Cyberpunk 2077 Builds: Attributes, Cyberware, and Netrunner vs Sandy

What You Will Be Able to Do After This Guide

By the time you finish this, you should be able to open any ripperdoc menu and know instantly whether a piece of chrome belongs in your loadout or is a trap; you should be able to argue the Netrunner-versus-Sandevistan question on evidence rather than on vibes; and you should be able to look at a fight you are losing and name the specific budget you overspent.

The common wrong mental model is that a Cyberpunk 2077 build is a weapon choice with a perk tree attached to it. It is not. Weapons are nearly free to swap, and most weapons are viable with modest perk support. What actually determines how your character plays is decided earlier and higher up: which Operating System you install, because that slot is exclusive; how much cyberware capacity that installation leaves you, because capacity is a single shared pool that governs your survivability in the 2.x line; and which attribute gates you can reach, because perk tiers are unlocked by attribute level rather than by character level. Pick those three things coherently and almost any weapon feels good. Pick them incoherently and no weapon will save you.

The second wrong model is that you can fix it later. Perk points can be shuffled — for a fee, at a ripperdoc, in the current build of the game — but attribute points are effectively permanent. You can respec your tactics but not your skeleton. That asymmetry is why the advice in this guide is weighted so heavily toward the early attribute plan: the decisions you make in the first fifteen levels constrain everything after them.

The Three Currencies That Actually Govern Your Build

Attributes. There are five: Body, Reflexes, Technical Ability, Intelligence, and Cool. Each caps at 20, and the perk trees in the current perk system are tiered behind attribute thresholds that sit at roughly 4, 9, 15, and 20 within the relevant attribute. That structure has a blunt consequence: an attribute at 14 gives you the same perk access as an attribute at 9, because the next gate is at 15. Points spent between gates are dead points. The practical rule is to plan in gate-sized chunks — take a primary attribute to 20, a secondary to 15 or 20, and leave everything else at the lowest gate you actually need. Spread evenly across all five and you will reach level 60 with five mediocre trees instead of two dominant ones, which is the single most common way to end up with a character that can do nothing at full power.

Capacity. In the 2.x line, armour and a large share of your effective health come from cyberware rather than from clothing. Every installation draws from one shared capacity pool that grows primarily with character level, with additional bumps from Technical Ability progression and from a small number of perks. Capacity is therefore a budget, not a progression track: it is not something you grind, it is something you allocate. The ratios matter more than the absolute number. Your Operating System plus your two most expensive support pieces will consume the majority of your late-game pool, and everything after that is a small rounding error of six to twelve points per slot.

That leads directly to the real Netrunner-versus-Sandevistan argument. The Operating System slot is exclusive. Cyberdeck, Sandevistan, Kerenzikov, and Berserk all compete for the same socket, and the top-tier versions of each are the most expensive items in the game. Choosing a Sandevistan is not merely choosing bullet time; it is choosing to give up the Cyberdeck's RAM economy, and vice versa. Kerenzikov and Berserk are gated behind Reflexes and Body respectively, so even the choice of which operating system you can install is an attribute decision made ten levels earlier.

RAM. Netrunning runs on a separate resource that behaves like a mana pool with regeneration: you have a buffer, quickhacks draw from it, and it refills over time at a rate improved by Intelligence investment and specific perks. Quickhack effects are not free in time either — each upload has a cast time that scales with distance and target count, which is why a Netrunner standing in the open dies while one uploading from cover does not. In the current build you can queue a small number of uploads (three is the working number) so they resolve back to back, and there is an Overclock state that lets you keep uploading after the buffer is empty by spending health instead of RAM.

The three currencies interact: attributes gate both your perks and your access to high-tier chrome, capacity limits how much chrome you can wear, and RAM is only relevant if you spent your Operating System slot on a Cyberdeck.

What cyberware actually costs. Costs below are approximate ranges for mid-to-high tier items in the 2.x line; the exact value of any given piece scales with rarity and item level, so read them as relative weights rather than as fixed numbers. The point of the table is the shape of the budget.

Notice that the cheap slots are cheap for a reason: they give percentages and utilities, not styles. The expensive slots give you a new way to play. Budget style first, support second, percentages last.

Build One: The Sandevistan Blade Dancer

Concept. Compress every fight into a handful of bullet-time windows and end it before the cooldown matters. This build trades sustained damage for burst density: while the Sandevistan is active you act at near-normal speed while the world crawls, so a melee character can chain kills across a room in the time it would normally take to walk between two enemies.

Attribute plan. Reflexes 20, Body 15 to 20, Cool 9 to 15, Technical Ability 4 to 8, Intelligence 3. Reflexes is primary because it gates both the higher tiers of Sandevistan and the blade perks that turn melee into a kill chain. Body is secondary because it gates health, melee damage scaling, and the stamina/shotgun perks that give you a ranged answer when a fight cannot be closed. Cool at 9 unlocks the second tier of stealth and crit perks; take it higher only if you want the Level 20 capstone. Leave Intelligence at its floor — you are not hacking, and every point there is a point not in Reflexes.

