This vicious, Cyberpunk 2077 shotgun build turns you into a lightning-fast reaper of the urban battlefield; with hand-in-hand boosts to damage and movement speed alongside negated stamina costs and the ability to fire/reload without any movement penalties, you are a tanky, fast-moving and hard-hitting murderer just about one-shotting everybody you come across. One of the best aspects of this shotgun build is that, apart from being well-rounded and smooth-scaling, encounters are fast and fun. Much of the playstyle revolves around shredding enemies before they can even fire a shot, and almost instantly regenerating whatever flesh wounds they do manage.
Weapon
The Headsman
The Headsman is an iconic power shotgun that doubles the number of projectiles in its bullet-spray, increasing damage, knockback and, most significantly, the chance to cause dismemberment and bleed at the cost of reduced fire rate and capacity. What makes the Headsman a solid option is not only its high base damage, but more so its increased chance to cause dismemberment which activates the Unstoppable and Bloodbath perks which increases the rate of fire and reduces recoil. That said, The Headsman may be replaced with any shotgun of your choosing, as the build truly scales off of simple hard-damage gained by way of Cold Blood and other Body perks.
Cyberware
The minimum cost of the cyberware for this Cyberpunk 2077 shotgun build is $59,500 without Second Heart and $101,500 with Second Heart. There are a few remaining slots that players can use for implants as they wish, such as in the arms and legs and two Interagumentary slots that can be filled with resistance-related implants until Cold Blood’s Immunity Perk defeats their purpose.
Related:
- Netrunner Build Cyberpunk 2077: The Last Cyberbender
- Cyberpunk 2077 Melee Build: King Kong’s Gorilla Arms Build
- Katana Build Cyberpunk 2077: The Samurai Slaughterhouse Build
Circulatory System
Blood Pump ($5,000-$35,000)
Can be activated to instantly restore 50-90% of your max health (180-second cooldown).
Biomonitor ($6,000-$42,000)
Automatically restores 30-100% health when your health drops to 15% or below (240-120 second cooldown).
Second Heart ($42,000)
Completely revives you upon death (120-second cooldown).
Immune System
Pain Editor ($28,000)
Reduces all incoming damage by 10%. Any and all flat damage-negation buffs are solid gold for shotgun builds and the tankiness they require to get in close.
Shock-In-Awe ($1,000-$7,000)
Creates a 2-10% chance to generate an EMP when hit that deals 20% of their HP to nearby enemies as damage. Somewhat lackluster, Shock-In-Awe wins out over other resistance-related Immune System cyberware simply because of Cold Blood’s Immunity perk that completely negates them anyway.
Interaugmentary System
Subdermal Armor ($2,000-$14,000)
Increases your total armor by 20-200. None of the other Interaugmentary System implants are worth the money or even useful, considering Cold Blood’s Immunity perk negates elemental damage anyway.
Operating System
Biodyne Berserk ($7,500-$35,000)
At Legendary rarity, The Militech Berserk can be activated to reduce weapon recoil and sway by 25%, increase ranged damage by 20%, armor and resistances by 5%, and melee damage by 25% for 30 seconds. During its duration, kills restore 4% health.
Skeletal System
Synaptic Signal Optimizer ($4,000-$28,000)
Increases your max health by a whopping 20-60%.
Bionic Joints ($6,000-$10,000)
Reduces recoil by 12-15%.
Perks
Body
The Body perks prioritize, above all else, movement speed (to fully take advantage of Speed Demon’s damage boost) and any and all stackable buffs.
Annihilation (18)
- Momentum Shift 3/3 (11) – Increases your movement speed by 20% for 10 seconds upon kill. Goes hand in hand with Speed Demon.
- Speed Demon 1/1 (16) – You deal more damage the faster you’re moving — the keystone skill of this Shotgun/Heavy Machine Gun build.
- Hail of Bullets 3/3 (0) – Increases shotgun and heavy machine gun damage by 10%
- Bloodrush 2/2 (7) – Increases movement speed by 10% when wielding a shotgun or heavy machine gun.
