Our pick for the best netrunner build in Cyberpunk 2077 is an Overclock queue hacker: put every point into Intelligence until 20, take Optimization, Hack Queue, Data Recycler and Embedded Exploit, then Overclock with Sublimation and Power Surge, and finish with Queue Mastery and Spillover. Add Body 15 for Adrenaline Rush, run the Militech Paraline cyberdeck, and open every fight with a Control quickhack before a Combat one.
The free Edgerunners 2 Update (version 2.5) does not change any of this. CD PROJEKT RED’s Update 2.5 patch notes list no changes to the Intelligence tree, quickhacks or cyberdecks, so netrunning works the way Update 2.1 and its follow-up patches left it. The core of our build follows the studio’s own netrunner build breakdown, which pairs quickhacks with the Monowire, and every perk value below comes from CD PROJEKT RED’s official Build Planner. Below: how netrunning works, the attribute order, the perks, cyberware, quickhack combos, weapons and how to play it.
How Netrunning Works Since Update 2.0
- RAM is your ammo. Every quickhack costs RAM, which comes from your cyberdeck and from Intelligence: CD PROJEKT RED’s planner gives +1 Max RAM per 4 Intelligence points. RAM refills over time, and most of this build exists to refill it faster.
- Quickhacks come in four categories. Control (Cyberware Malfunction, Weapon Glitch, Reboot Optics), Covert (Ping, Sonic Shock), Combat (Short Circuit, Overheat, Contagion, Synapse Burnout) and Ultimate (Suicide, Cyberpsychosis, System Collapse). Several Intelligence perks reward landing a Control or Covert hack before a Combat one.
- Queues stack hacks on one target. Hack Queue lets you line up two quickhacks on one enemy, Queue Acceleration raises that to three and Queue Mastery to four. They upload in the order you add them.
- Overclock spends Health instead of RAM. With a cyberdeck installed, Overclock mode lasts 14 seconds on a 30-second cooldown, and while it runs, each RAM unit you spend over your max costs 10 Health. The Body and Health perks in this build are there to pay that bill.
- The Netrunner skill adds a late bonus. Per the Update 2.1 notes, once your Netrunner skill reaches level 60, Overclock reveals enemies within 10 m and lets you hack them through cover.
Attributes: Where the Points Go
Spend in this order:
- Intelligence to 4 for Optimization and Eye in the Sky. Eye in the Sky is the gate to Hack Queue, so do not skip it.
- Intelligence to 9 for Hack Queue, Data Recycler, Feedback Loop, Embedded Exploit and ICEpick.
- Intelligence to 15 for Overclock, Sublimation, Power Surge, Queue Acceleration, Queue Hack_Root and Blood Daemon.
- Intelligence to 20 for Queue Mastery and Spillover.
- Body to 15 for Painkiller at 4 and Adrenaline Rush at 15.
- Then pick a finish. Reflexes to 15 if you carry smart SMGs, which is CD PROJEKT RED’s route (Sharpshooter, Practice Makes Perfect and Shoot to Chill, then Submachine Fun at 20), or Technical Ability to 9 for Renaissance Punk, which adds 4 Cyberware Capacity for each attribute at 9 or higher.
Each attribute starts at 3 and caps at 20. Since Update 2.0 you can refund perks one at a time for free, but you can reset attributes only once per playthrough, as our guide to resetting attributes explains. An existing V can move into this build if the attribute points line up.
