Netrunner Build Cyberpunk 2077: The Last Cyberbender

Of all the myriad ways to murder people in Cyberpunk 2077, the most innovative has to be Netrunning. Hacking into enemy implants and getting their own systems to rebel against them is not only satisfying, it’s effective. There are more than a few ways to construct a solid Netrunner build, drawing from Cool, Technical or Reflexes to compliment Intelligence, but for this case we’re going to roleplay as a futuristic mage and go full damage Intelligence/Reflexes.

Netrunner Build Cyberpunk 2077: The Last Cyber-bender

This build focuses on turning V into the Cyberpunk 2077 equivalent of a dps-spellcaster, maximizing crowd-control effects and DoT damage rather than stealth quickhacks or Cool skills. Your breach protocols are merely setups to activate 2 key perks: Hackathon and Efficiency, which provide Quickhack cooldown reduction and increased RAM recovery respectively. You will be putting your points into Intelligence and Reflexes to maximize crit damage — especially when you unlock the Critical Error perk, and your weapon set can be a continually evolving mix of Rifles, Handguns and Katanas — experiment with whichever weapon style gels with you most. Rifles are recommended for their ability to pinpoint high single-target DPS and pick off enemies from behind cover after battering them with ridiculous DoT damage by way of contagion, but with Weapon Glitch, Reboot Optics, and Cripple Movement all rendering enemies useless, you can honestly opt for whichever one you want.

Quickhacks

Rather than opting for an expensive and flashy ultimate hack like System Reset or Cyberpsychosis, this build is centered around spreadable Quickhacks — three Control Quickhacks and three Combat quickhacks for damage. The quickhack rotation will generally be something along the lines of Cripple Movement + Weapon Glitch + Contagion followed by Overheat on Tankier, high priority targets Synapse Burnout. As soon as Cripple Movement/Weapon glitch has finished their duration, following up with Reboot Optics (if necessary) is important for maintaining CC. This allows you to keep your enemies unable to retaliate while dealing huge amounts of DoT damage, while following up with direct damage from your choice of weapon. In the end, however, it depends more on the layout of the problem in front of you, and the rotation you feel best suited to dealing with enemies in their individual groupings.

Contagion (Legendary)

Contagion is your primary mode of sewing destruction to enemies. The only combat quickhack capable of spreading, contagion applies poison to enemies that deals damage over time. The legendary variant comes with a passive that increases the spread of any other quickhacks capable of spreading.

Overheat (Epic)

Overheat allows you to stack extra damage on top of Contagion for higher-priority targets or those with more health.

Synapse Burnout 

Synapse Burnout is single-target damage reserved for high-priority targets, such as bosses or tankier enemies, but can also be used to provide extra CC through panic. It’s up to your own budget and playstyle which rarity you want to opt for; The rare variant is enough to serve its purpose as an extra damage-dealer quickhack.

Cripple Movement (Epic)

Cripple Movement is an important CC skill, less for its primary Uncommon effect and more for the Epic variant’s ability to render enemies unable to attack. Can be used right after Reboot Optics to keep enemies nothing more than fish in a barrel.

Weapon Glitch (Epic)

Weapon Glitch, rather than serving as a great debuff, causes weapons to explode at the end of its duration — adding damage and giving them little means to retaliate.

Reboot Optics (Epic)

Reboot Optics is great for obvious reasons — being blinded in the middle of a combat situation makes things, objectively-speaking, a little harder.

Cyberware

Cyberdeck

Netwatch Netdriver MK.5 ($43,750)

The Netwatch Netdriver is a ridiculously powerful tool for taking on waves of enemies and spreading cybernetic destruction like wildfire. With a buffer size of 8, 11 RAM, and 6 slots, you’ll have a large-enough arsenal to carry a well-rounded arsenal for any netrunner build — whether it be stealth or more directly aggro. What makes the Netwatch Netdriver especially attractive, however, isn’t it’s base specs; Aside from increasing quickhack spread by 60%, Netwatch’s most OP cyberdeck lets you upload combat quickhacks directly to three targets simultaneously — each of which serves as a spread-point. On top of that ridiculous quickhack carpet-bomb capability, the Netwatch Netdriver increases quickhack damage by a flat 30% — not too shabby.

Frontal Cortex

1) Limbic System Enhancement ($3,000-$21,000)

Increases your Crit Chance by 7-25%. This becomes absolutely necessary only once you’ve unlocked the Critical Error perk which allows your Quickhacks to crit.

2) Memory Boost ($4,000-$20,000)

Restores 1-4 RAM upon kill, synergizing with Forget-Me-Not. This is more useful against basic mobs and is your better choice before eventually opting for Ex-Disk’s Epic or, ideally, Legendary rarity.

OR

2) Ex-Disk (Epic or Legendary only) ($20,000-$28,000) 

Increases your total RAM capacity by 1-5.  Do not opt for the common variety, 1 extra ram is far from worth 12,000 eddies. Until you can purchase the Ex-Disk, opt for Memory Boost.

