect lets you hack the devices through walls. I find this particularly valuable if you need to re-disable things like security cameras and turrets because somebody turned them back on or the associated daemon wore off.

Reboot Optics helps immensely with your survivability and stealth capabilities. When enemies get blinded, they assume it’s some glitch with their hardware rather than a hostile actor, so they don’t enter combat.

Since the enemies are blinded, they can’t really aim. So long as you aren’t right in front of them, it’s easy to avoid their attacks. The blindness lasts long enough that it’s effectively permanent.

The Optics Jammer daemon from the legendary passive and spread are really what puts Reboot Optics in a league of its own ahead of the other controlling Quickhacks, to the extent that the others aren’t useful with this build. These synergies only exist for this build specifically, and if you don’t plan on making use of Breach Protocol, it’s not as overpowered and you’ll likely need to use others.

These Quickhacks tend to either not deal damage or have super long cooldowns or upload times, all of which greatly diminish their impact when the main goal of this build is to defeat as many enemies as possible with Quickhacks.

Besides Synapse Burnout, all of the other Quickhacks fall into 1 of 2 types: ultimate or control. I’ll go into greater detail on what that means later on. First, I want to be clear that just because they aren’t all that useful to the build I depict doesn’t mean they’re useless. In fact, these Quickhacks are arguably more valuable than the primaries I listed if you want a more weapon-centric build or don’t want to use Breach Protocol.

Other Cyberdecks, especially the Tetratronic Rippler MK.4, synergize more strongly with what I consider to be secondary Quickhacks for this build and you could definitely make a completely separate build where you might consider those to be the primaries instead. In any case, you do have a spare slot to equip 1 of them for this build. My personal favorites are Synapse Burnout and System Reset, but that’s not saying much.

Synapse Burnout is meant to be a finisher. It works okay with Contagion and Overheat, but a single application of either DoT is usually enough to defeat regular enemies, so it’s really only helpful against bosses while the others are on cooldown.

Unfortunately, the damage increase often isn’t nearly enough to finish off bosses as soon as they drop below 50%, so it really only functions as a second Short Circuit.

The upload time is long, so you can apply it to something before Overheat and Short Circuit as another pre-cast or immediately after Overheat or Contagion is fully uploaded). It works better alongside weapons and the ultimates.

The legendary passive doesn’t do much on its own, though it does synergize with the Suicide Quickhack’s passive.

The Ultimates all have super long upload times, cooldowns, and RAM costs in exchange for exceptionally powerful effects. Since you can defeat almost all enemies with the individual Combat Quickhacks that comprise your primaries. The benefits of Ultimates end up being completely outweighed by the drawbacks, so you’re really only using them for style and panache.

Suicide

System Reset

Cyberpsychosis

Detonate Grenade

Control Quickhacks don’t deal any damage. Instead, they apply some sort of debuff to their target that makes them significantly less effective in combat. Optics Jammer and Breach Protocol give you more than enough control, so there’s really no need to use more of them.

There’s just no point in spending time and RAM to upload something to defeat your target when you could just upload a Combat Quickhack instead that would defeat them outright in the same amount of time. The benefit of these Quickhacks comes in when you aren’t able to deal so much damage with the Combat Quickhacks because you haven’t invested in Intelligence or its trees.

Weapon Glitch

Cripple Movement

Sonic Shock

The lower rarity versions often only contain part of the effect of one of these Quickhacks, which makes them even less valuable, especially considering you have fewer Cyberdeck slots to work with.

Your Cyberdeck governs the amount of base RAM, buffer size (number of entries for Breach Protocol), Quickhack slots, as well as the number and overall quality of special effects. The higher the rarity, the better. Every 10 levels of Street Cred enables you to purchase 1 rarity higher, with Legendary being purchasable at 40 Street Cred.

This is the Legendary Cyberdeck I recommend using with this build. It offers the most RAM slots of any Cyberdeck and significantly enhances your spread capabilities, Quickhack damage, and RAM recovery rate, all of which are incredibly valuable for this build that’s focused on spamming damaging Quickhacks.

The effect “Offensive Quickhacks can be spread to up to 3 targets within a 6m radius.” does not work as described. It doesn’t seem to be affected by any of the buffs that increase spread range and it almost always only spreads to 1 additional target, not 2. Regardless, it’s still a magnificent effect.

