Night City is the logical conclusion of a survival of the fittest mentality. Those who go for an all offense and no defense strategy are likely to meet an early end in Cyberpunk 2077. Dipping into the body attribute is highly recommended for everyone, be it a rogue with a katana, a hacker with a laptop, or a sniper with a rifle. It's fun to imagine staying permanently out of sight and out of mind, but the reality is that V is going to be in situations where discretion is not an option and living to see tomorrow means simply being tough in desperate situations.
The body attributes will help, but with three skill trees, it's hard to tell exactly which perks are worth the investment and which ones will guzzle down these points with very little yield. Even on the "Very Hard" difficulty setting, players who fully clear the map won't be able to get every skill available, so players will be forced to make some difficult choices about what is worth their time and what doesn't quite make the cut. Night City hits hard. With some careful choices in the body trees, V can absorb the blow and hit back harder.
10 Need: Pack Mule
- Increases carrying capacity by 60.
Aside from the bugs, inventory management has been one of the biggest complaints about Cyberpunk 2077. People expect to be given more guns than can possibly be carried in a game like Borderlands, but in this game, it does feel like a lot of weapons are being thrown at V and very few of them are worth using. The problem is that the game is so stingy with eddies that leaving them behind is not an option.
An extra 60 carrying capacity means everything. With it, players can do one mission from start to finish, pick up everything quickly, and then make a hefty sum afterward. Without it, players will have to stop about halfway through and decide which weapons and clothing are taking up too much space, then get rid of them, and finish the mission receiving only half of the possible reward. Night City relies on this currency, don't go thinking otherwise.
9 Not Worth It: True Grit
- Increases max stamina by 10%/20%/30%.
On the Very Hard setting with a melee weapon, players will be just about out of stamina after a very long encounter. It refills quickly outside of combat, so this is just fine. It can be nice to get some stamina back for assurance that it will last through an entire fight, especially if enemy snipers are around and V intends to run up on them with a blunt object. But even this only requires a small boost to achieve.
True Grit is asking for a full three skill points in exchange for 30% maximum stamina. Analytically, the skill would probably be worth passing up if it was 30% stamina for one skill point, but three is a downright ripoff. There are plenty of ways to get stamina back without wasting perks in a flat cap increase. If stamina is really that much of an issue, try changing weapons to hit long-range targets instead of sprinting across the combat area.
8 Need: Regeneration
- Health slowly regenerates during combat.
Intelligence characters have their RAM stop regenerating in combat without three crafty skills in their tree. Body users are much luckier, it takes only one skill point to ensure that health does not stop going up in fights. Regeneration isn't a bonus as much as it is a removal of the block that stops health regeneration during combat, but that's plenty of an advantage.
Those who invest heavily in these three skill trees will see the value of Regeneration increase exponentially. With increases in blocking and armor rewards, the health gained from this becomes very strong. It's highly possible to enter a battle, take several hits, and leave the skirmish having netted a positive health gain. This means less time waiting for health after using consumables and more time killing and making money from selling basic healing equipment.
7 Not Worth It: Speed Demon
- You deal more damage the faster you're moving.
The annihilation tree has loads of speed boosts for players and that's great. Mobility is a huge part of the game and body attribute dependent Vs will rely on being hard to shoot because they aren't taking the stealthy way through the game. Moving fast might be an integral part of V's game, but if V is trying to do damage at the same time as running, the damage is not going to be good and this perk will not help.
The annihilation tree focuses on two weapons: the shotgun and the submachine gun. If V is firing either one of those two while moving quickly, then something has gone terribly wrong. At best, V should be walking, which will negligibly increase damage from this perk. But at a sprint to try and maximize this, unless the player has found a smart weapon or gets very lucky, the damage dropoff is too much. Trying to use this perk will make V's damage worse in the long run.
6 Need: Dead Center
- Increase damage to torsos by 10%/20%.
There is another skill in this tree that takes 3 skill points to boost damage by 9%. And that's still a valid skill, but this only requires two points for a 20% increase. That's a colossal rate of return for the player's investment. It won't help snipers who aim exclusively for the head, but enemies generally move too fast to score headshots on the fly anyhow. If it's come down to a shotgun or submachine gun situation, torso shots are all that matter.
