When crafting a character in Cyberpunk 2077, crucial decisions like background, customization, and difficulty need to be made. We’ll tell you the best starting attribute points and explain all attributes in Cyberpunk 2077.
All Cyberpunk 2077 Attributes Explained
When you create your character in Cyberpunk 2077, there are five attributes you need to consider in the base game. These are Body, Intelligence, Reflexes, Technical Ability, and Cool. At base, you’re given three points in each attribute, with seven points to allot to each attribute as you wish. At four, nine, 15, and 20 Attribute Points in an attribute, you’ll get a new set of skills you can put Perk Points into. Every point invested will also grant you a small bonus. With all that said, let’s go through each attribute and what it does.
Body Attribute
- +2 Max Health per Attribute Point.
- Skills range from proficiency in blunt weapons, light machine guns, and shotguns. You’re also able to pass certain Body checks during dialogue or to do more forceful actions with things like doors.
Intelligence Attribute
- +1 Max RAM per four Attribute Points.
- Skills range between the use of smart weapons and hacking/cybernetic abilities in combat. Perfect for those who prefer to disable their enemies before killing them, or to make things easier for yourself when firing off shots.
Reflexes Attribute
- +0.5% Crit Chance per Attribute Point.
- Skills include improving use of assault rifles, submachine guns, and sharp melee weapons. Great for those who prefer to be far faster than their opponents in combat, and close distance quickly for a clean kill.
Technical Ability Attribute
- +2 Armor per Attribute Point.
- Skill improve use of explosives and certain tech weapons. Also allows you to turn devices to your advantage or bypass locks with ease. If you like a methodical approach that involves as little direct combat as possible, you’ll love this Attribute.
Cool Attribute
- +1.25% Crit Damage per Attribute Point.
- Skills improve proficiency with precision weapons, throwables, and handguns. You’ll also improve your ability to stealth encounters, letting you slip in and out like you were never there.
Relic Attribute
If you have the paid Phantom Liberty DLC, you’ll get access to Cyberpunk’s sixth Relic Attribute. This attribute functions a little differently than the other five attributes in the base game, only being available after obtaining the Militech combat software given to you by Songbird in Phantom Liberty’s Dogtown.
The Relic attribute uses its own point system called Relic Points, which you’ll collect by finding and accessing Militech data terminals around Dogtown. You’ll use Relic Points the same way you would use Perk Points, except Relic Points are exclusive to the Relic Attribute. This means you can unlock all Relic Skills in the game without having to worry about taking away points from other attributes.
- Relic Skills focus on cyberware, making powerful improvements to mostly arms cyberware as well as Optical Camo. This attribute will be highly beneficial to all playstyles, and you’ll be able to easily unlock all Relic Skills in a single playthrough.
The Best Starting Attributes in Cyberpunk 2077
While some attributes in Cyberpunk will be better for certain playstyles than others, there is a good spread of points that can help just about any build. We recommend you allot your seven starting Attribute Points for the following build:
- Body: 4.
- Intelligence: 3.
- Reflexes: 6.
- Technical Ability: 4.
- Cool: 5.
This Attribute Point distribution focuses heavily on improving your efficiency with all of the main weapon types. The points are mainly directed toward Reflexes since Assault Rifles and SMGs are the main weapons you’ll be using. The extra points in Cool also help with precision rifles, which can make a nice third weapon in your loadout.
We’ve chosen to forego points in the Intelligence Attribute here, but you can swap a point in Technical Ability if you feel techno-wizardry is more your thing. Hacking used to be one of the most powerful ways to get by in Night City with the help of the Intelligence attribute, but hacking abilities have been massively nerfed since Cyberpunk’s big 2.0 update. Gone are the days in which you could easily annihilate a room just by short-circuiting everyone in the vicinity.
Merc-Friendly Starting Cyberpunk Attributes Points
For the best merc experience, choose a Corpo background and spec into Body, Technical Ability, and Reflexes:
- Body: 5.
- Intelligence: 3.
- Reflexes: 5.
- Technical Ability: 5.
- Cool: 3.
You won’t need to dump points into Cool with a Corpo background because the Corpo background gives V a lot of interesting and relevant responses the corpo-related quests in the game (and there’s a lot of them).
