Stealth and hacking were made for eachother in Cyberpunk 2077, and with the right strategy, you can eliminate every enemy in a building with them never even knowing you were there.
Unlike builds in the early version of Cyberpunk 2077, we’re not going to rely on quickhacks that spread: Instead, we’re going to focus on taking out each foe one by one with stealth. Once you get into the 30s you should be able to plow through locations with ease, only breaking stealth for the occasional boss fight or when the game requires it as part of the storyline.
Let’s break down the build.
Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 Stealth Hacker Build: Attributes
To start out, I suggest you map out your attributes like so: 4 body, 3 reflexes, 4 tech, 6 intelligence and 4 cool.
As you level, you’ll want to max intelligence first: Focus on this over everything else. This contains 90% of your critical skills, and impacts your core gameplay the most.
Once you’ve got intelligence maxed you can start pumping cool. You’ll be going for 15 points here; no need to max it, however, as the top-tier skills are of low value to us in this build.
After that, I suggest you start alternating between body and tech until you get tech to 9, and then just dump whatever comes afterwards into body.
You want 9 tech to help you out on the cyberware front in the late game, and body is going to be extremely important in ensuring you have a steady pool of health to sacrifice for overclock.
Let’s break down the skills next.
Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 Stealth Hacker Build: Skills
As we noted before, the bulk of your skills will be under the Intelligence tree, and it’ll be easier to say what NOT to get than list out every skill.
Don’t bother with Finisher: Live Wire, Siphon, or the Smart Weapon tree. Everything else? Fair game, but feel free to skip Shadowrunner as well (since our playstyle will negate any concern with trace by the time we can get it).
Work towards unlocking both the Hack Queue and Overclock as fast as possible: These are core aspects of this build.
For Cool, just go straight down the middle tree, and grab everything but Vanishing Act (although if you find yourself forgetting you even have Optical Camo – more on that in the cyberware section – feel free to grab it as well). Unexposed can also be skipped; it’s only really useful in the early game for us, as in the late game we’ll pretty much never touch a weapon again.
Under Tech, you’ll want everything in the middle (that is available at attribute level 9) except for Chrome Constitution and Chipware Connoisseur; that last one is of very low value since we wouldn’t even grab it until the late game, and by then you will be a walking, talking, hacking machine of death already.
For Body, grab all of the bottom skills aside from Dorph-Head; you’ll want these to help mitigate the health loss from Overclock, so boosting health regen is always a good thing.
Everything else is gravy! Feel free to grab more into Body as you bump that up, but nothing else will be critical there.
Finally, with Phantom Liberty unlocking the Relic tree, Jailbreak is a must-have. Everything else is up to you, but Emergency Cloaking is good, too.
Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 Stealth Hacker Build: Cyberware
First, and most importantly: Grab the Arasaka cyberdeck ASAP. Once you complete the Arasaka job and unlock the full map you should be able to hit up a ripperdoc and get this. You’ll also be disassembling nearly everything you pick up just so you can keep upgrading these as quickly as possible; you will want to get this to tier 5 ASAP.
For Frontal Cortex, grab Memory Boost and the RAM Upgrade. Additionally – assuming you chose the “right” path – you’ll get the Quantum Tuner via the Phantom Liberty questline. You absolutely want this over any other potential reward (yes, even over the Militech Canto).
For Arms, grab the monowire. It doesn’t matter which as long as you have Jailbreak as noted above: You’ll want to toss on Cripple Movement as the quickhack to be delivered, as this will help you deal with cyberpsychos and bosses who tend to have a lot of movement-based cyberware.
For the Face, I suggest the Kiroshi “Sentry” optics to help you stay aware of your surroundings.
Under Skeleton, it’s really dealer’s choice, but RAM Recoup is solid. As of 2.1, the Feen-X is also a must-have bit of cyberware, so definitely grab that ASAP: It’ll help you be able to keep tossing out quickhacks and reduce the impact over Overclock on your health.
For Hands, just stick with the free Tyger Claws dermal imprint you get in the early game so you can use Smart weapons until your hacking is fully flehsed out.
Under the Nervous System, Reflex Tuner and Synaptic Accelerator are going to be your best bet.
With the Circulatory System, Heal-On-Kill is the most important.
For your Intergumentary System, grab Optical Camo. You can also use the Subdermal Armor if you like.
Finally, under Legs, I suggest the Lynx Paws; you can use Reinforced Tendons to get to some unreachable places, but Lynx Paws tends to be pretty useful as a stealthy player, especially in the early game.
Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 Stealth Hacker Build: Equipment & Playstyle
For the early game you’re going to want to basically use whatever weapon you have that is best until you’ve got enough RAM and Overclock to essentially negate grabbing a gun ever again (except in rare circumstances). Smart weapons are good since they have synergy with Intelligence.
For quickhacks, you can’t go wrong with my list of the best quickhacks in Cyberpunk 2077 2.0.
You’ll always drop Sonic Shock (or Tier 4 Memory Wipe if Sonic Shock is still bugged as of 2.1) on pretty much every foe unless stealth is broken, and then follow it up with Overheat for squishies, or Short Circuit for bots/drones/turrets. This allows you to eliminate foes one by one without being discovered; take your time. In the early game you won’t have much in the way of RAM, so you’ll want to plan accordingly to eliminate targets without getting yourself in a bind.
Remember how I said the Quantum Tuner was absolutely something you wanted? Well, what’s great about it is that it’ll end up letting you chain your Overclock, which means almost every encounter ends that much quicker just because you don’t have to wait for the cooldown!
If you’re facing off on a boss, be sure to use your Cripple Movement monowire attack on them first, and then start stacking Cyberware Malfunction before you really unleash the damage attacks.
Also: Don’t neglect Carhacker. You’ll want this to help you do El Capitan’s missions, which are typically easy money, easy parts (for upgrading your cyberware), and great for picking up whatever vehicle you prefer to travel Night City in.
And.. That’s it! There really isn’t a lot of caveats to this build, and you become viable really early on; As long as you focus on Intelligence early you’ll be wrecking your foes in no time!