Keep in mind that this is not restricted to those two weapons even though it is located in the annihilation tree. So if a handy assault rifle or revolver becomes available, aim for the center of mass and blast away. Against cyberpsychos and bosses, which have ridiculous move speed and high quantities of health, this will shorten the length of fights significantly, saving ammo and, more likely than not, V's life.
5 Not Worth It: Mongoose
- Increases evasion by 25% while reloading.
This is a tempting choice for a single perk point. Dodging 25% of incoming bullets is a significant advantage and if that were the only thing the skill said, then it might be worth grabbing. But 25% evasion while reloading? That's a very short window of time. Perhaps the player is using a weapon with lots of reload time, but if so, then the weapon is not very good and building skills around that below-average weapon is inadvisable.
The real gambit here is that to maximize the purchase into this, gamers will have to be particularly foolish about where and how they reload. V should be in cover when reloading most of the time. But players who can utilize their terrain well no longer need evasion when reloading because they are safe. So it encourages players to reload in the thick of battle, still taking 75% of the bullets that hit them, which is more than enough to kill V, even on Normal difficulty.
4 Need: Rush
- Successful attacks with blunt weapons regenerate 3%/6% health over 2 seconds.
Wading into melee battle is no joke and V will take damage. The trick is to make the damage output worth it. Players will judge this by doing damage and trying to get the damage done to outweigh the damage received. That is a tall task, especially against a cyberpsycho or a squad of five clustered together. Even if the encounter is survived, players will have to use lots of healing items to compensate, making each fight cost eddies on top of the physical toll.
Rush fixes this problem entirely. Regenerating 6% health doesn't sound like a lot, but, looking at the way the numbers shake out, it's massive. Most blunt objects swing for around 2.5 swipes per second. That means a 0% V can heal to full in 6.67 seconds with a baseball bat. Those who don't believe it should save, pick up the perk, go into one fight, and reload it if they don't like the choice. After leaving the battle with full health and having not fired off while absorbing a bullet storm, gamers will be convinced that this is the right choice. Players that focus on the body tree will have higher health. The increase in the form of a percent instead of a flat number makes this benefit all the greater.
3 Not Worth It: Breathing Space
- Increases stamina regeneration while blocking with blunt weapons by 50%/100%.
Players that block for a prolonged period of time during combat with a blunt weapon are probably going to lose the encounter. Making health drain a little slower at the cost of taking more weapons fire doesn't make mathematical sense. Either find cover or kill some enemies and take less damage. There is a time to block, to be sure, for a split second before a significant projectile reaches V, but after that, it's back to action.
And that is exactly why this skill suffers. Blocking for a brief and intelligent window won't noticeably increase stamina, only blocking for a long time will. And that's just an incentive to play poorly and take unnecessary damage, so resist that temptation.
2 Need: Payback
- Increases damage with blunt weapons by 1% for every 1% of missing health.
Melee weapon users will find themselves about halfway down on health for most of their fights before using various skills and perks to gain back some health. That's fine, staying almost alive is as much as anybody can do in Night City. But seeing as how most of the fight occurs with missing health, payback then becomes a terrifyingly amazing ability.
At halfway down, V will hit for 50% more damage. At any level of health, it's always appreciated. Either V is at 100% health, in which case, extra damage isn't necessary, or V is at 10% health and doing an extra 90% damage to whatever target caused that kind of health loss. Single point skills don't get better than this.
1 Not Worth It: Soft On Your Feet
- Reduces fall damage by 5%/10%/15%.
The way falling is designed in Cyberpunk 2077 is that V either dies outright or does fine; there is about a 10-meter window in between the two. This skill only applies to that window in between. Falls that are deadly high will still kill players outright. And reducing the little fall damage before then by 15% is really hard to notice because it's so little to begin with.
And for three whole skill points? Absolutely outrageous. If falling is a big deal, get a cybernetic that reduces the damage entirely or take the stairs. This skill is effective only for people who are too lazy to find a normal way down and love to gamble with their own lives. Don't play that game, save consumables, skill points, and pass on this.