CP2077 Breach Protocol Perks Guide | Tierlist, what’s good?

Here’s a rather short guide on the Breach Protocol Perks Tree. Here you’ll find a list, tierlist, attribute requirement, shortened description about each perk, and a short blurb about why each perk is “good, bad, or something in between”. Here goes!

Overall, the Breach Protocol perk tree improves Breach Protocol, daemons, access points and general hacking. Breach Protocol is a huge hacking mechanic that almost every hacker / netrunner type character will be doing anyway. Some of these perks are TRULY ABSURD, and this perk tree along with quick hacking are MUST HAVES (obviously) for hacking builds.

Breach Protocol is joined by Quick Hacking in the Intelligence attribute tied Perk trees.

Breach Protocol Perks List & Tierlist

Since many of these perks are hacking related – then this tierlist is heavily influenced by assuming you’re using a hacker build. It will be mentioned in the rundown below in more detail if some of these perks are great even outside the build type.

Breach Protocol Perk list rundown / viability / analysis

Here’s a short blurb about each perk, if you’re wondering why they’re good or bad.

[A] Mass Vulnerability (Intelligence 1): Unlocks Mass Vulnerability daemon. Reduce physical resistances in network for a while. Godlike perk that fits in every build. For such a low requirement and cost, this is a powerhouse perk – reducing physical res and unlocking the future vulnerability perks makes this perk near MANDATORY for all builds.

[A] Mass Vulnerability: Quickhacks (Intelligence 16): Upgrades Mass Vulnerability to make victims take more damage from quickhacks. For obvious reasons, this is absurdly powerful. Needs no explanation.

[A] Mass Vulnerability: Resistances (Intelligence 7): Upgrades Mass Vulnerability to reduce resistances as well. Increases non-physical damage which is common among quickhacks. Obviously, if you’re hacking, then this is high-power. Even non-hacker weapons can benefit from this!

[A] Total Recall (Intelligence 11): ICEpick reduces all quickhack costs by 1. Technically optional but practically godlike. You will come to a point where RAM rarely matters, but for such a small investment it boosts your midgame power by a ton.

[A] Totaler Recall (Intelligence 16): ICEpick reduces all quickhack costs by an additional 1. Same idea as the above, it’s just a mirrored perk.

[A] Advanced Datamine (Intelligence 5): Increases money gained from access points. While not a combat perk, this can singlehandedly carry any build (by inserting this modular money making sub-build) when it comes to earning money. Chrome ain’t cheap, and this perk essentially makes them available much, much quicker. Hell, buying an OP cyberdeck ASAP is part of the hacking build right?

[A] Compression (Intelligence 20): Reduces the length of sequences required to upload daemons by 1. Honestly this is optional, and usually a QoL – but it’s powerful enough to warrant this tier. Shortened sequences have many implications (more money from access points), to easier and more numerous Breach daemons.

[B] Head Start (Intelligence 18): Automatically uploads the first daemon in the list for Breach Protocol. Why not right? It’s technically optional, but it simply saves you from time spent and mental power spent. Some people value these perks better than others, but let me tell you – there’s almost no reason to skip this.

[B] Hackathon (Intelligence 18): Uploading 3 or more daemons in one breach shortens quickhack cooldowns for a while. The cooldown reduction is significant – and knocking out 3 daemons is pretty easy (especially with the aforementioned Head Start perk). RAM and Cooldowns are what limits your hacking for the most part, and this greatly affects the latter.

[B] Buffer Optimization (Intelligence 20): Double the duration of daemon effects. This is one of those “laziness” perks, sprinkled with a little “paranoid safety”. Usually Breach Protocol lasts long enough on its own (barring some of the more questionable daemons). However, from a human aspect, for a single perk point this one gives such a huge amount of “peace of mind” that can’t really be measured by in-game stats…

[B] Extended Network Interface (Intelligence 7): Automatically highlights nearby Access Points. Purely QoL, and can somewhat be bypassed with ping. It’s purely a laziness perk but helps out enough that it’s worth ranking this highly. It saves HUMAN TIME by stressing over access points that you would otherwise just pass by. It represents thousands upon thousands of eurodollars and a not insignificant game-time reduction.

[C] Cloud Cache (Intelligence 14): Breach Protocol reduces next quickhack RAM cost by 1 for each daemon uploaded. Hmm… Well, it allows you to “open” with a heavy hitting quickhack without trashing your RAM. It’s not a bad perk but can stray into the “overkill” territory later on. Honestly, it’s probably worth ONE point? Mixed feelings.

[C] Efficiency (Intelligence 14): Uploading 3 or more daemons in one breach increases RAM recovery. Not bad, but overshadowed by other RAM recovery perks. Not terrible by any means, but far from “important”.

[D] Transmigration (Intelligence 20*): Increases the breach time of Breach Protocol by 50%. I don’t know if I would even spend ONE point here. As it stands, this simply increases the time you need to hack…? Pretty bad.

[D] Datamine Mastermind (Intelligence 9): Incrases components gained from Access Points. “Gain a little extra money from access points” is what this perk reads. More components is almost meaningless as you will amass thousands of them. You’ll never need ’em. Almost F tier.

[F] Big Sleep (Intelligence 1): Unlocks Big Sleep daemon. Disable all cameras in network for a while. Seems nice until they turn on mid mission. I’d rather manually off the ones I discover.

[F] Turret Shutdown (Intelligence 9): Unlocks Turret Shutdown daemon. Disables all turrets in network for a while. Seems nice until they turn on mid mission. I’d rather manually off the ones I discover.

[F] Turret Tamer (Intelligence 12): Unlocks Turret Tamer daemon. Turns all turrets friendly in network for a while. Turrets are largely irrelevant, and simply offing them is better IMO.

[F] Damatine Virtuoso (Intelligence 12): Increases chance for quickhack drops from Access Points. Worthless. Just crafting them straight up is worlds better than “hoping” you get the ones you want. Skip this one. At best it represents a paltry amount of bonus eurodollars “at a chance”. Garbage.

[F] Almost In (Intelligence 5): Increases breach time to solve Breach Protocol. Terrible. Until they change how hacking works, increased hacking time is virtually useless.

Summary and Closing

Breach Protocol is exactly as advertised: Buffing your Breach Protocol! We may as well summarize this into “making Vulnerability daemon as OP as possible”. It’s a great perk tree for Hacking, obviously, and you’ll never be sad with these perks. Physical Vulnerability, IMO, is such a low investment that almost every build should have it.

Well that’s about it for a list of Breach Protocol perks – hopefully you enjoyed our tierlist of these perks to help you decide what to get for your build! Check out our tierlists on the other perk trees in Cyberpunk 2077!