You can purchase the Netwatch Netdriver MK.5 in exchange for 35k eddies from the Ripperdoc in Wellsprings, Heywood. The nearest Fast Travel point is Pumping Station.

At Street Cred levels 0 (right away), 12, and 30 it’s time to go hunt down a Ripperdoc and buy the next rarity Cyberdeck. For this build, I recommend the Biotech ∑ line of Cyberdecks, that is MK.1, 2, and 3 for the green, blue, and purple rarities respectively.

All 3 of the Cyberdecks can be purchased from the Ripperdocs near Jig Jig Street in Japantown, Westbrook. Unfortunately, that means you can’t punch Fingers.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter too much which Cyberdeck you choose until the later rarities. The Biotech ∑ line of Cyberdecks all exclusively have effects that are beneficial to you throughout your playthrough and are a subset of the effects provided by the Netwatch Netdriver MK.5, so it won’t feel like you’re losing anything as you upgrade.

You’ll be spending points to upgrade Intelligence for upgrading your Quickhacks, then either Body or Cool for survivability, and finally Technical Ability, primarily for crafting.

You gain access to more Quickhacking and Breach Protocol Perks by spending points on Intelligence, so that’s the first Attribute you’ll want to max out. Each point spent on Intelligence also increases your Cyberdeck RAM capacity, as well as your Quickhack damage and duration. When you have all 20 points spent, you’ll have increased Cyberdeck RAM capacity by 80%, Quickhack damage by 200%, and Quickhack duration by 20%.

Assuming you actually plan to use Breach Protocol, I recommend taking almost all of the Perks. However, most of the goodies are locked away until you become more Intelligent. The Perks focus on expanding the number of and enhancing the daemons at your disposal as well as improving the rewards given by hacking Access Points and Computers and making Breach Protocol easier.

The weakest element of Breach Protocol is the buffs that relate to the number of daemons uploaded and its overall duration. They’re not bad, but it’s a lot of points to spend on something that won’t be useful all the time. I’ve gone back and forth about taking Efficiency and never noticed much of a difference.

I also opt for Turret Shutdown over Turret Tamer because I prefer a stealthy approach and often like to overload them, but if you want to turn your enemies’ turrets against them, by all means, take Turret Tamer instead. They’re no point in taking both though since they conflict with each other.

Remember, there’s no use spending points in Breach Protocol if you aren’t gonna do it.

Just like with Breach Protocol, I recommend taking almost everything in Quickhacking. The Perks focus on increasing the damage output, enhancing the spread capabilities, and reducing the RAM cost of Quickhacks.

There’s also the talents for crafting Quickhacks of different rarities, but you can spend each of those points elsewhere after you’ve crafted all the Quickhacks of the associated rarity.

I don’t think Weak Links is super valuable for this build because you’ll be deactivating most machines with Breach Protocol, though it will have more value if you opt not to use it, as will Anamnesis.

Next, you’ll need to decide whether you want to upgrade Body or Cool. You’ll end up with sufficient survivability with either, at least for Normal mode, but the way you get that survivability is different.

Body is the more straightforward route to survivability. It focuses more on increasing your HP and health regeneration by providing access to more powerful Cyberware for your Skeleton and Circulatory System along with a few Perks in Athletics that boost survivability that you’ll be able to take. You’ll also be able to open more doors with the higher Body Attribute.

Within Athletics, you’ll be focusing on obtaining Perks that initially boost your carry capacity and health regen, and eventually boost your HP, armor, and damage resistance.

Once you’ve reached 16 Body, you can pick up Burn Baby Burn, which doubles the duration of Burn. This is helpful for the Overheat Quickhack.

Instead of buffing HP and self-healing, Cool cranks up your damage mitigation. The survivability is more Perk and Buff-based. You’ll have access to legendary Cyberware for your Immune System, but be relegated to weaker implants for your Skeleton and Circulatory System.

In exchange for the ambiguity and more limited consistency, Cool offers significant damage increases that are centered around stealth, poison, critical hits, and defeating enemies quickly. In Normal mode, these damage increases seem mostly irrelevant, but big number go brr and a lot of the perks synergize with the Netrunner playstyle, so it’s a good fit.

