As implied, our “aim” here is to provide you with a flexible build guide on a Cool / Stealth assassin build, based on pistol headshots in Cyberpunk 2077. Let’s sneak in, shall we?
What does this build want to do? If you enjoy a very Metal Gear-esque gameplay, stealthily dismantling your foes while leaving them completely unaware where you are – this is the build for you. In Cyberpunk 2077, stealth revolves around silenced handgun headshots, stealth takedowns, and avoiding detection – all of which the core of our build makes possible.
The goal of this guide is to “activate” the desired playstyle ASAP
So you don’t have to play the game as a “generic gonk”, and have your version of fun.
Important! Things you need, and need to know
A powerful revolver (Overture or Nova, for example). Ignore “DPS”, you need a very high POWER PER BULLET. AFAIK You cannot silence the heavy revolvers so ignore those.
A good silencer. A blue one at least, you’ll find this early and often from weapon vendors. Don’t worry about spending for this – you’ll use it “forever”. Try not to stick with white or green. I haven’t found a purple or legendary one… YET!
patience and aim. It doesn’t matter if they see dead bodies. It only ever matters if they see YOU. While it’s harder to sneak while they’re “ALERT” sometimes it’s unavoidable. As long as you aren’t DISCOVERED, you’re good.
A plan when sh*t hits the fan. If you’re the type who wants to reload when detected, that’s fine. But ideally you want some kind of fallback plan (or sub-build as I call it) for when you need to throw it down. More on this later.
Stealth Assassin Core Build – Attributes and Perks
Starting Stats? I consider Cool 6 and Reflexes 6 mandatory, and 4 in a support stat like INT > Tech > Body depending on your sub-goals, of which you may discover in this guide.
Read the whole “core build” segment. You don’t need to do it “in order”,
but you’ll want to be aware of the path you’re taking.
Cool to 12 – Get your stealth and headshot bonuses!
Raise up cool to 11 first, and unlock these perks along the way – in no particular order. So you can see the
- *Cold Blood (Cool 1 – Cold Blood) – If you plan to get cold-blood (and I highly suggest it) you want to get ONE point in this ASAP. It’s to start getting EXP on it ASAP.
- Ghost (Cool 12 – Stealth) Increase detection time.
- Sniper (Cool 9 – Stealth) + Stealth headshot damage.
- Frozen Precision (Cool 11 – Cold Blood) + All headshot damage.
- Silent and Deadly x2 (Cool 1 – Stealth) + Damage w/ silenced weapons and sneaking.
- Crouching Tiger (Cool 1 – Stealth) + Movement while sneaking.
- Assassin (Cool 7 – Stealth) + Damage to humans.
- Strike from the Shadows (Cool 5 – Stealth) + Crit chance while sneaking.
This is the ABSOLUTE CORE of your build. The above perks essentially CEMENT your playstyle. Detection bonuses. Stealth bonuses. Headshot and damage bonuses.
As you can see with the summary of perks I took, you can see where this is going. As long as you’re stealthed, and headshot with a silenced pistol – you WILL BE ONE SHOTTING FOOLS.
Also check out: Cold Blood perks tierlist, Stealth perks tierlist.
You can decide whether you want some of the other perks not mentioned here.
From here you will invest in either Reflexes or Cold Blood
You’ll eventually want both, but you have a choice where to path first.
Reflexes 7 – Handgun bonuses
The next two perks are mandatory.
- Rio Bravo x3 (Reflexes 5 – Handguns) + Headshot multiplier with Pistols & Revolvers.
- Long Shot Drop Pop (Reflexes 7 – Handguns) + Damage to enemies 5m+ away.
As you can see, these perks heavily support our plan of sniping and headshots. There are two more perks you want here (pseudo mandatory ones) but require quite a bit of points. They’re unexciting but effective nonetheless.
- High Noon x3 (Reflexes 1 – Handguns) + Crit chance with handguns.
- Desperado x3 (Reflexes 5 – Handguns) + Damage with handguns.
Increase your crit chance and base damage of your pistols is an obvious boost.
WHILE YOU’RE AT REFLEXES 7: Go ahead and take “Slow and Steady” perk from the Blades tree. Increasing Armor while moving is godly.
Cold Blood? It’s Next logical step (Cool 14)
The Cold Blood tree is a HEAVY PERK INVESTMENT, but you’ll be a lot stronger in “non-stealth combat”, and even helps you sneak around. IMO if you’re already investing heavily into Cool – you might as well take the core Cold Blood nodes.
RAISE COOL TO 14 IF YOU PLAN ON GOING DOWN THIS PATH.
- Cold Blood x3 (Cool 1 – Cold Blood) Allows it to stack 3x. Gives Movespeed.
- Coldest Blood (Cool 11 – Cold Blood) Allows further stacking of Cold Blood.
- Defensive Clotting x2 (Cool 9 – Cold Blood) Armor per stack of Cold Blood.
- Critical Condition x2 (Cool 7 – Cold Blood) Longer duration on Cold Blood.
- Cold and Calculating (Cool 14 – Cold Blood) Chance on crit to gain Cold Blood.
Cold and Calculating is the reason we want 14 cool. It allows us to stack Cold Blood during “non-stealth combat” since it usually requires a kill. Killing a guy with a crit stacks twice. Neat.
Again, refer to our Cold Blood perks list to help you get ideas. Sadly, improving Cool to 14 is useless in the Stealth perks tree. There’s nothing there you want that’s unlocked at 14.
Non-Core Build Paths from here
I will be updating this, but the above segments are more than enough to enable the core playstyle.
Summary and Closing
I’ll be adding more “build paths” from here in my next update, but this is the absolute CORE of the build. I’m excited to add the other build paths I’ve tried and thought of.
This is the first build I played in Night City and I enjoyed it HEAVILY. I hope our stealth silenced handgun “assassin” build guide helps YOU show these gonks the Soulkiller is coming to realspace.
