Night City is a crazy place, filled with gang violence, massive evil corporations, and blood around every corner. However, some situations still call for the calm, stealthy approach. In this guide, we will break down a top-to-bottom build for those who lurk in the shadows and prefer to pick off their enemies one by one.
Since update 2.0, the skills in Cyberpunk have been completely revamped, and there are quite a few more revolving around stealth. This guide centers around a full-stealth build, which means it will be mainly concerned with stealth, mobility, and pistol perks.
Stealth Stats
Since stealth is the name of this build, invest points into Cool, Reflexes, and Intelligence. However, some of these skill trees are more important to a stealth build than others. Let’s list them from most to least important:
Cool – Where the character gets their stealth abilities and proficiencies with pistols, snipers, and precision rifles.
Reflexes – Allows your character to become more mobile, accessing places more easily, and striking more unpredictably.
Intelligence – Gives players a leg up on avoiding cameras and distracting enemies.
Most of your first points should go into Cool to help avoid enemies and taking damage, then you should go for the mobility gains in Reflexes. If you’re having difficulty with cameras, dip into Intelligence a little. However, don’t go over Intelligence’s 4th level until you’ve maxed out Cool and Reflexes (level 20).
If you want, you can view the build and stat allocations on Cyberpunk’s official build tool (it is set for a character around level 40). Don’t forget about your skills! They will level up the more you use them. Specifically, stealth takedowns will level up Shinobi perks.
Stealth Perks
Cool
The Cool skill tree is the bread and butter of any stealth build, and that’s no different here. We will mostly be dumping out attribute points into the middle and left skill trees. This allows our character to be proficient with sneaking and pistols, precision rifles, and snipers. With update 2.0, players can now swap out attribute points whenever they want, so feel free to try out different perks that aren’t listed here.
Cool – at level 4, invest in the perks:
Killer Instinct– Increases damage dealt by silenced weapons, knives, and axes by 25% outside of combat.
Feline Footwork – When crouched, +15% movement speed, +15% mitigation chance.
Mitigation grants a chance to reduce incoming damage by current Mitigation Strength (default 50%).
Small Target – +20% mitigation chance when crouched and not moving.
Blind Spot – When crouched, the higher your Mitigation Chance, the longer it takes for enemies to detect you.
Unexposed – +20% Mitigation Chance when aiming from cover.
Cool – at level 9, invest in the perks:
Focus – Level 1: +10% headshot and weak spot damage. Level 2: Unlocks Focus Mode, automatically activates when aiming at full stamina.
When active: No stamina cost for shooting, allowing for more accurate shots.
When it ends: -40 stamina
Duration: 2.5 sec.
Head to Head – When Focus is active, neutralizing an enemy with a ranged attack resets its duration.
Deep Breath – Slows time by 25% for you and your enemies when Focus is active.
No Sweat – Gain -50% stamina cost from Focus mode for each enemy neutralized while it is active.
Rinse and Reload – +10% reload speed for your next reload after neutralizing an enemy while aiming.
Stacks 2 times. The stack resets to 0 whenever you reload or start aiming again.
Level 3: Unlocks Deadeye mode, which is active above 85% Stamina. When active: +20% headshot damage, +20% weakspot damage, No bullet spread
California Reaper – Gives +30% Stamina after neutralizing an enemy with ranged attack via headshot or weakspot.
High Noon – When Deadeye is active: +35% reload speed for your next reload after neutralizing an enemy via headshot or weakspot. Effect available for 3 sec. Slows time by 50% during reload.
Run ‘N’ Gun – Hip-firing does not consume Stamina.
When Focus is active: +25% movement speed
Cool – at level 20, invest in the perks:
Nerves of Tungsten-Steel – When Deadeye is active: Guaranteed Crit Hits for headshots and weakspots. Increased damage as distance increases (max. +25%).
Quickdraw – Gives +30% weapon swap speed when swapping to Pistols, Revolvers, Sniper Rifles and Precision Rifles. +30% Stamina when swapping during combat.
Reflexes
For this build, we are mainly interested in the Reflexes’ middle skill tree because it will vastly increase the mobility of our character.
Reflexes at level 4, invest in the perks:
Slippery – The faster you move, the more difficult for enemies to shoot you. Effect increases when Dashing, dodging, sprinting and vaulting.
Muscle Memory – Allows you to reload weapons while sprinting, sliding and vaulting.
Multitasker – Allows you to shoot while sprinting, sliding and vaulting.
+25 Stamina from performing Air Dashes and double jumps.
Air dashes do not cost Stamina.
Intelligence
While the Reflexes and Cool skill trees is where you will primarily want your perk points, you will still have some leftover attribute points (especially after level 40). These are best spent in Intelligence because hacking can make life for a thief and assassin so much easier.
Since most characters will be in the end game by level 40-ish, you likely won’t be able to fill out this tree completely before finishing the game. However, when you are filling it out, it is best to alternate between the middle and left trees. They will allow for faster hacks and more RAM recovery.
Stealth Cyberware
There are plenty of different cyberware to compliment this build, but these two you can’t live without:
Optical Camo (Integumentary System) – Allows the user to go invisible for a set amount of time (depending on the rarity).
Kiroshi “Clairvoyant” Optics – Highlights enemies, 8x optical zoom, Cool-Attuned (more headshot damage), and more ricochet damage and decreased enemy vision.
Relic Perks
For those of you who purchased the expansion, Phantom Liberty, there will also be Relic Perks that can be unlocked as you explore Dogtown. Most of these perks are very potent, but we would be remiss if we didn’t shout out the stealth-focused perks that can elevate this build even further:
Emergency Cloaking – Activating Optical Camo will cause enemies to lose track of you, providing a chance to exit combat.
Sensory Protocol – When crouching, if an enemy spots you, time will be slowed and you can dodge or dash out of their sight to avoid detection.
As you can imagine, these added tools make avoiding detection and getting out of trouble that much easier. Players that want the best build possible should not overlook these perks.
Best Stealth Weapon
The best weapon for this build is the strongest silenced pistol available to your character. This is because the left skill tree in Cool that we leveled up only applies to snipers, revolvers, pistols, and precision rifles. Many of the precision rifles and snipers don’t have silencers, and we find the higher ammo potential of pistols, and their ability to attach silencers, to be more advantageous than revolvers.
At the end of the game, we would really recommend getting Rogue’s pistol Pride for its massive critical hit potential. It is found on a body after beating the final boss and finishing the mission, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.
We hope that you found this build as fun as we did! Did you have any other stealth builds you found super effective? Tell us in the comments!
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Kelson H.
Kelson is a spud head from out west. He is most happy when holding a milky tea with too much honey and playing a sprawling role playing game or reading a fantasy novel. His video game tastes vary but his main genres are looter shooters, RPGs, and real time strategy games.
