Here’s a rather short guide on the Quickhacking 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 Quickhacking perks tree mainly augments your quickhacking capabilities, as well as RAM management. It’s hard to make a tierlist on this tree since quite a lot of these are insanely powerful – firmly planting themselves in “A” tier for any hack centric build.
Quickhacking is joined by Breach Protocol in the Intelligence attribute tied Perk trees.
Quickhacking 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.
| Tier | Perk | Attribute | Req | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F | Big Sleep | Intelligence | 1 | Unlocks Big Sleep daemon. Disable all cameras in network for a while. |
| A | Mass Vulnerability | Intelligence | 1 | Unlocks Mass Vulnerability daemon. Reduce physical resistances in network for a while. |
| A | Advanced Datamine | Intelligence | 5 | Increases money gained from access points. |
| F | Almost In | Intelligence | 5 | Increases breach time to solve Breach Protocol. |
| B | Extended Network Interface | Intelligence | 7 | Automatically highlights nearby Access Points |
| A | Mass Vulnerability: Resistances | Intelligence | 7 | Upgrades Mass Vulnerability to reduce resistances as well. |
| F | Turret Shutdown | Intelligence | 9 | Unlocks Turret Shutdown daemon. Disables all turrets in network for a while. |
| D | Datamine Mastermind | Intelligence | 9 | Incrases components gained from Access Points. |
| A | Total Recall | Intelligence | 11 | ICEpick reduces all quickhack costs by 1. |
| F | Turret Tamer | Intelligence | 12 | Unlocks Turret Tamer daemon. Turns all turrets friendly in network for a while. |
| F | Damatine Virtuoso | Intelligence | 12 | Increases chance for quickhack drops from Access Points. |
| C | Efficiency | Intelligence | 14 | Uploading 3 or more daemons in one breach increases RAM recovery. |
| C | Cloud Cache | Intelligence | 14 | Breach Protocol reduces next quickhack RAM cost by 1 for each daemon uploaded. |
| A | Totaler Recall | Intelligence | 16 | ICEpick reduces all quickhack costs by an additional 1. |
| A | Mass Vulnerability: Quickhacks | Intelligence | 16 | Upgrades Mass Vulnerability to make victims take more damage from quickhacks. |
| B | Head Start | Intelligence | 18 | Automatically uploads the first daemon in the list for Breach Protocol. |
| B | Hackathon | Intelligence | 18 | Uploading 3 or more daemons in one breach sortens quickhack cooldowns for a while. |
| A | Compression | Intelligence | 20 | Reduces the length of sequences required to upload daemons by 1. |
| B | Buffer Optimization | Intelligence | 20 | Double the duration of daemon effects. |
| D | Transmigration | Intelligence | 20* | Increases the breach time of Breach Protocol by 50%. |
Quickhacking Perk list rundown / viability / analysis
Here’s a short blurb about each perk, if you’re wondering why they’re good or bad.
[A] Daisy Chain (Intelligence 7): Eliminating a target affected by a quickhack reduces cooldowns for other quickhacks. As you mature into your hacking build you will realize cooldowns are a huge roadblock to multi-hacking. Well, this pretty much shaves a ton of cooldown off.
[A] Subliminal Message (Intelligence 11): Quickhacks deal more damage to unaware targets. Most enemies will be unaware right until they’re dead, if you’re heavily into hacking. This is a titanic boost in damage potential for very little preparation.
[A] Diffusion (Intelligence 12): Quickhack spread distance is increased. Even spreading to one more enemy increases the damage by an additional “100%”. That’s worth it every time.
[A] Plague (Intelligence 14): Quickhacks that spread can jump to more targets. Same concept here. For each new target you hack, it’s another “+100% base damage”, which is absurd to say the least.
RAM management perks are mostly great, however stacking them all might become a “waste”. It’s not a big deal but just throwing that out there…
[A] Optimization (Intelligence 20): Reduces all quickhack costs by 1 RAM. Reducing RAM spent is a godlike vector of efficiency versus “gaining more RAM”. As such, when it comes to RAM management this one is the absolute king.
[A] Mnemonic (Intelligence 12): Reduces RAM cost of quickhacks on enemies already quickhacked. You’ll mostly want to upload at least 2 quickhacks so you’ll get full value out of this most of the time. Might be a little redundant against weaker enemies – meh.
[A] Master RAM Liberator (Intelligence 20*): Increase RAM recovery rate by 50%. This perks raw power is almost always worth the point invested into it.
[A] Biosynergy (Intelligence 1): Allows RAM to recover in combat, and gain RAM recovery. Can be a bit overkill later on in the game, but honestly, it’s still so strong that I would rate it this highly. What makes this perk extra juicy is just how well it slots into almost any build given the low stat investment for it.
[B] Bloodware (Intelligence 1): Quickhacks deal more damage. Unexciting but amazing anyway. No frills, just more damage straight up.
[B] Critical Error (Intelligence 16): Quickhacks can now deal critical hits. No need for further explanation here. More DPS is better.
[B] Signal Support (Intelligence 9): Increase quickhack duration. Powerful in many ways. Not only the damaging ones but the utility ones too. Might not always be useful, but you’re happy when it is.
I’ll lump my description of all the crafting perks
- [B] Hacker’s Manual (Intelligence 5): Allows you to craft Uncommon quickhacks.
- [B] School of Hard Hacks (Intelligence 12): Allows you to craft Rare quickhacks.
- [B] Hacker Overlord (Intelligence 16): Allows you to craft Epic quickhacks.
- [B] Bartmoss’ Legacy (Intelligence 20): Allows you to craft Legendary quickhacks.
All of these are amazing, and “increase your efficiency” by whole magnitudes. Of course, the higher ones invalidate the lower ones and so on, but you’ll always want to get them ASAP and craft whatever you can. In the end once you’ve made them all you can RESPEC THESE PERKS OFF!
[B] Anamnesis (Intelligence 18): Available cyberdeck RAM cannot drop below 2 units. I have mixed thoughts but this is very powerful in the midgame, so I suppose I’ll never regret taking it early on. Can possibly be respecced later, if you think you’re at godly RAM management.
[C] Forget-me-not (Intelligence 5): Eliminating a target affected by a quickhack instantly recovers 1 RAM. Of all the RAM management perks, this one seems “only so-so”. I mean it excels against many weak opponents… which is not a situation I would be happy to excel in. You shouldn’t have to worry about optimizing against “many weak guys”.
[D] Weak Link (Intelligence 7): Reduces RAM usage on quickhacks on devices by 1/2/3 RAM. I never felt like I needed this. I would be hard pressed to invest multiple points onto this, and would begrudgingly invest one. Mediocre compared to most of the perks in this tree.
[F] I Spy (Intelligence 5): Reveal an enemy netrunner when they’re attempting to hack you. And we reach the only F here. Honestly, I never ever thought to myself “I wish I could pinpoint the netrunner” and instead just massacre everyone.
Summary and Closing
The Quickhacking perk tree is just as expected – make your quickhacks more OP. The perks are generally centered on many forms of quickhack power, wether it be RAM management, spreading, damage… You get the picture.
Honestly the hacking build is extremely powerful (Too powerful for my tastes), turning combat into a menu game where you can wipe out entire mobs from across the street purely by second-hand camera hacking… I highly recommend a hacking playthrough for every player at some point in their CP2077 careers.
Well that’s about it for a list of Quickhacking 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!
