Why do half the Cyberpunk build guides you find still tell you to stack armour on your trousers?
Because they were written before the 2.0 update tore the whole system up. That update reworked the perks, the cyberware and the skill trees, so a lot of older advice is simply wrong now. Phantom Liberty then bolted on the Relic skill tree, which changes how endgame builds come together. If you are starting a first solo playthrough today, you want builds that match the current game, not the 2020 one. Here are the four I would point any newcomer towards.
Netrunner, the one that feels like cheating in a good way. Quickhacks are your weapon. You scan a room, queue up an overheat or a contagion, and watch a gang fold before anyone sees you. For a first run it is forgiving because you fight from cover and from range, and you rarely have to win a straight shootout. Lean on Intelligence, grab a decent cyberdeck early, and treat your pistol as a backup rather than the plan. It is the closest Cyberpunk gets to playing the game like a puzzle.
Blades, for people who want to run at the problem. Katana in hand, you deflect bullets, dash through a squad and carve it apart. It sounds like the hard option and it is not. The deflect mechanic and the heavy self-healing on this archetype make you genuinely tanky once it is rolling, and the close-quarters pace suits Night City’s tight interiors. Reflexes and the cyberware that boosts your dashes and Sandevistan do the heavy lifting. Loud, fast, very satisfying.
Smart-weapon gunner, the build that aims for you. Smart weapons lock on and bend bullets towards targets once you have the Smart Link cyberware in your hand slot. For a first solo run that is a gift, because your accuracy stops being the bottleneck. You can focus on positioning and target priority while the gun handles the fiddly bit. Pair it with Technical Ability and Cool, and it carries you through the campaign without much fuss.
Stealth, slow and quiet and in control. Crouch, throw knives, choke people out, slip past the rest. Stealth lets you dictate every fight on your terms, which is exactly what you want while you are still learning enemy behaviour. The downside is patience: it is the least flashy of the four. The upside is that a clean stealth run almost never gets you killed by a surprise you did not plan for.
One thing the 2.0 rework changed that trips beginners up. Your armour and cyberware capacity now come mostly from cyberware, not your clothing. So stop hunting for jackets with big armour numbers. Clothing is largely cosmetic now. What matters is the cyberware you install and the capacity to run it, so spend your perk points and eddies there. Get that one idea straight and the rest of the system stops feeling like a wall.
None of these need theorycrafting or a spreadsheet open on your second monitor. Pick the one that matches how you like to fight, commit to its core attribute, and adjust as you go. You can respec later, so a first run is the time to experiment, not to min-max.
If you want to see why the rework matters before you commit, I broke down exactly how the update changes things in THE 2.0 UPDATE MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE in Cyberpunk 2077!.
For the loadouts, the cyberware shopping list and everything else worth knowing before you boot in, the Cyberpunk 2077 game hub is your home base. And if a long solo campaign is what you are after between extraction runs, my rundown of the best open world games to play solo is the sibling report to read next. I take the game seriously. Not myself.
Cyberpunk 2077buildssolo gamingbeginner guidePhantom LibertyRPG
Comments ▸ 0 here now