The Mantis Blades are iconic in Cyberpunk 2077; the idea that your arms fold out into deadly serrated blades? Preem.
Before you even reach the recommended stat levels you’ll be a wrecking machine, taking out most foes with the deftness and speed of a cyberpsycho (minus the lack of control).
Let’s break it down, starting with attributes and perks.
Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 Mantis Blade Build: Attributes and Perks
The Mantis Blade build relies on 3 core attributes, in the following order of priority: Reflexes, Tech and Body.
Start with 4 in Body, and split the rest between Reflexes and Tech. If you’re starting with the Phantom Liberty start, get Reflexes to 15, and split the rest between Body and Tech.
You’re going to want Reflexes to 15 first in either case, actually; This is your core damage-dealing attribute. Once you’ve got that to 15, get Body & Tech to 9, and then max Tech.
It may seem weird to max Tech before Reflexes, but this build relies on having every single cybeware slot filled, and also needs some pretty hefty capacity, too.
After maxing Tech, finish out Reflexes, and then you can pump Body to max. At 15 Body you should feel pretty powerful; max is just extra gravy, though, if you haven’t finished the game yet and want to keep going.
On to perks.
Grab everything on the right in Reflexes ASAP, and then focus on the middle. You’ll grab everything in the middle minus the reloading/shooting perks, since you won’t be using guns.
With the Tech tree you’ll want to grab everything down the middle except for Built Different and Ambidextrous, and everything on the left related to health items & recharge. You’ll really want to make sure you grab Edgerunner as soon as it becomes available.
For Body, just grab everything down the middle.
On the Relic tree (this build requires Phantom Liberty, FYI), be sure to grab Jailbreak and Spatial Mapping: These are what make this build so damned good.
Let’s talk about the real “meat” of the build: Cyberware.
Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 Mantis Blade Build: Cyberware
If you want to rend flesh with style, you’ll need to make sure you’re optimizing your cyberware usage.
The very first bits of cyberware you’ll need (beyond the obvious Mantis Blades, which you get for free with the Phantom Liberty start) are Blood Pump, Heal-On-Kill, and Microrotors. These are all non-negotiable.
For everything else, there are only a handful of requirements.
Axolotl for the Frontal Cortex is going to be really good for ensuring you’ve got plenty of Sandevistan to go around. Self Ice and Mechatronic Core are good choices.
Speaking of, use whatever Sandevistan you like until you can get the unique variants; I used Dynalar and then Falcon until I could get my hands on Apogee.
For Face, stick with the Basic Kiroshi Eyes; you can’t afford to waste points here.
Hands? A tattoo (0 cyberware req). Just make sure you have SOMETHING here so you can get the bonuses from fully-filled cyberware.
In Skeleton, Dense Marrow is good; Bionic Joints and Titanium Bones are also useful, and cheap.
Under Nervous System, Stabber, NeoFiber and Reflex Tuner are all desirable.
The Integumentary system is rough, because almost everything we’d like is expensive.. Except for Subdermal armor. That’s a must. I used Proxishield and Optical Camo, but if you’re strapped for space, you can ditch Optical Camo for Countershell since it’s cheaper.
Finally, in the legs, Reinforced Tendons is a must to help you get to targets faster.
Now, let’s talk about why we need so much Cyberware.
Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 Mantis Blade Build: Playstyle
First off: You’ll use your charged attacks to get around the battlefield. Remember that Jailbreak Relic Perk? This alone lets you leap 30m at targets, closing the distance FAST and doing a solid chunk of damage.
Combine that with Flash and Thunderclap (a perk under Reflexes) and you’ll be dropping foes FAST, and will almost always be able to trigger a finisher on standard foes after your leap.
Now, here’s where things get interesting: The Cyborg perk under the Tech tree cuts your cooldowns by 15% if you’ve got all your cyberware slots filled. Combine that with Axolotl and the unique Sandevistans, and you’ll basically be able to sustain slowed time for almost all encounters once you’ve got these. Even with just the Falcon variant of Sandevistan I never had to really “wait” for it to refresh: I just retriggered it immediately if it ended. As long as I still had enemies to kill, I still had Sandevistan.
On top of that, the only times I had to trigger healing were when I was A: Absolutely swamped, or B: Dealing with foes who were spread out (and had sniper rifles).. And even then, it usually worked out just fine. Thanks to the slow time from Reflex Tuner I had plenty of time to trigger my heal if it was needed.
The early game is a little rocky; until you get your cyberware loaded you’re going to be fairly squishy on harder difficulties, but it’s worth it.
By level 35 I was destroying everything without breaking a sweat.. And at level 40 and beyond I was nigh-unstoppable.
More importantly: It was FUN!