The Perks to Take
Intelligence, the core of the build:
| Perk | Intelligence needed | What it does | Why it is here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Optimization | 4 | +35% RAM recovery rate | RAM |
| Eye in the Sky | 4 | Highlights nearby Access Points and cameras; Control, Covert and Distract Enemies hacks through a camera cost 1 less RAM and last 50% longer | Gate to Hack Queue, safe scouting |
| Hack Queue (2 levels) | 9 | +1 Max RAM, then queues of 2 quickhacks, with +30% upload speed for the second | Combos |
| Data Recycler | 9 | When an enemy dies, recover 80% of the RAM cost of the quickhacks still in their queue | No wasted RAM |
| Feedback Loop | 9 | +25% RAM recovery rate for each quickhack currently in a queue | RAM |
| Embedded Exploit (2 levels) | 9 | +10% RAM recovery, then +60% quickhack damage against enemies affected by Control or Covert quickhacks or Distract Enemies | Damage |
| ICEpick | 9 | -1 RAM cost for Combat quickhacks on enemies affected or targeted by Control, Covert or Distract Enemies | Cheaper combos |
| Overclock (3 levels) | 15 | +10% RAM recovery, +10% quickhack damage, then Overclock mode | The build |
| Sublimation | 15 | While Overclock is active, all RAM recovery also regenerates Health | Pays for Overclock |
| Power Surge | 15 | Activating Overclock restores Health equal to 5 times your max RAM | Pays for Overclock |
| Queue Acceleration (3 levels) | 15 | +1 Max RAM, -1 RAM cost on devices and vehicles, then a third queue slot with faster uploads from the third hack on | Combos |
| Queue Hack_Root | 15 | -1 RAM cost for the first quickhack of each category (Covert, Combat, Control) placed second or later in a queue | Cheaper combos |
| Blood Daemon | 15 | While Overclock is active, +40 Health for each quickhack queued on an enemy when you neutralize them | Health |
| Queue Mastery | 20 | A fourth queue slot; the hack that fills the queue costs 50% less RAM and locks it; +15% damage against enemies with a locked queue | Tough targets |
| Spillover | 20 | While Overclock is active, +50% chance for quickhacks to spread to an additional target | Crowds |
Body, for survival: Painkiller at Body 4 unlocks slow Health regen in combat. Adrenaline Rush at Body 15 gives +35 Max Health, then +20% to all Health regen, then Adrenaline Rush mode: Blood Pump cyberware and health items also give Adrenaline equal to 30% of your Max Health (up to 50%), a yellow bar that soaks damage before your Health does and decays over time.
The Monowire add-on (CD PROJEKT RED’s own twist): Siphon (Intelligence 9, after ICEpick) makes Monowire attacks recover 0.5 RAM, or 1 RAM if the enemy is affected or targeted by a quickhack. Finisher: Live Wire (Intelligence 15, after Queue Acceleration) unlocks a Monowire finisher on low-Health enemies that is easier to land the more quickhacks you have queued on them, and it restores 15% Health and 5 RAM. With Phantom Liberty, the Relic perk Jailbreak gives the Monowire its own Control quickhack slot: a fully charged attack uploads that hack with no RAM cost, and Data Tunneling lets later Monowire swings that hit that enemy spread the hack to everyone else they hit.
Worth knowing about, not core: Race Against Mind (Intelligence 15) adds up to +50% quickhack damage during Overclock as your Health drops, which pays off only if you are comfortable running low, and System Overwhelm (Intelligence 9) adds 7% quickhack damage for each unique quickhack and damage over time effect on the target.
Cyberdeck and Cyberware
Cyberdeck: Militech Paraline. CD PROJEKT RED calls the deck you start with “one of the best”: it supports both the Monowire and smart weapons and takes little Cyberware Capacity. Keep upgrading it with crafting materials, or buy a higher tier from a ripperdoc every few levels. Its higher tiers add quickhack damage, Monowire damage that grows with the RAM you have spent, faster uploads when you shoot the target with a smart weapon, and at Tier 5, bonus Electrical damage for smart weapons and the Monowire while Overclock is active. The cyberdeck takes your Operating System slot, so it replaces a Sandevistan; our Sandevistan guide covers that route instead.
Frontal Cortex, for RAM:
- Ex-Disk: more Max RAM and faster quickhack uploads (Update 2.1 raised the upload bonus).
- RAM Upgrade: faster RAM recovery and more Max RAM.
- Mechatronic Core: more Max RAM, plus extra damage against drones, robots, mechs and turrets.
- Memory Boost: RAM back whenever you neutralize an enemy. It costs more capacity, so CD PROJEKT RED swaps it in for the Mechatronic Core at a higher level.
The two netrunner implants from Update 2.1:
- Feen-X (Skeleton): +250% RAM regen rate whenever your available RAM drops below a threshold, from 3 units at Tier 1 to 7 at Tier 5.
- Cogito Lattice (Integumentary System): +200% to 240% Armor from the implant while available RAM is below 2 to 10 units, by tier. Since Patch 2.11, it only works with a cyberdeck installed.
Survival: Scar Coalescer and Reflex Tuner help early when your Health gets low, and Biomonitor and Second Heart cost more but let you lean on Overclock harder. Biomonitor uses your equipped health item automatically when Health drops below 50%.
Update 2.5 did add one netrunner-adjacent option: you can now restyle the Monowire at a Glamdoc, and our Glamdoc locations guide shows all five.
Quickhacks and the Two Combos
CD PROJEKT RED builds its netrunner around two combos, and our perks make both cheaper and harder-hitting:
- Cyberware Malfunction, then Short Circuit. The studio says Cyberware Malfunction “will greatly increase the damage of Short Circuit.” Malfunction is a Control hack, so Embedded Exploit adds +60% to the Short Circuit behind it, and ICEpick and Queue Hack_Root both cut its RAM cost. This is the single-target killer.