3) Visual Cortex Support ($3,000-$21,000) 

Increases Crit Damage by 10-45% — especially useful once you’ve unlocked the Critical Error perk.

Interaugmentary System

Subdermal Armor ($2,000-$14,000)

Gives you a bunch of armor to add some extra tankiness.

Operating System

Militech “Falcon” Sandevistan ($43,750)

Dilates time by 30% for 18 seconds, during which flat damage is increased by 15%, crit chance by 20% and crit damage by 35% (cooldown: 60 seconds). The Falcon is best for setting up your quickhack stack all at once and providing a hefty damage bonus on top.

Perks

Intelligence

Quickhacking

• Biosynergy 1/1 (0) – Unlocks the Cyberpunk 2077 version of Mana Regen — a must-have for obvious reasons. Gives you back 4 RAM every 60 seconds.
• Bloodware 3/3 (0) – Quickhacks deal 30% more damage
• Forget-Me-Not 1/1 (5) – Restores 1 RAM whenever an enemy is killed with a quickhack.
• Hacker’s Manual 1/1 (5) – Unlocks the crafting specs for Rare quickhacks.
• I-SPY 1/1 (5) – Reveals an enemy netrunner when they’re uploading a quickhack. This should be standard issue for any build, let alone a Netrunner build.
• Weak Link 3/3 (7) – Reduces the cost of quickhacks on devices by 3 RAM — more important than it sounds. It helps save your RAM for more important things. Like murder.
• Signal Support 2/2 (9) – Increases Quickhack duration by 50%. This is essentially a 50% damage buff for DoT effects like Overheat.
• Daisy Chain 3/3 (7) – Killing an enemy affected by a quickhack reduces the cooldown of all other active quickhacks by 50%.
• Subliminal Message 2/2 (11) – Quickhacks deal 50% more damage to unaware targets.
• Diffusion 1/1 (12) – Doubles the quickhack spread distance. Ultra important, generally, but made even more so by the Netwatch Netdriver MK.5’s ability to upload hacks to up to 3 enemies.
• Mnemonic 1/1 (12) – Reduces the cost of a quickhack against an enemy already affected by a quickhack by 2 RAM units. Excellent for stacking CC/Debuffs with damage quickhacks like Overheat.
• School of Hard Hacks 1/1 (12) – Unlocks the crafting specs for rare Quickhacks
• Plague 3/3 (14) – Critical component of a powerful netrunner build, Plague lets spread-able quickhacks jump to 3 more targets. Combined with increased spread range and the Netrunner Netdrive MK.5’s unique effect, this allows you to sew utter destruction on small armies.
• Critical Error 1/1 (16) – Quickhacks can now crit. This may not seem like much, but is a breakthrough moment where your netrunner build essentially goes Super Saiyan for the first time. Being able to Crit on quickhacks is enormously valuable in and of itself. It ups damage immensely. But what makes it especially important is not so much how it doubles down on your strengths, but how it rounds out your weaknesses; Critical Error allows you to justifiably put points into the Reflexes attribute and opens up its skill trees. This allows you to simultaneously build for your weapons, be it Rifles, Handguns or Blades and empower them and your quickhack damage. Until you obtain Critical error, your actual weapon-based combat is severely underpowered — with it, you become a well-rounded killing machine.
• Optimization 1/1 (20) – Reduces the cost of Quickhacks by 1 RAM
• Master Ram Liberator 1/1 (20) – Increases RAM recovery rate by 50% (+1% per perk level)

Breach Protocol

• Mass Vulnerability 2/2 (0) – Gives you the Mass Vulnerability daemon, which reduces Physical resistances of all enemies in the network by 30% for 3 to 6 minutes.
• Big Sleep 1/2: Grants the Big Sleep daemon which, while useful, is more important for crossing the 3 daemon threshold required to activate Hackathon and Efficiency. Note that you really only need to spend one perk point on Big Sleep, rather than 2.
• Almost In! 2/2 (5) – Increases breach time by 40%.
• Total Recall 1/1 (11) – Reduces quickhack costs by 1 RAM.
• Totaler Recall 1/1 (16) – Reduces the RAM costs of all quickhacks by a further 1 unit — meaning it, alongside Total Recall, shaves a total of 2 RAM off the cost of all of your quickhacks.
• Mass Vulnerability: Quickhacks 1/1 (16) – Mass vulnerability  resistance
• Cloud Cache (15) – Reduces the cost of your next quickhack by 1 to 2 times the number of daemons uploaded into the network.
• Transmigration 1/1 (16) – Increases Breach time by 50% (+5% per perk level), giving you some more breathing room when
• Head Start 1/1 (18) – Automatically uploads the first Daemon on your list, simplifying your life when aiming to activate Hackathon and Efficiency.
• Hackathon 1/1 (18) – Reduces the cooldown of your quickhacks by 33% for 5 minutes when uploading 3 or more daemons upon breach.
• Compression 1/1 (20) – Compression reduces the sequence-length for each daemon by one, to a minimum of 2 — again, making your life easier while establishing the Hackathon/Efficiency setup.