Keep in mind that if you want to upgrade Cool in lieu of Body, you’ll need to remain in Fingers’ good graces since he is the only Ripperdoc in Night City that seems to specialize in Cyberware for the Immune System.

To start, you’ll focus on boosting your effectiveness in stealth and damage dealt toward humans. Later on, you’ll be able to upgrade your critical chance, Poison (from Contagion), and survivability.

Cold Blood has more Perk Points invested in it than any other non-Intelligence tree. However, since the effects are reliant on Cold Blood being active, I recommend getting these last. Since uptime will be such a concern, I recommend prioritizing the perks that increase the duration of Cold Blood before adding benefits to it.

Finally, you’ll need to dump a ton of points into Technical Ability so that you can craft Legendary clothing and weapons. You’ll also be able to open a ton of doors that have a Technical Ability requirement.

Technically, this Netrunner build benefits less from crafting than most others in the game since you aren’t using weapons or relying on your clothing for damage mitigation as much, but you’ll have enough Attribute and Perk Points to do all of this, so there’s not a big reason not to.

The Crafting Perks focus on making crafting cheaper, enabling you to craft higher rarity stuff, get more things from disassembly, and make crafted items better.

Remember to upgrade all your crafted gear each time you level up. Once you’ve hit level 50 and maxed out your upgrades, you can unlearn the perks related to crafting cost reductions, though you have to hold onto the perks that unlock crafting rarities because those are required to use the associated crafted items too.

There are a few talents that are valuable in Engineering, but they’re pretty situational, so I don’t recommend picking them up until later on. You’ll gain immunity to Shock, damage mitigation from explosions, and deal more damage to non-human enemies.

If you find yourself preferring Tech weapons, feel free to spend points to upgrade those as well. I’m particularly fond of Gun Whisperer, Superconductor, Ubercharge, and Tesla, but I barely use my Tech weapons, so I can’t justify taking them.

Your Cyberware will be a bit different depending on if you’ve chosen to invest in Body or Cool

If you opt to invest in Body, your Immune System won’t be quite as impressive, but you’ll have the best Skeleton and Circulatory System that money can buy!

The Circulatory System is full of gold! The Second Heart and gold Biomonitor each give you an extra life every 2 minutes. Biomonitor restores all of your HP once you drop to 15% while Second Heart does the same if your HP drops all the way down to 0.

The gold Bioconductor lowers all of your Cyberware cooldowns by 33%; it affects both Second Heart and Biomonitor as well as Optical Camo, Reflex Tuner (or other), and Camillo RAM Manager, if applicable.

If you don’t care about those cooldowns being reduced, you could take the Microgenerator instead, which triggers an EMP around you that deals damage equal to 50% of each enemy’s max health. It’s particularly helpful against the speedy melee enemies that this build has the most trouble dealing with.

You can purchase the gold Biomonitor and Bioconductor from the Ripperdoc at the Aldecaldo’s Camp out in the Badlands. The associated Fast Travel point is Nomad Camp. The Second Heart can only be purchased from the Ripperdoc at Wellsprings, Heywood near the Pumping Station Fast Travel point.

For the Immune system, you’ll be using the Detoxifier to get Poison immunity and Cataresist, which improves all resistances. For most of the game, you’ll only be able to have the white rarity for Cataresist, but can eventually upgrade to green once you hit level 50 and put that 8th point in Cool.

The Detoxifier is sold by Fingers at Japantown, Westbrook near the Jig-Jig Street Fast Travel point.

The key difference for the Integumentary System comes from how you handle burn. For the High Body build, you just get the Fireproof Coating, which grants immunity to Burn.

If you opt to invest in Cool, you’ll be limited to green rarity implants for Skeleton and a mixed bag for your Circulatory System, but you’ll be able to crank your Immune System up to Gold rarity. Remember, you need to remain in Fingers’ good graces or you won’t be able to obtain all the Cyberware you need for this build.

Your options for the Circulatory System are super limited with the High Cool build. The Second Heart is only available with 16 Body and you’ll only be able to afford the white Biomonitor, which only restores 30% HP upon dropping to 15% HP and has a whopping 4-minute cooldown.