- Overheat and Contagion. Together they explode enemies, which CD PROJEKT RED calls “one of the strongest crowd control options in the game.” Patch 2.11 fixed the Iconic Contagion so it explodes with Overheat as well. Run it during Overclock and Spillover can carry hacks to more targets.
Fill the other deck slots with Weapon Glitch, Reboot Optics and Ping, as the studio suggests: Ping shows the enemies and devices on the same network, and the two Control hacks blunt the enemies shooting back while still setting up Embedded Exploit.
Late in the game, the Ultimate quickhacks Suicide and Cyberpsychosis become affordable as your RAM pool grows. Cyberpsychosis gets cheaper for a short time after you apply Cyberware Malfunction or an EMP effect, per Patch 2.11, so the first combo sets it up. Synapse Burnout is the other heavy hitter: its damage climbs with the RAM you have already spent, up to +300% at Tiers 3 to 5 since Update 2.1, which makes it a strong closing hack on bosses.
Weapons
CD PROJEKT RED picks guns that do some of the hacking for you:
- Fenrir, an iconic SMG from an optional job in Northside, Watson. Its hits have a chance to apply Cyberware Malfunction, which primes Short Circuit without spending a deck upload.
- Shingen Mark V, a smart SMG in the containers outside the Arasaka warehouse later in the story; check them before you go in. It can set enemies on fire and blows up enemies infected with Contagion.
- A third slot for the Ashura sniper rifle on elite enemies, or the Yinglong iconic SMG for crowds. With Submachine Fun, swapping SMGs reloads them automatically.
If you lean on smart guns, the Recirculation perk (Intelligence 9) gives +2 RAM when you neutralize an enemy with a smart weapon, plus half of the RAM spent on any quickhacks on them. Our guide to upgrading weapons covers keeping an iconic like Fenrir useful as you level.
How to Play It
- Scout through cameras. Eye in the Sky highlights cameras, and Control and Covert hacks sent through one cost less and last longer. Ping first to see the whole room.
- Queue Control, then Combat. Cyberware Malfunction then Short Circuit on one target, Overheat then Contagion on a group. Embedded Exploit and ICEpick only kick in when the Control or Covert hack comes first.
- Let the queue work for you. Feedback Loop speeds up RAM recovery while hacks sit in a queue, and Data Recycler refunds most of whatever is left if the target dies early.
- Overclock when the RAM runs dry. The key is [E] by default on PC, per CD PROJEKT RED’s planner. Power Surge heals you the moment it starts, Sublimation turns every RAM refund into Health, and Spillover spreads your hacks.
- Lock queues on bosses. Filling a queue with Queue Mastery makes the last hack half price and adds 15% damage while the queue uploads.
- Watch your Health, not just your RAM. Overclock’s Health cost is the build’s real risk, so keep a health item ready and let Adrenaline Rush soak hits.
If you would rather shoot than hack, our best dual wield build is Update 2.5’s other new playstyle, and our guide on how to dual wield covers the unlock. The rest of what 2.5 added is in our launch story, and every guide is on our Cyberpunk hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best netrunner build in Cyberpunk 2077? Our pick is Intelligence to 20 with Hack Queue, Data Recycler, Embedded Exploit, Overclock, Sublimation, Power Surge, Queue Mastery and Spillover, plus Body 15 for Adrenaline Rush and the Militech Paraline cyberdeck.
Did Update 2.5 change netrunners? No. The Edgerunners 2 Update’s patch notes list no changes to the Intelligence tree, quickhacks or cyberdecks.
How much Intelligence does a netrunner need? Overclock needs Intelligence 15, and Queue Mastery and Spillover need 20. Hack Queue opens at 9.
What is the best cyberdeck for a netrunner? CD PROJEKT RED rates the Militech Paraline, the deck you start with, as one of the best because it supports the Monowire and smart weapons and takes little Cyberware Capacity. Keep it upgraded to the highest tier you can.
What are the best quickhack combos? Cyberware Malfunction followed by Short Circuit for single targets, and Overheat with Contagion to explode groups of enemies.
Do you need Phantom Liberty for a netrunner build? No. Every Intelligence perk is in the base game. Phantom Liberty adds the Relic perks Jailbreak and Data Tunneling, which give the Monowire a free Control quickhack.
Can you use a Sandevistan and a cyberdeck together? No. Both use the Operating System slot, so a netrunner gives up the Sandevistan.