The rules of engagement in Night City have changed. If you’re an old school netrunner, forget everything you thought you knew about ghosting through a compound, dropping bodies with untraceable daemons from the safety of a shadowy corner. That playbook is dead and buried. The 2.0 update and Phantom Liberty expansion didn’t just tweak the netrunner class; they performed a total system overhaul, transforming the stealthy hacker into an aggressive, front line digital warlock. The trace is almost always inevitable now.
The question is no longer “How do I stay hidden?” but “Can I wipe them all out before they find me?” This guide is your key to answering that question with a resounding yes. We’re going to walk you through crafting the best netrunner build imaginable, a chrome infused monster that bends the digital world to its will and walks through firefights like a god.
Table of Contents
The New Code: Why the Old Netrunner is Dead
Before the big update, netrunning often felt like playing a stealth archer. You could sit a block away, sip a Nicola, and systematically dismantle an entire enemy fortress using cameras and untraceable quickhacks. It was powerful, but it was passive. CD Projekt RED decided that wasn’t chaotic enough for Night City.
They introduced two game changing mechanics: the Hack Queue and Overclock. The Hack Queue lets you stack multiple quickhacks on a single target, creating devastating combos. Overclock is the real heart of the new system. It allows you to use your own Health as a secondary RAM pool, letting you unleash a relentless storm of hacks as long as you have the HP to burn.
This fundamentally changes the netrunner’s philosophy. You are no longer a ghost in the machine; you are the storm in the system. This new reality gives rise to two dominant playstyles. The first is the “Untraceable Ghost,” a highly specialized build that focuses on using specific, high cost combos to silently eliminate single targets without ever initiating a trace. It’s a cool, surgical approach, but it’s resource intensive and situational.
The second, and the focus of this guide, is the “Combat Mage” or, as we like to call it, the Overclock God. This build embraces the trace. It invites chaos. Its core philosophy is to use Overclock to unleash such overwhelming digital firepower that every enemy is neutralized before the trace completes. This build turns you into a self-sustaining engine of destruction, a true digital deity of Night City.
The Architect: Your Attribute Blueprint
To build a god, you need the right blueprint. A powerful netrunner isn’t just about high Intelligence; it’s about creating a perfect synergy between mind, body, and chrome. For a level 60 character with the Phantom Liberty expansion, this is the optimal attribute distribution to maximize the Overclock God’s potential.
Intelligence: 20
This is non-negotiable. Intelligence governs everything that makes a netrunner tick. It dictates your max RAM, quickhack damage, proficiency with Smart Weapons, and access to every essential netrunning perk in the game. Maxing this out is the first and most important step.
Technical Ability: 20
Your body is just a scaffold for chrome, and Technical Ability is what lets you build a skyscraper. This attribute is crucial for increasing your cyberware capacity, which you’ll need to slot in the powerful hardware that fuels your abilities. The capstone perk in this tree, Edgerunner, is what allows you to push your cyberware capacity to its absolute limits, turning you into a walking legend. It also improves your health items, a critical component of our survival engine.
Body: 15
In the old days, Body was a dump stat for netrunners. Now, it’s your fuel tank. Since the Overclock mechanic uses your Health to power your hacks, having a deep health pool is essential. Investing 15 points here unlocks the Adrenaline Rush perk tree, which provides temporary health and damage mitigation, the very shield that will keep you alive while you’re burning through your own HP to power your digital onslaught.
Cool: 12
The remaining points can be distributed, but putting a solid 12 points into Cool gives you access to valuable passive damage increases and foundational stealth perks like Killer Instinct, which provides a nice damage boost for your opening attack.
Reflexes: 9
This is the minimum investment needed to unlock the Dash perk. In the fast paced combat of Cyberpunk 2.0, mobility is life. Dash is a fundamental movement tool for every build, allowing you to reposition, dodge attacks, and control the flow of battle.
This distribution creates a perfect triangle of power. Intelligence is your offense, Technical Ability is your foundation, and Body is your resource and defense. Neglecting Tech or Body will cripple your Overclock potential, as the entire system relies on having enough chrome and health to sustain your assault.
Decoding the Shards: Essential Perks
With our attributes allocated, it’s time to bring our build to life with perks. We won’t list every single one, but instead focus on the absolute game changers that define the Overclock God.
