Here’s a rather short guide on the Blades 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 Blades perks tree provides you with improvements while wearing a Mantis Blade, Knife, Katana, Machete, or any other Bladed weapon. It has bleeding and “lifesteal” subthemes. While these two “styles” may be at odds, there’s obviously a lot of overlap as all of these perks are related to slashing people up…
Blades is joined by Assault and Handguns in the Reflexes attribute tied Perk trees.
Blades Perks List & Tierlist
The blades tree suffers from a split of “I can one-shot these guys” and “If I don’t one-shot, I can combo/bleed/lifesteal”. It’s hard to plan for both halves of this coin.
Ultimately, the “one-shot” traits are much better overall.
| Tier | Perk | Attribute | Req | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B | Sting Like a Bee | Reflexes | 1 | Increase attack speed with Blades. |
| A | Roaring Waters | Reflexes | 1 | Strong attacks with Blades do more damage. |
| A | Slow and Steady | Reflexes | 4 | Amor is increased while moving. |
| C | Crimson Dance | Reflexes | 4 | Combos with blades have an increased bleed chance. |
| D | Offensive Defense | Reflexes | 6 | Defensive Attacks with Blades deal much more damage. |
| A | Flight of the Sparrow | Reflexes | 6 | Significantly reduces the Stamina cost of all attacks with Blades. |
| D | Shifting Sands | Reflexes | 8 | Dodging recovers 15% stamina. |
| D | Stuck Pig | Reflexes | 8 | Increases Bleeding duration. |
| D | Unbroken Spirit | Reflexes | 10 | Successful counterattacks with Blades restore health and stamina. |
| A | Blessed Blade | Reflexes | 10 | Increases crit chance with Blades. |
| B | Float Like a Butterfly | Reflexes | 12 | Dodging increases damage with Blades. |
| B | Bloodlust | Reflexes | 12 | While wielding a Blade, applying or hitting an enemy with Bleed restores Health. |
| A | Judge, Jury and Executioner | Reflexes | 15 | Increases damage with Blades against enemies with max Health. |
| B | Fiery Blast | Reflexes | 15 | Increases damage with Blades scaling with how much missing HP enemy has. |
| C | Crimson Tide | Reflexes | 18 | Bleeding applied with Blades can stack 3 times. |
| A | Deathbolt | Reflexes | 18 | Defeating an enemy with a Blade restores health, stamina, and increases Movespeed. |
| B | Dragon Strike | Reflexes | 20* | Increases crit damage with Blades. |
Blades Perk list rundown / viability / analysis
The idea is to increase our one-shot (one-slash?) potential.
[A] Judge, Jury and Executioner (Reflexes 15): Increases damage with Blades against enemies with max Health. A godly buff to one-shot potential. Abuse this with a Strong Attack! Even if you don’t one-shot, it will megachunk most enemies.
[A] Roaring Waters (Reflexes 1): Strong attacks with Blades do more damage. The bonus is HUGE per perk point. There’s really nothing else to say about this perk.
[A] Deathbolt (Reflexes 18): Defeating an enemy with a Blade restores health, stamina, and increases Movespeed. For a single perk point, you get a nice “killstreak” bonus, something like Cold Blood. Healing and Stamina Regeneration are precisely the only two things you need to continue a rampage.
[A] Slow and Steady (Reflexes 4): Amor is increased while moving. Unexciting but godlike for any blades user. You’ll be moving often, and a free buff to armor isn’t something I’d ever shy away from. The “prerequisite” may as well not exist.
[A] Flight of the Sparrow (Reflexes 6): Significantly reduces the Stamina cost of all attacks with Blades. I consider this very high tier since running out of stamina kinda sucks, it may be respeccable later – but it’s great for almost every point in the game…
[A] Blessed Blade (Reflexes 10): Increases crit chance with Blades. Crit synergies aren’t really there with Blades, but this is a huge bonus for a single perk that you’d be crazy not to get it.
Technically, all these A tier perks are ALL YOU NEED for Blades to “work”.
Everything B and minus is “support tier”.
[B] Sting Like a Bee (Reflexes 1): Increase attack speed with Blades. Not bad. AFAIK it helps charge attacks faster, which is always good. If you like the “combo” playstyle then this works too. Overall good perk!
[B] Float Like a Butterfly (Reflexes 12): Dodging increases damage with Blades. Dodging is janky but if you want more damage for a rather small investment, here it is.
[B] Fiery Blast (Reflexes 15): Increases damage with Blades scaling with how much missing HP enemy has. While this goes against the “one-shot” ideology… it certainly ensures them “two-shots”. But seriously, it’s a low investment for a pretty high value perk.
[B] Bloodlust (Reflexes 12): While wielding a Blade, applying or hitting an enemy with Bleed restores Health. Mixed emotions about this, but it is a damn cool perk. While the effectivity of the healing really depends on the kind of blades build you have… Honestly this perk requires quite a bit of setup but its unique effect that can effectively make you immortal (with some build preparation) makes it AT LEAST a B tier…
[B] Dragon Strike (Reflexes 20*): Increases crit damage with Blades. Can never complain with a little more DPS.
[C] Crimson Dance (Reflexes 4): Combos with blades have an increased bleed chance. Helps enable the “bleed / healing” subset of perks, but IMO until meaningful bosses comes this is a hard sell.
[C] Crimson Tide (Reflexes 18): Bleeding applied with Blades can stack 3 times. Cute for “boss fights”, if those become relevant.
[D] Unbroken Spirit (Reflexes 10): Successful counterattacks with Blades restore health and stamina. I mean, if you literally want to waste time counterattacking… It’s a functional, and even powerful perk – but is it practical? No.
[D] Offensive Defense (Reflexes 6): Defensive Attacks with Blades deal much more damage. Honestly, I see a niche use-case here… however… the “Increase damage with Strong attacks” perk already exists… so why bother with this one?
[D] Stuck Pig (Reflexes 8): Increases Bleeding duration. Bleed is, IMO, the worst DoT status effect to extend. Even with the bleed / healing theme, this is just pretty bad.
[D] Shifting Sands (Reflexes 8): Dodging recovers 15% stamina. Seems really janky, and I would almost never dodge for the express purpose of gaining Stamina.
Summary and Closing
The Blades perk tree is preeeetty spicy. The insane one-shot decapitation potential is great – even if you’re not too into the combo / bleed / healing subtheme. There’s something for everyone here! In the end, Blades does its job in helping you slice up gonks in more ways than one.
Well that’s about it for a list of Blades 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!