The only other options that really do anything consistent are the Microgenerator and Tyrosine Injector, both of which are nice, but not essential.

Since you can get Poison immunity from the Aggressive Antitoxins Perk in Ninjutsu, there’s no need to spend a precious Cyberware slot on it. Instead, you can take Pain Editor, which reduces all incoming damage by 10%. You can also use the gold version of Cataresist, which increases all resistances by 35%.

Both Cyberwares are only sold by Fingers at Japantown, Westbrook near the Jig-Jig Street Fast Travel point. I do not recommend investing in Cool if you can’t procure these implants.

In the Integumentary System, you’ll be switching out your Fireproof Coating for a Heat Converter, which makes you deal 10% more damage while on fire rather than taking damage.

Many of your implants remain the same regardless of whether you choose to invest in Body or Cool.

The two big ones you want are the EX-Disk and Limbic System Enhancement. The former gives you more RAM (and the amount scales with Intelligence) while the latter slightly increases your critical chance. Since it’s already so low, it’s really only going to be relevant for damage that ticks frequently, like from your guns, and damage over time effects from Contagion and Overheat.

The third one is a bit of a toss-up between Visual Cortex Support and the Camillo RAM Manager. Visual Cortex Support increases your critical damage significantly, but Camillo RAM Manager ensures that you’ll basically never run out of RAM.

The critical damage boost synergizes better with the higher Cool while the Camillo RAM Manager synergizes better with Body since its cooldown gets reduced by Bioconductor, but neither effect is gonna be super impactful. The only time you ever run low on RAM is in boss fights, and critting with anything but guns or your damage over time Quickhacks is irrelevant.

Keep in mind that you’ll never drop to 2 units of RAM if you’re taking Anamnesis, so Camillo RAM Manager will be useless in that situation.

You can purchase the gold versions of EX-Disk, Visual Cortex Support, and the Camillo RAM Manager from the Ripperdoc at West Wind Estate, Pacifica, near the West Wind Apartments Fast Travel point, but you’ll need to go to the Ripperdoc (not Fingers) in Japantown, Westbrook that’s near the Cherry Blossom Market and Jig-Jig Street Fast Travel points.

Apparently, 10/10 Ripperdocs in Night City trust Kiroshi Optics because that’s the only brand that anyone sells for your Ocular System. Each rarity upgrade gives you another mod slot and the highest rarity, purple MK.3, has 3 mod slots.

I recommend using 3 of either the Weakspot Detection (more critical chance) or Trajectory Analysis (more headshot damage) depending on whether you’re using Visual Cortex Support or the Camillo RAM Manager. You want your critical chance as high as possible with Visual Cortex Support, but if you’re not investing in critical hits, you might as well lean into the strongest mod available for your special eyes to crank headshot damage to the moon.

You’ll be using the green Neofiber which slightly improves your mitigation chance and strength and then the other one really doesn’t matter at all. You aren’t spending too much time shooting your gun and can’t afford any of the good upgrades anyway because you aren’t investing in Reflex, which is the stat that practically all of the Nervous System implants require.

I personally prefer Reflex Tuner over the others because it makes it more clear when my health drops low and gives me more of a chance to respond in that dangerous situation, but there’s no reason not to use the green version of Kerenzikov or the Synaptic Accelerator if that’s what you prefer.

You can procure green Neofiber from the Ripperdoc (not Fingers) in Japantown, Westbrook that’s near the Cherry Blossom Market and Jig-Jig Street Fast Travel points.

I recommend using the Subdermal Armor and Optical Camo regardless of your Attribute allocation. Subdermal Armor boosts your armor considerably, reducing your damage taken. Optical Camo gives you a cooldown ability that makes you invisible for 15s. It’s great if you need to walk through a guarded bottleneck or to prevent enemies from noticing you.

Unfortunately, Optical Camo takes up your gadget slot, so you’ll effectively be locked out of using Grenades or the Projectile Launcher arms if you use it. I think it’s worthwhile since stealth is advantageous, but you could swap it out for the Supra-Dermal Weave if you’re investing in Body. However, there is a mod available for your gear that does the same, and you can get an Engineering Perk that makes you immune to Shock, so Grounding Plating is similarly useless.