- Skeet Shooter 1/1 (11) – Buffs damage to moving targets by 15%. Especially useful for shotgunners rushing opponents.
- Biathlete 1/1 (20) – Weapon Sway is unaffected by movement — a huge buff for shotgunners looking to close the gap and start blasting by increasing your effective range significantly. This effect is carried across weapons.
- Unstoppable 1/1 (14) – Dismembering an enemy increases fire rate by 10%, stacking up to three times.
- In Your Face 2/2 (5) – Reduces reload speed by 40%
- Massacre 3/3 (11) – Increases shotgun/heavy machine gun crit-damage by 45%
- Manic 1/1 (14) – Buffs movement speed by 20% for 10 seconds upon entering combat
- Bloodbath 1/1 (20) – Dismembering enemies decreases recoil by 50% for 6 seconds (+1 per perk level)
Athletics (13)
- Regeneration 1/1 (0) – Unlocks in-combat health regen.
- Like a Butterfly 1/1 (11) – Dodging doesn’t cost stamina
- Marathoner 1/1 (14) – Even more important than Like a Butterfly is Marathon, which cancels the cost of sprinting. The importance of Marathoner cannot be understated for a shotgun build aiming to maximize the Speed Demon perk — for obvious reasons.
- Multitasker 1/1 (11) – Lets you shoot while sprinting, dodging, and vaulting — again, 100% critical to squeezing all the murder-juice out of the Speed Demon perk.
- Divided Attention 1/1 (11) – The companion perk to Multitasker, Divided Attention lets you reload while sprinting, dodging, and vaulting.
- Invincible 3/3 (5) – Invincible simply buffs your max health by 30%, giving you the tankiness any up-close-and-personal Cyberpunk 2077 shotgun build needs.
- Hard Motherfucker 1/1 (20) – Increases armor and resistances by 10% for 10 seconds upon entering combat (+1% per perk level)
- Cardio Cure 1/1 (14) – Movement increases health regen by 25%
- Steel Shell 1/1 (14) – Increases armor by 10% — pretty solid bang for relatively little buck, good for any build that makes use of the Body skills.
- Wolverine 2/2 (16) – Boosts Regeneration’s in-combat health regen by 90%.
Cool
Cold Blood (15)
- Cold Blood 3/3 (0) – Obviously. Nab this early, at least one point, to start accruing XP immediately.
- Rapid Bloodflow 2/2 (9) – Increases your base health regen by 100% per stack of cold blood (including inside combat) — meaning it can stack up to 500% health regen.
- Coolagulant 1/1 (16) – Cold Blood stacks deplete sequentially, rather than simultaneously — making their cumulative effects last way, way longer (with Critical Condition: 100 Seconds > 20 Seconds).
- Critical Condition 2/2 (7) – Increases duration of each Cold Blood stack by 10 seconds.
- Bloodswell 1/1 (14) – Automatically gain a max-stack of Cold Blood when health reaches 45%. Adds immense survivability by way of Rapid Bloodflow, Defensive Clotting, and Pain is an Illusion.
- Coldest Blood 1/1 (11) – Increase maximum stacks of Cold Blood by 1
- Unbreakable 1/1 (16) – Increases maximum stacks of Cold Blood by a further 1, raising it to 5.
- Pain is an Illusion 1/1 (18) – Reduces all incoming damage by 5% per stack of Cold Blood — equating to 25% reduced damage at max stacks.
- Merciless 1/1 (20) – Increase Crit Chance and Crit Damage by 10% (+1% per perk level) and 25% (+3% per perk level) respectively. One of the most powerful skills in the game, Merciless alone is enough to merit investment into Cold Blood.
- Cold and Calculating 1/1 (14) – Every time you land a crit, there’s a 1/4 chance to gain a stack of Cold Blood.
- Immunity 1/1 (20) – Even a single stack of Cold Blood renders you immune to burning, poison, and shock.