Cyberware plan. Operating System: Sandevistan, upgraded as early as your capacity and eddies allow. Integumentary: armour, because you will be standing inside enemy lines and armour is the only stat that consistently converts into time-to-live. Ocular: crit chance, since your damage plan is multiplicative with crits. Circulatory: sustain, ideally something that returns health or stamina on kills, because your loop depends on chaining kills rather than on disengaging. Nervous System and Skeleton: crit damage and melee damage, in that order, and only after the first three are filled.

Level-by-level decisions. Levels 1 to 12: buy the cheapest Sandevistan you can and put every attribute point into Reflexes until it hits 20. Do not buy Mantis Blades yet — a good katana with the right perks outdamages early blades and costs nothing in capacity. Levels 12 to 25: finish Body to 15 and install your armour piece. This is the point where most players feel weak, and the cause is almost always that they bought chrome instead of finishing an attribute gate. Levels 25 to 40: upgrade the Sandevistan to a high tier, take Cool to 9, and decide your melee identity — Mantis Blades if you want the leap-attack gap closer, Monowire if you want a longer reach and a different perk synergy, or a kitted katana if you want the highest raw crit scaling. Levels 40 to 60: fill Nervous System crit damage, push Body to 20, and buy the movement piece in Legs if you skipped it, because positioning is what lets you start each fight on your own terms.

Combat loop. Open from stealth or from cover so the first kill is free. Activate the Sandevistan only when at least two enemies are within melee chaining distance — activating it on a single target wastes most of the duration. Chain kills with the leap or dash attack, never walking. When the window ends, do not keep swinging: disengage, break line of sight, and spend the cooldown repositioning. The most common failure of this build is fighting during the cooldown at normal speed with a melee weapon and no defensive cooldown left.

Build Two: The Netdriver

Concept. Turn RAM into crowd control and then into damage. Where the Blade Dancer wins by acting faster than the encounter, the Netdriver wins by making the encounter unable to act at all. Its scaling curve is unusual: it gets better as enemy count rises, because spread effects and RAM refunds on kills mean a room of eight enemies is more resources, not more danger.

Attribute plan. Intelligence 20, Technical Ability 15 to 20, Body 8 to 15, Cool 4 to 9, Reflexes 3. Intelligence gates the Cyberdeck tiers, the RAM pool, and every perk that makes hacks cheaper, faster, or contagious. Technical Ability is the underrated second pillar: it governs capacity growth, quickhack crafting, and the economy of components, all of which is what lets you actually field high-tier hacks instead of affording one upgrade per act. Body exists only so you are not deleted by a stray shotgun; 8 to 15 depending on how much you plan to stand still while uploading.

Cyberware plan. Operating System: the best Cyberdeck you can wear, always — every other slot is downstream of it. Frontal Cortex: RAM and spread, because these convert directly into more hacks per fight. Circulatory: anything that reduces hack cost or improves regeneration; this is the slot that turns a two-hack opener into a four-hack opener. Integumentary: armour, because your upload times are long and you will be shot during them. Everything else is filler.

The RAM economy in practice. Think of a fight as a budget. You begin with your buffer, you regenerate at a fixed rate, and each hack has both a cost and an upload time. Two consequences follow. First, cheap control hacks are almost always better as an opener than expensive damage hacks, because removing two enemies from the fight for six seconds is worth more damage than killing one. Second, distance is a cost: uploading across the room takes noticeably longer than uploading from close range, so either fight from cover with line of sight, or close the distance before you start the queue.

Queueing three uploads means your first three actions of a fight are decided before the fight starts. Plan them: control, control, damage. Refund perks make the damage hack pay for part of itself when it kills, which is why the sequence ends with damage rather than beginning with it.

Overclock is the emergency valve that converts health into RAM. It is powerful and it is the fastest way to die in the game, because you are spending the resource that keeps you alive to buy the resource that removes threats. Use it only when the upload you are buying will end the fight, and never when you already have enemies in melee range.

Build Three: The Chrome Wall

Concept. A Body-and-Technical Ability bruiser built on Berserk rather than on speed or on hacking. Where the other two builds manipulate time or manipulate enemies, this one refuses to be manipulated: it absorbs the opening of a fight and then deletes the room with high-per-shot weapons and grenades.

Attribute plan. Body 20, Technical Ability 20, Reflexes 8, Cool 8, Intelligence 3. Body gates Berserk access, health, and the shotgun and LMG perks. Technical Ability at 20 pays for itself twice — it grows your capacity pool, which this build needs because it wants both an expensive Operating System and real armour, and it governs tech weapon charge behaviour, grenades, and crafting, which is where this build's burst comes from.