Your Integumentary System specialists are Octavio at Rancho Coronado, Santo Domingo near the Woodhaven Street Fast Travel point, and Dr. Chrome at Kabuki, Watson near the Kabuki Market Fast Travel point. You’ll find all that you need for either approach at one of those two locations.

For the Skeleton, I recommend Titanium Bones to increase your carrying capacity and Synaptic Signal Optimizer to increase your maximum HP. The rarity of each will depend on how much Body stat you have.

Kraviz’s Clinic near the Luxury Apartments Fast Travel point in Charter Hill, Westbrook is the Skeleton specialist of Night City and sells many of the rarities you’ll need. Instant Implants at Kabuki, Watson is the only place that (permanently) sells the white rarity Skeleton you’ll use for most of the game if you’re going the High Cool route.

For the hands, I recommend the Smart Link because I recommend using 2 Smart Weapons with this build and no Power weapons, so the Ballistic Coprocessor is useless. You can purchase all 3 rarities from Viktor in Little China, Watson.

None of the arms are all that great for this build. I settled for the Monowire, but it really doesn’t matter because you won’t be investing points into anything that will buff them, and are self-sufficient without them. The +15% HP Sensory Amplifier is my favorite universal mod, though the +5% Armor is also a decent option.

You can purchase the gold rarity versions from the Ripperdoc in Wellsprings, Heywood near the Pumping Station Fast Travel point.

For the legs, I personally prefer the purple version of the Fortified Ankles that you can only get from Fingers at Jig-Jig Street in Japantown, Westbrook, but the legs are more about general mobility, so go with whichever one you prefer.

All of the gear I recommend is the legendary crafted version, so you’ll need to have 18 Technical Ability to unlock the associated Edgerunner Artisan perk, but this will enable your gear to benefit from other Crafting Perks that further enhance your damage output and armor.

Fashion-wise, it’s completely up to you! In the featured image for this guide, I use the Legendary Netrunner Armor Set. It doesn’t come with a hat or outer torso.

The Wardrobe feature in Cyberpunk 2077 allows you to look any way you want while still benefiting from the best gear for your build, regardless of how the actual appearance those items may have.

I opted not to use a hat and selected the Rockerjack with Anti-Puncture Mesh for the outer torso because the sheen and colors match well, as does just about any black or yellow jacket.

You can purchase the Rockerjack with Anti-Puncture Mesh from The Manufactory clothing store in Santo Domingo, Arroyo near the Metro: Wollesen St Fast Travel point.

For stat purposes, I recommend just using and upgrading Johnny Silverhand’s outfit as you get the individual pieces because they all feature the maximum number of mod slots without restrictions.

You’ll still need a helmet, and I just recommend making the Sandy Boa Shock-Absorbent Headband, which you get for free when you purchase the Edgerunner Artisan Perk. Any Legendary hat with a mod slot will do though.

For mods, unless you come across a good slot-specific piece like an increased critical chance equipable to face slot or bleed immunity provided by the legs, I recommend using the highest rarity Armadillo mods you can craft. You unlock new mod rarities periodically as you level up the Crafting Skill Progression.

I recommend Smart SMGs for mid-range, Tech or Smart Shotguns for close-range, and some sort of Tech rifle for longer-range precision. Make sure to equip the SMG in the first slot so you’ll pull it out for car chases. For legendary/iconic weapons, I recommend the Yinglong, Ba Xing Chong, and Breakthrough all equipped with Crunch mods.

All 3 of the weapons can be crafted into the legendary versions you see here, though you’ll need to have 18 Technical Ability to unlock the associated Edgerunner Artisan perk.

Stay tuned for future coverage of Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC and consider checking out the Cyberpunk Edgerunners anime on Netflix. It takes place in Night City and we’ve compiled all the locations from the show so you can check them out for yourself!

For the more savvy Netrunners among you, or those who are returning to the game after a short (or long) break, here is a summarized version of this build.

Short Circuit Contagion Overheat Ping Reboot Optics

Synapse Burnout Suicide System Reset Cyberpsychosis Detonate Grenade

Weapon Glitch Cripple Movement Sonic Shock

Shared:

High Body Variant:

High Cool Variant:

Endonae