Not to mention you’ll need to be physically capable in every combat situation.
How to Reset and Respec Perks and Attributes in Cyberpunk 2077 2.0
You can reset your attributes in Cyberpunk 2.0 in the attribute menu screen under the Character tab. There’ll be a button on the bottom left corner of the menu labeled Reset Attributes. Press this to get back all of your Attribute Points for you to redistribute. You’ll want to make sure you are certain about the new build you have in mind though because you can only respec attributes once. If you choose to respec your attributes, the game will refund all of your perks for you as well.
Freely reset individual perks by using the triangle button on PS5 / Y button on Xbox while selecting that perk in its respective attribute menu. Feel free to do this as many times as you’d like. Prior to the 2.0 update, resetting perks would cost Eddies, but you can now entirely respec your perks for free.
How to Earn Attribute Points and Perk Points in Cyberpunk 2077 2.0
In Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, earning Attribute Points is as simple as leveling up. Every time you level up, you’ll receive an Attribute Point and a Perk Point that you can use however you’d like. The max character level in Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 is level 60, and attributes have an individual level cap of 20.
This means, including the Attribute Points given to you at the start of the game, you’ll have a maximum 81 Attribute Points to spread out after reaching the level cap, allowing you to max out up to three of your five attributes (we know the math on that doesn’t add up, but you won’t have just a single attribute with only one point in it, ensuring your attribute spread is more diversified).
Throughout the game, you’ll rack up a much larger amount of Perk Points, which are earned not only through character leveling, but also from skill leveling.
Skills in Cyberpunk 2077 2.0
In Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, your character has five skills that will level up as you perform actions associated with those specific skills. This has been massively overhauled from the base game for the 2.0 update, becoming much more simplified and streamlined. These skills are now:
- Headhunter.
- Netrunner.
- Shinobi.
- Solo.
- Engineer.
These skills will passively level up as you perform most actions, naturally rewarding, and thus reinforcing, the skills you use the most in your play style. If you’re big on hacking, for example, you’ll quickly find yourself leveling up Netrunner, and therefore more frequently receiving bonuses that improve your Netrunning actions.
Reaching specific levels in each skill will get you various rewards, including extra Perk Points. You can check up on these skills by hitting the Skill Progression button in the bottom right corner of your character’s attribute menu.
What are Perks in Cyberpunk 2077?
Perks give you additional bonuses and abilities on top of what you already have. To get more perks, you’ll need to level up certain attributes. Once you do, you’ll be given the option to choose a perk from the perk tree related to that attribute. Choosing perks is incredibly important, as some of them can give you a massive power boost in ways that trivialize the game.
The Best Perks in Cyberpunk 2077 2.0
The best perks in Cyberpunk 2077 are the ones that improve your health, stamina, and cyberware. But it also depends on your playstyle. Some perks might be darn-near necessary for someone focusing on a sword-based build, while those same perks would be absolutely useless to someone focusing on rifles.
Considering you can easily respec your perks at any time, we would encourage you to play around and experiment to find a combination you enjoy and that suits your playstyle. Check out some of the ones we recommend below:
- Adrenaline Rush (Body): (Level1) +35% max health, (Level 2) +20% health regen bonus, (Level 3) unlocks Adrenaline Rush mode, which will increase your health by 30% if using a Blood Pump cyberware.
- Army of One (Body): +10% health regen rate for each nearby enemy.
- Dash (Reflex): (Level 1) -20% stamina cost when dodging and dashing, (Level 2) unlocks Dash, replacing dodge.
- Driver Update (Technical): All cyberware gain an additional stat modifer.
- License to Chrome (Technical): (Level 1) +10% to all cyberware stat modifiers, (Level 2) +40 armor, (Level 3) unlocks new cyberware skeleton slot.
- Painkiller (Body): unlocks slow health regen in combat.
- Chrome Constitution (Technical): -5% incoming damage if all Integumentary System and Skeleton cyberware slots are filled.
- All the perks in the Relic Attribute, if you have access to them.
Now that you know how to best allocate your attribute points in Cyberpunk, learn more about creating your character by checking out our guide on whether you can change your appearance and gender after finishing with the Cyberpunk 2077 character creator.
Published: Jan 22, 2024 10:03 am