The Intelligence Tree: Your Core Toolbox
This is where your offensive power comes from. You’ll want to heavily invest in two main branches. The left branch, focused on Hack Queue, is your bread and butter. Perks like Queue Acceleration and the final Queue Mastery let you stack hacks faster and for deadlier effects. The middle branch is your engine: Overclock. You need every perk here.
Sublimation is vital, as it helps you recover health when you regain RAM, and Race Against Mind boosts your quickhack damage when your health is low, a state you’ll frequently be in. This branch literally turns your health bar into a second RAM bar. The right branch, focused on Smart Weapons and Monowire, connects your digital and physical attacks, with perks like Siphon and Recirculation turning your weapon kills into more RAM.
The Technical Ability Tree: The Foundation of Chrome
This tree makes you a true edgerunner. The middle branch is mandatory. All Things Cyber and License to Chrome are stepping stones to the ultimate prize: Edgerunner. This perk lets you exceed your cyberware capacity at the cost of a little health. This might sound risky, but it’s the core of our build’s synergy.
Your 15 points in Body give you the health pool to easily afford this cost, turning a minor drawback into a massive advantage that lets you slot in more of the chrome that fuels your Overclock engine. The left branch is also critical for survival. Health Freak improves your health items, and the iconic Borrowed Time gives you a free health charge when your health drops below a certain threshold, a lifesaver when you’re deep in Overclock mode.
The Body Tree: Your Fuel Tank
Survival is key to unleashing your full power. The middle branch is your focus here, leading to Adrenaline Rush. This perk gives you a buffer of temporary health, which is the very thing that keeps you standing while Overclock is actively draining your permanent health. It’s the shock absorber for your entire combat engine.
The Relic Tree (Phantom Liberty Exclusive)
Found at Militech data terminals in Dogtown, these perks add another layer of power. Jailbreak is a must have, allowing you to embed a control quickhack into your Monowire, turning it into a powerful debuffing tool. Vulnerability Analytics is another game changer, revealing weak spots on enemies that allow for guaranteed critical hits, synergizing perfectly with Smart Weapons that can target them automatically.
Chrome Up, Samurai: Your Essential Cyberware
For a netrunner, cyberware isn’t just an upgrade; it’s your very being. This loadout is designed to create a self-sustaining machine for the Overclock God build.
The Operating System: Your Cyberdeck
This is the single most defining piece of your build. While there are several great options, one stands above the rest for raw power: the Tetratronic Rippler Mk.5. This cyberdeck is the king of damage. Its ability to massively boost the damage of a combat quickhack when it follows a non-combat one in the queue is the cornerstone of our deadliest combos. It turns a simple hack sequence into a boss deleting nuke.
While other decks like the Netwatch Netdriver are fantastic for pure stealth builds, they lack the raw offensive firepower required for the Overclock God playstyle, which is all about ending fights before they truly begin. Another top tier option, exclusive to Phantom Liberty, is the Militech Canto Mk.6. It sacrifices some versatility for the ability to unleash the devastating Blackwall Gateway quickhack, an ultimate ability that can clear entire rooms.
The Full Cyberware Loadout
Your other cyberware slots are dedicated to creating a perpetual motion machine for Overclock. For your Frontal Cortex, you want to stack as much RAM as possible with implants like the Ex-Disk and, critically, the COX-2 Cybersomatic Optimizer, which allows your quickhacks to score critical hits with a massive damage multiplier. Your Circulatory System is your survival core.
The Biomonitor, which automatically heals you at low health, a manual Blood Pump, and the Second Heart, which gives you a second chance at life, are all essential for abusing Overclock without flatlining. For your Skeleton, implants like RAM Recoup and Epimorphic Skeleton provide RAM and health respectively, further fueling your engine. Your Hands need a Smart Link to enable the use of Smart Weapons. For your Arms, the Monowire is the only real choice. Its synergy with the Siphon and Jailbreak perks makes it an indispensable tool for utility and resource generation.
The goal of this cyberware loadout is to create a feedback loop: you spend health to cast hacks, getting kills restores your health, RAM, and health item charges, which in turn allows you to spend more health. This engine enables near permanent Overclock uptime in major combat encounters.
