Weapons

Fights in Night City are won with guns, melee weapons or quickhacks. The attribute points decide which of these works best. Every gun is a Power, Tech or Smart weapon. The type changes how a gun fires more than its class does. Body, Reflexes, Technical Ability, Cool and Intelligence each improve their own weapons. Each perk tree helps only the weapons of its own attribute. The first points spent already push a character towards guns, blades or netrunning. The sections below cover the builds, the three gun types, the quality tiers, the mods, and how Iconic weapons are upgraded.

Character Builds

A build combines an attribute, its perk tree, a weapon class and cyberware that supports it. The attribute is the first choice, because it decides which weapons the perks improve.

• Body: shotguns and machine guns. Body perks improve shotguns, light and heavy machine guns and blunt weapons. Like A Feather removes the movement penalty of all three guns. Rip And Tear links shotgun blasts with Quick Melee Attacks for extra damage. Clutch Padding cuts the Stamina cost of shooting. ProxiShield reduces damage from enemies standing close.
• Reflexes: blades or assault rifles. Reflexes perks improve assault rifles, SMGs and blades. Ready, Rested, Reloaded and Sharpshooter improve the automatic guns. Lead And Steel lets a blade block bullets. Finisher: Bladerunner adds a blade finisher that restores Health. A Sandevistan slows time while the user stays at full speed.
• Technical Ability: Tech weapons. Technical Ability perks improve Tech weapons, grenades and the Projectile Launch System. The Bolt perk adds charge speed and unlocks Bolt shots. Shock Value makes those Bolts ignore enemy Armor. Kiroshi Stalker Optics connect to an equipped Tech weapon and reveal enemies behind cover.
• Cool: precision and stealth. Cool perks improve pistols, revolvers, precision rifles, sniper rifles and throwable weapons. Deadeye and Nerves Of Tungsten-Steel turn headshots into guaranteed crits. Killer Instinct adds damage to silenced guns outside combat. Optical Camo hides the user, and Visual Cortex Support raises crit chance with distance.
• Intelligence: Smart weapons and netrunning. Intelligence perks improve Smart weapons and quickhacks. Acquisition Specialist and Target Lock Transfer improve target lock. Smart Synergy gives instant lock while Overclock is active. Smart weapons need the Smart Link cyberware before they can track targets at all.

A perk opens once its attribute reaches the level the perk asks for. A second attribute can therefore stop at the few perks a build wants from it.

Weapon Categories

Best Weapons

The strongest weapons of every class, taken from the Best table of each class page.

Name	Image	Class	Why
Plan B		Pistols	+200% headshot damage, top of the class
Lexington X-Mod2		Pistols	+175% headshot damage and room for extra mods
Comrade's Hammer		Revolvers	75% armor penetration and one explosive round
Ol' Reliable		Revolvers	+200% headshot damage, crit chance grows with distance
Fenrir		SMGs	Electrical rounds that can disable enemy cyberware
Pizdets		SMGs	Crit chance and fire rate climb while firing, with a silencer
Hawk		Assault Rifles	+175% headshot damage, top of the class
Kyubi x-MOD2		Assault Rifles	+150% headshot damage and long range
Order		Shotguns	100% armor penetration, vaporizes enemies above 66% charge
Amstaff		Shotguns	+150% headshot damage, faster on kills
Hypercritical		Precision Rifles	+200% headshot damage, explosive rounds and a final crit
Widow Maker		Precision Rifles	Tech rifle firing two projectiles per shot
Breakthrough		Sniper Rifles	100% armor penetration, rounds pierce walls uncharged
Overwatch		Sniper Rifles	+300% headshot damage, silencer and faster reload
M2067 Defender		Machine Guns	Power light machine gun, +85% headshot damage
MA70 HB		Machine Guns	Power light machine gun, +85% headshot damage
Sasquatch's Hammer		Melee Weapons	75% armor penetration, top of the class
Satori		Melee Weapons	Katana paired with Nehan for hemorrhaging

Weapon Types

Every gun uses one of three technologies. The table compares them.

Power guns are the familiar firearms, and their bullets bounce off hard surfaces. The Ballistic Coprocessor raises the ricochet chance, so a shot can reach an enemy behind cover. Power guns are also the only guns that take a silencer. They are the best choice for stealth. Tech guns behave like ordinary guns until the trigger is held for a full charge. A charged shot goes through cover. Smart guns need Smart Link cyberware, or they fire like plain guns. Their headshot bonuses are lower than those of Power guns, because the rounds do the aiming.

Quality

Quality is the tier printed on a weapon, and it rises with player level. Each tier has a Plus step above it.

Tier 5++ appears from level 51, which only Phantom Liberty reaches. Loot and vendor stock follow these level thresholds. A new tier becomes common once V reaches its level. Lower and higher tiers still turn up now and then. A Plus step is better than its base tier and needs no extra level. Iconic is not a tier of its own. An Iconic weapon has a tier like any other gun, plus an effect that no other weapon has. Standard weapons never improve, so they are swapped for better drops as the level rises.

Mods and Attachments

Ranged weapons take attachments in a scope slot and a muzzle slot. Weapon mods go into separate mod slots, and many only fit one kind of weapon.

Slot	Example	Image	Effect
Scope	Handyman		Zoom, range and headshot crit chance
Scope	Jue		Long range and faster aiming
Silencer	CS-1 Taipan		Stealth damage at the cost of some damage
Muzzle brake	RC-7 Strigoi		Less recoil
Muzzle brake	RC-7 Varkolak		Ricochet chance and angle
Weapon mod	Pax		Makes the weapon non-lethal
Power mod	Pyro		Thermal damage and Burn chance
Tech mod	Spinetickler		EMP blast on a fully charged hit
Smart mod	Headhopper		Extra lock-on targets and headshot damage
Blade mod	Bleedout		Crit chance for Bleeding damage

Attachments can be taken off and put on at any time, so one good scope can move from gun to gun. Mods are permanent. Once a mod is slotted, it can never be removed or replaced. Choosing a mod is therefore part of choosing the weapon. Two identical mods of the same tier can be merged into one mod of the next tier. Weapon vendors sell both mods and attachments, and enemies drop them as loot.

Upgrades

Iconic weapons are the only weapons that can be upgraded. Upgrades are made in the Upgrades tab of the crafting menu, and every build can use this tab. Each step raises the weapon to the next tier and spends item components of that tier. Components come from dismantling items, from caches and from enemies. Vendors do not sell them. A long run of upgrades needs a steady supply of loot to break down.

Each upgrade goes up one step at a time. It goes from a tier to its Plus step, and then to the next tier. An Iconic weapon kept from the early game has to go through every step to stay useful. The cost of those steps is the price of its unique effect.

Picking up an Iconic weapon also unlocks its crafting spec. Specs for the rest drop from the leaders of Suspected Organized Crime Activities. Weapon vendors sell some of them too. In Phantom Liberty, Herold Lowe at the EBM Petrochem Stadium in Dogtown sells Iconic weapons that were missed earlier.