Here’s a rather short guide on the Cold Blood 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, Cold Blood (tied to the Cold Attritube) is a great support perk tree, but requires a relatively huge perk point investment. It rewards speedy multi-kills (although the on-crit perk kinda negates that). You can choose which stacking buff effects you want (or drop the ones irrelevant to your build).
Cold Blood is joined by Stealth in the Cool attribute tied Perk trees.
Cold Blood Perks List & Tierlist
There’s an oddly high density of “A tier” perks in Cold Blood since they rely heavily on one another. It’s unique compared to the other perk trees in this sense. They’re very powerful once “combined”, but much weaker apart. It’s assumed that if you’re investing into Cold Blood, you’re ready to dump some serious points into it.
| Tier | Perk | Attribute | Req | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Cold Blood | Cool | 1 | Allows the stacking of Cold Blood. +Movespeed per stack. |
| D | Will to Survive | Cool | 5 | Resistances+ per stack of Cold Blood. |
| B | Icy Veins | Cool | 5 | Reduce recoil per stack of Cold Blood |
| C | Frosty Synapses | Cool | 7 | Reduce quickhack cooldowns per stack of Cold Blood. |
| A | Critical Condition | Cool | 7 | Increases duration of Cold Blood stacks. |
| A | Defensive Clotting | Cool | 9 | Armor+ per stack of Cold Blood |
| C | Rapid Bloodlow | Cool | 9 | Health regen+ per stack of Cold Blood. |
| A | Coldest Blood | Cool | 11 | Max stacks of Cold Blood +1. |
| A | Frozen Precision | Cool | 11 | Increased headshot damage. |
| D | Quick Transfer | Cool | 12 | Quickhack upload time reduced per stack of Cold Blood. |
| B | Predator | Cool | 12 | Attack speed + per stack of Cold Blood. |
| C | Blood Brawl | Cool | 12 | Melee damage during Cold Blood. (Per stack??) |
| A | Cold and Calculating | Cool | 14 | Critical hits have a chance to stack Cold Blood |
| D | Bloodswell | Cool | 14 | Upon hitting low health, grant max Cold Blood stacks. |
| A | Coagulant | Cool | 16 | Stacks of Cold Blood are removed one by one. |
| A | Unbreakable | Cool | 16 | Max stacks of Cold Blood +1. |
| B | Pain is an Illusion | Cool | 18 | Cold Blood grants damage reduction. (Per stack??) |
| B | Immunity | Cool | 20 | Cold Blood grants immunity to Bleeding, Poison, Burn and Shock. |
| A | Merciless | Cool | 20 | Cold Blood grants Critical Chance and Damage. |
Cold Blood: Perk list rundown / viability / analysis
Here’s a short blurb about each perk, if you’re wondering why they’re good or bad.
[A] Cold Blood (Cool 1) Allows the stacking of Cold Blood. +Movespeed per stack. The heart of the Cold Blood perk tree. Any perk that stacks Cold Blood is considered “mandatory” given how it empowers almost every other perk here.
[A] Coldest Blood (Cool 11) Max stacks of Cold Blood +1. Same concept here. More stacks = better.
[A] Unbreakable (Cool 16) Max stacks of Cold Blood +1. Same concept here. More stacks = better.
[A] Defensive Clotting (Cool 9) Armor+ per stack of Cold Blood. The main reason to get sky high Cold Blood stacks. +Armor is godlike, and any character can use this. Again, this is the whole reason why you’re in this tree, and want to stack / extend Cold Blood.
[A] Cold and Calculating (Cool 14) Critical hits have a chance to stack Cold Blood. Converts all these perks from “multi-kill” to “any time”. Essentially allowing you to cheat on the main limitation of Cold Blood.
[A] Critical Condition (Cool 7) Increases duration of Cold Blood stacks. While not truly mandatory, it would be silly not to take this. Gives you quite a bit of leeway while handling your stacks.
[A] Frozen Precision (Cool 11) Increased headshot damage. Straight up bonus headshot damage is amazing for any build. It’s not tied to Cold Blood stacks either.
[A] Merciless Cool (20 Cold) Blood grants Critical Chance and Damage. These L20 perks are difficult to unlock, but this one is exceptionally powerful. Crit Chance and Damage are good for both stealth and not so stealthy gameplay.
[A] Coagulant (Cool 16) Stacks of Cold Blood are removed one by one. For a single perk point, you can GREATLY EXTEND your Cold Blood uptime.
[B] Icy Veins (Cool 5) Reduce recoil per stack of Cold Blood. Amazing with the right weapon types. Even in the “worst case”, this is still usable. Excellent with some pistols and rifles – a common build path for builds with Cold Blood.
[B] Predator (Cool 12) Attack speed + per stack of Cold Blood. It’s unclear if this affects guns or plain melee only. Assuming this only works for melee – this is a powerful perk to pick up. If it works with guns, then this would benefit many gun builds as well.
[B] Pain is an Illusion (Cool 18) Cold Blood grants damage reduction. (Per stack??) This would be an A if I could confirm if it’s per stack. Even then, any sort of toughness buffs are great.
[B] Immunity (Cool 20) Cold Blood grants immunity to Bleeding, Poison, Burn and Shock. While I don’t think it makes you immune to those damage types – a single point to grant immunity to the “elemental” debuffs is super worth it.
[C] Frosty Synapses Cool 7 Reduce quickhack cooldowns per stack of Cold Blood. Stacking Cold Blood while being a hacker build is… weird. HOWEVER it does have the potential to be powerful when stacked at max. I might be too harsh with a C rating.
[C] Rapid Bloodlow Cool 9 Health regen+ per stack of Cold Blood. You have to buff up your base health regen for this to be anywhere near the ballpark of “worth”. Requires a massive spread of stats, perks, and other prep to make it enter the tip of the realm of viability. But, this is potentially the strongest regeneration buff in the game.
[C] Blood Brawl Cool 12 Melee damage during Cold Blood. (Per stack??). If this is per stack I would bump this up to B. It’s not bad, but perks from each respective melee tree (Blunt / Blades etc) outperform this if it’s not “per stack”. If it is per stack then this would definitely be worth it.
[D] Will to Survive (Cool 5) Resistances+ per stack of Cold Blood. I’m going to assume this means “resistance to this damage type”. Even if its at Cool 5, this perk seems really underwhelming. I’d only take this if I really have nothing else to get.
[D] Quick Transfer (Cool 12) Quickhack upload time reduced per stack of Cold Blood. Man, unless you’re hacking “in-combat” this isn’t worth much. Even if you are hacking in combat this is still a stretch to invest into. Meh.
[D] Bloodswell (Cool 14) Upon hitting low health, grant max Cold Blood stacks. I took this perk just for the sake of extra insurance – it’s not terrible…. But I was almost never (or I have never) been in a situation wherein I’m simultaneously at low HP and have no stacks.
Summary and Closing
The Cold Blood perks are amazing, but require a ton of investment into them (both in the Cool stat, and perk points). The results, however, are phenomenal even for the +armor alone. It’s an exciting perk tree that gives you power on a number of different vectors.
Well that’s about it for a list of Cold Blood 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!