The Art of the Hack: Quickhack Combos and Gameplay
Quickhacks are your ammunition. Learning how to combine them is what separates a novice hacker from a digital god. Your essential arsenal should include a mix of damage (Synapse Burnout, Overheat), crowd control (Contagion), and debuffs (Cyberware Malfunction).
The Kill Chains: Mastering Quickhack Combos
The Hack Queue allows for devastating sequences. Here are the most effective ones for the Overclock God:
- The Silent Execution (Stealth): Sonic Shock (Iconic version) -> System Collapse. The iconic Sonic Shock makes the next quickhack untraceable, allowing you to silently eliminate any single target.
- The Boss Killer: Cyberware Malfunction -> Short Circuit. When using the Tetratronic Rippler deck, this combo is king. Cyberware Malfunction is a non-combat hack, so it primes the Rippler’s damage bonus. Following it with Short Circuit unleashes a massive burst of damage, capable of melting even the toughest enemies.
- The Group Wipe: Contagion -> Overheat. This classic combo causes a powerful explosion when the poison and fire effects meet, perfect for clearing out tightly packed groups of enemies.
The Overclock God Gameplay Loop in Action
A typical encounter looks like this:
- Initiate: Spot a group of enemies.
- Activate Overclock: Proactively switch it on. Don’t wait to take damage. Start burning your health for RAM immediately.
- Unleash the Queues: Start spamming your deadliest combos on high priority targets. Melt the biggest threats first.
- Sustain: As your health drops, your Biomonitor will trigger. Your kills will activate perks that restore health and RAM, creating the self-sustaining loop.
- Clean Up: Use your Smart Weapon or Monowire to finish off any survivors. These weapon kills will refund even more RAM thanks to your perks, getting you ready for the next fight.
When Code Isn’t Enough: Weapon Synergies
Even the most powerful netrunner sometimes needs a gun. Smart Weapons are the perfect pairing because the Intelligence attribute tree has a dedicated branch that boosts their effectiveness. Perks like Target Lock Transferal and Precision Subroutines are essentially free damage and quality of life improvements for a build that already has maxed out Intelligence.
For your iconic arsenal, the Yinglong Smart SMG is a top tier choice for crowd control, thanks to its explosive EMP rounds. The Pizdets, a silenced Smart SMG from Phantom Liberty, is king for any situation requiring a quieter approach. And of course, your Monowire is not just a weapon but a resource generating utility tool that is essential to the build’s flow.
If you want to Learn more abour Cyberpunk Guns, Read our The Ultimate Cyberpunk 2077 Weapon Guide
Cyberpunk Leveling Guide: From Street Rat to Digital God
This build truly comes online in the mid to late game, but here’s a quick roadmap to get you there.
Early Game (Levels 1-20): The Struggle
Let’s be real, the first 20 levels are going to feel like a grind. Your main goal here is survival and saving up. Pour your attribute points into Intelligence until you hit 15 and unlock Overclock, even if you can’t sustain it for long yet. You’ll be leaning heavily on basic quickhacks like Overheat from behind cover and using stealth takedowns to thin the herd. Play it slow, play it smart, and become a loot goblin. Every eddy you scrape together is a down payment on the chrome that will later make you a god.
Mid Game (Levels 21-40): The Engine Ignites
Max out Intelligence to 20 and start heavily investing in Technical Ability and Body to 15. You can now afford Tier 4/5 cyberware. Get your Biomonitor, Blood Pump, and a Tetratronic Rippler. Your Overclock loop is now viable. You can start playing more aggressively and practicing the “burn” phase of your gameplay. This is where the true identity of the build begins to form.
End Game (Levels 41-60): Ascension
With your core attributes maxed out and your final perks like Edgerunner unlocked, you are now a force of nature. You have all your iconic cyberware and quickhacks. You can confidently walk into any encounter, activate Overclock, and wipe out entire armies before they even know what hit them. You have the choice to play stealthily with untraceable combos or go loud with an explosive, self-sustaining torrent of digital death. This is your reward. You are no longer just a netrunner; you are a digital god.
So go on, choom. Slot that chrome, boot up your deck, and show Night City what true power looks like. The digital world is your playground, burn it to the ground.
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