To progress productively in Cyberpunk 2077 and become the best mercenary in Night City, you will need to develop your 12 skills related to the 6 attributes. But that's much easier said than done. There are 4 important points to know:
- Skills automatically increase out of combat or at the end of the combat by performing actions related to their attributes. Some are very easy to build up by repeating similar actions over and over again, others are very difficult.
- You can track the skill progress and the perks you can unlock in their tab in the skill tree. There is a mix of passive bonuses and perks.
- The maximum level of a Skill is limited by your Attribute level. If you only have 3 points in Intelligence, you cannot raise your Quickhacking perk above level 3.
- There are items that will automatically move you up one level in a specific skill by picking them up. But they are extremely rare.
How to level up the skills
Skills related to Body
- Athletics: The most difficult and time consuming to level. It goes up automatically by running, jumping, dodging, etc. It also progresses by forcing closed doors, so a high Body score helps a little. However, it's terribly slow. We're still looking for a method to speed things up.
- Annihilation: Use shotguns, machine guns and heavy weapons in combat.
- Street Brawler: Fight with bare hands, gorilla arms or blunt weapons such as batons, steel pipes, baseball bats, and so on.
Skills related to Reflexes
- Rifles: Use assault rifles, machine guns and sniper rifles in combat.
- Blades: Use knives, Mantis Blades and katanas in combat.
- Handguns: Progress by using pistols and revolvers in combat.
Skills related to Technical Ability
- Crafting: Very easy to level. Recycle items or make some in the Crafting tab. It works even with basic ammunition.
- Engineering: Use grenades and kill enemies with them. This skill also progresses by unlocking closed doors.
Skills related to Intelligence
- Breach Protocol: Hack any device you come across, even if it's just a "Ping" or "Distract enemies". This makes it very easy to level up quickly.
- Quickhacking: Same as the previous one but on humans and robots. Try to at least Ping an enemy before you kill or stun him.
Skills related to Cool
- Stealth: You just have to approach enemies by crouching and then kill/stun them. Carrying and hiding their corpse in a trash can, chest or container (its icon is displayed in red when you carry someone) will also earn you a lot of points. So remember to put away all the bodies after a massacre, even if you didn't kill them stealthily.
- Cold Blood: Very obscure skill. The only reliable way we found to level it is to invest one point in the first Perk of the tree: Cold Blood. You will then automatically level it by killing enemies when this bonus is active, i.e. 10 seconds after killing an enemy. At least it's quick.
Original content by Robin "Raiden" Bouquet.