Cyberware plan. Operating System: Berserk. Integumentary and Skeleton: armour and health, the two stats this build converts directly into extra seconds of standing in the open. Arms: the Projectile Launch System gives you a burst option that recharges and costs no weapon slot. Circulatory: sustain on kill. Notably, this build can afford more capacity in support slots than the other two, because it is not paying for Frontal Cortex or Nervous System scaling — that is its hidden advantage, and it is why the Chrome Wall is the most forgiving of the three.

Loop. Take the first volley deliberately, activate Berserk when enemies are committed and clustered, then dump charged tech shots or grenades into the cluster. The build is at its worst in long open sightlines and at its best in interiors and corridors, which is most of the game's combat content.

Advanced Applications and Edge Cases

Capacity triage. When you are a few points short, the correct move is almost never to downgrade your Operating System. It is to drop one expensive support piece and take two cheap ones. A single expensive Nervous System crit item is frequently worse than an armour piece plus a cheap crit optic, because armour converts into surviving one more exchange, and surviving one more exchange beats a crit multiplier you only benefit from while winning.

Why "hybrid Netrunner plus Sandevistan" mostly does not work. Giving up the Cyberdeck means giving up the RAM pool and the hack-scaling perks that make hacks worth casting. You will still upload the cheapest effects, but you will not fund the ones that matter. If you want a melee character with a trick, buy a movement or armour piece instead of planning around hacks you cannot pay for.

Enemy-type variance. Mechanical enemies and drones respond differently to quickhacks than humans do, and some archetypes resist specific effects. Test your hack list against each enemy type once; the Netdriver's weakness is not damage, it is the fight where your list does nothing.

Overclock as a planned resource, not a panic button. Because Overclock converts health to RAM, it is strictly better when paired with health-on-kill effects: you spend health to buy a kill, and the kill returns the health. Builds with sustain-on-kill can treat Overclock as a free extra burst every fight; builds without it should treat Overclock as a last resort.

Boss versus crowd. Sandevistan is strongest against three to eight enemies, where chaining distance is short and the burst window is fully used; against a single durable boss, time dilation loses much of its value. The Netdriver inverts this: weakest against one resistant target, strongest against a room. Choosing an archetype per encounter type is the difference between a build that feels strong and one that feels inconsistent.

Common Mistakes and Their Specific Fixes

Raising every attribute to 8 or 10. This reads as balance and plays as weakness, because perk gates sit at 4, 9, 15, and 20. Fix: pick one attribute to 20 and one to 15, and floor the rest.

Buying expensive chrome before committing to an Operating System. You will hit a capacity wall and have to sell back at a loss. Fix: install the cheapest version of your intended OS first, then buy support around it.

Treating clothing as your armour plan. In the current build, most of your armour comes from cyberware slots. Fix: budget Integumentary and Skeleton slots before you shop for outfits.

Uploading quickhacks from the open. Upload time scales with distance and you are stationary while casting. Fix: break line of sight, cast, then re-engage; or close distance first and cast short.

Activating the Sandevistan on one target. You waste most of the window. Fix: activate only when two or more enemies are within chaining reach, and use normal-speed stealth for single targets.

Using Overclock without any sustain. You trade the resource that keeps you alive for damage. Fix: add health-on-kill before you rely on Overclock, or stop using it.

Carrying three weapon categories with perks in none of them. Weapon perks are where your damage actually lives. Fix: commit to one primary and one backup, and respec perks when you change.

A Practice Plan With Self-Diagnosis

Stage one, levels 1 to 15: commit. Pick your Operating System as soon as it is available and stop shopping for others. Spend every attribute point into one primary until it hits 20. Self-diagnosis: if you cannot state your primary attribute and your OS in one sentence, you are not committed and your perks are scattered.

Stage two, levels 15 to 35: allocate. Visit the ripperdoc with a written budget: OS, armour, one scaling slot, then filler. Self-diagnosis: if a slot is empty, ask why — empty Integumentary is the usual culprit.

Stage three, levels 35 to 60: optimise. Swap percentage pieces for style pieces, max your secondary, and begin choosing loadouts per mission type rather than globally. Self-diagnosis after every failed fight, in this order: did I use my Operating System ability at all? Did I die with a full resource bar? Did I fight during a cooldown I should have spent repositioning? Those three questions cover most deaths.

The overall diagnostic is simple. If fights take longer than roughly twenty seconds, you lack burst and should consolidate perks into one damage source. If you die in cover, you lack armour and should reallocate capacity. If you die while exposed and moving, you lack positioning and should buy the movement piece you skipped. Name the failure, then move one budget line. Do not rebuild.

Closing Synthesis

Netrunner versus Sandevistan is the right question because it forces the decision that actually matters: which exclusive Operating System you build around, and therefore which currency you spend. Everything else is downstream. Decide the OS, gate your attributes to reach its perks, allocate capacity with armour and one scaling slot first, then choose a weapon that expresses it. Players who pick a weapon first and shop for chrome second end up with builds that feel broken in ways they cannot name.