Attacks, evasive maneuvers, parries – the melee combat in Cyberpunk 2077 is no Dark Souls, but surprisingly complex. Our guide will fight you through it.
Even though the small melee tutorial in Cyberpunk 2077 already explains the basics, you can get much more out of it with slashing and cutting weapons: Through additional skills and the right tactics, as we explain in our beginner’s guide for melee fighters.
Article Overview:
- No fear of close combat
- A question of technology
- The right attributes
- Complementary equipment
- Do not forget armouring!
No fear of close combat
One thing first: Yes, you can block, parry, dodge and get these mechanics knocked around quite early in the game. But don’t be put off if you find all this too strenuous. If you play at the normal or easy difficulty level, you can get through most situations quite easily if you just click dead (or press dead when playing with the gamepad).
Cyberpunk 2077 is a role playing game and not a beat ’em up. With enough healing, armour and damage on your weapon, you will win in melee combat quite easily just by your stats and less by tactics and finesse. However, if you play at a higher difficulty level or want to do more than just hammering on the light attack key, the game offers you the opportunity to do so. The choice is entirely up to you.
A question of technique
If you use a melee weapon or bare fists, you deal a light attack by tapping the fire button. Use the button, which zooms and aims in ranged combat, to defend in close combat. This is especially useful if your enemy is also using a melee weapon and is not shooting at you, as bullets are less likely to be defended with bare hands, the katana or a baseball bat.
In this case, it is better to double-tap a directional button to take evasive action. If you attack while defending, you will make a defensive attack, which causes comparatively little damage. If you hold down the fire button, you will make a heavy attack when you release it. This not only causes more damage than a light attack, but also interrupts the defence of an opponent who is defending – light attacks simply bounce off the enemy when they block.
The right attributes
The most important attribute for melee fighters is constitution. This passively increases your damage with melee weapons, bare fists and gorilla arms. You will also find useful benefits in the Athletics Constitution tree, such as Steel and Chrome for increased melee damage, Impenetrable for reduced stamina consumption when blocking, and I am a leaf in the wind for negated stamina costs when dodging. If you prefer blunt weapons, it’s also worth taking a look at the street brawl section, where you’ll find numerous powerful buffs and improvements for this type of weapon.
If, on the other hand, you rely on blade weapons, street brawls are of little help. Instead, you should invest a few points in reflexes, in addition to your constitution, which increases your damage with Mantis Blades, the ultimate blade weapon. In addition, you will also find many benefits in the Blades advantage tree, such as increased blade damage, bleeding, self-healing in combat, better stamina and critical strikes.
If you don’t care about blade weapons and don’t want to rely solely on your constitution, you will be able to use your technical ability as a secondary attribute, because it passively increases your armour. It goes without saying how important this is in close combat. The advantage trees Item crafting and Techie in this attribute help you to better crafting possibilities and increase the power of your grenades – and they are an excellent addition to any melee style of play.
Complementary equipment
Close combat is great – sprinting from one enemy to the next, taking out enemies one by one, rubbing out entire gangs. There are situations, however, when so many enemies sit together in the same spot and pump you full of lead in seconds that you can’t always get to them in time with a beating.
In this case, in addition to the aforementioned grenades, it is worthwhile to use weapons that are improved by constitution and (in the case of blade weapons) reflexes. In the case of constitution, these are shotguns and LMGs (category destruction), in the case of reflexes it is rifles and handguns in the advantage trees of the same name.
We recommend Shotguns and LMGs because you should have some constitution for melee play and because these weapons have the ability to reliably knock down enemies. And by the time your opponent gets up again, you will be standing in front of him with a baseball bat drawn.
Do not forget armour!
Melee combat is only conditionally recommended if you want to look as sexy as possible. While you can handle ranged combat without thick armor, you’ll be in constant contact with the enemy. This inevitably means that armour goes before style, even if you look like you’ve helped yourself to some old clothes.
Of course you can also counteract this by simply lowering the difficulty level. Don’t forget your cyberware as well as protective clothing! Subdermal armour increases your armour value in the legendary version by 200 points if you have the necessary eddies.
Weaker versions do not protect as well, but are more affordable – check out all Ripperdocs to find the right armor for your wallet! For more ideas and combat tactics for short range combat, check out our biceps skill guide, our ultimate melee class.
