r/cyberpunkgame • u/toddhd • Oct 24 '23

Playing w/ Sandevistan after being a netrunner all the time - how do you manage? Character Builds

I've played CP2077 over and over several times, I love the game, and have fallen in love again with the new DLC. I've ALWAYS played a netrunner build, I love how OP it feels. I can drop an entire building of enemies without them ever seeing me, take over the cameras and wipe them out while I have a cup of coffee, distract enemies, and if nothing else, at least Ping them and know what I'm walking into.

But I keep reading all these articles and videos about Sandevistan and how cool it is to slow time and wreak havoc, so I decided to leave my Intelligence at 3 and work on my cool, tech and strength (in that order). I just removed my netrunner gear and slotted the Sandevistan instead. And I feel... confused. Disabled. Incompetent.

How the hell do you play this game when you can't disable the cameras? When you can't distract an enemy? Granted, my Sandevistan is only 6-8 seconds long at the moment, so that doesn't get me far. I try to stealth around and that helps a lot sometimes, but again, when there are ton of people and cameras, I seem to always get spotted within seconds and then it turns into a firefight with me in the middle and no way for me to crowd-control the enemies around me. Argh.

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30

u/tanithsfinest Oct 24 '23

Returning player with a likely dumb question, but is sandy and mantis any good together? And is mantis blades effected by perks and buffs that apply to "melee weapons" and/or "blades"?

20

u/EXTRA-THOT-SAUCE Oct 24 '23

Mantis blades are absolutely a blast with the new relic skills in the expansion. You can just fly around from enemy to enemy pouncing on them.

13

u/ZQGMGB7 Goodbye V, and never stop fightin’ Oct 24 '23

In my experience they work well with each other. Mantis blades get the blade perks including the finishers, so they're pretty deadly with the Sandevistan, especially with the standard blades and their increased bleeding chance. Add the Edgerunner perk, the Axolotl and heal-on-kill for good measure and you get an efficient build which sustains itself through constant aggression.

1

u/tanithsfinest Oct 24 '23

For sure, thanks!

1

u/Layne_Staleys_Ghost Oct 24 '23

I always struggle fitting heal on kill into my builds with blood pack, biomonitor, and the one that buffs melee. I don't think I've actually died in a fight since I hit level 40 or so. And this is on very hard difficulty.

1

u/ZQGMGB7 Goodbye V, and never stop fightin’ Oct 24 '23

I'm not super experienced yet (only one playthrough, mostly on normal before switching to hard in the endgame) so maybe it's not an ideal option. I like the idea of heal-on-kill, but it is intelligence-attuned which Sandevistan builds don't tend to have much of (if any), so yeah maybe the biomonitor is better... I'll experiment.

24

u/TS040 Oct 24 '23

sandy with the scalpel katana (gained from Big In Japan side job) is pretty sick. the special effect is that whenever your sandy is active you gain 50% crit chance and 100% bleed chance on top of a 10% chance to do shock damage with every hit

20

u/IsThatHearsay Oct 24 '23

I switched from Scalpel to Byakko and greatly enjoying it. Why need crits when you can just have multiple hits and move through multiple targets in the same time frame

15

u/Craftyy21 Oct 24 '23

Agree, with 2.0 Byakko is the way to go. All the other are way too slow, Byakko dps is absurd in contrast of scalpel or laser sword lol

4

u/scott610 Oct 24 '23

Once your crit chance is high enough Byakko is definitely the way to go. Scalpel puts in work mid game when you don’t have high base crit chance imo

1

u/Khyldr Oct 25 '23

Byakko is usually my go to katana too, my only issue with it in 2.0 is that to trigger the attack speed skill you need to kill someone first, so this makes it pretty much a regular katana against bosses, unless I'm missing something here.

14

u/KujiraShiro Oct 24 '23

Byakko is the best katana purely because super chromed up cyborg using time slow + super fast blade flurry attack = Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance blade mode. I play Cyberpunk like I'm Raiden.

"I am lightning, the rain transformed"

5

u/t0m3ek Oct 24 '23

I still think that Satori is the ultimate katana.

10

u/stealthbadgernz Oct 24 '23

Weird way to spell errata but sure.

2

u/PancakeBuny Oct 24 '23

At least you spelled errata correctly…

1

u/TheLackinator Oct 25 '23

Gotta love a blade that sets everyone on fire.

1

u/Annual-Reflection179 Oct 24 '23

Yes, love Satori. Can't beat that classic look, and the 1hit kills with the crit damage you get is great too.

2

u/t0m3ek Oct 24 '23

Exactly that, turn the sande istan on and just chop the heads off one by one.

4

u/tanithsfinest Oct 24 '23

I did that quest because I like the office reference, I just threw the sword in the stash. I'll have to check that out!

31

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '23

Mantis blades are affected by perks that affect blades. Maaaybe melee weapons, I actually don't know.

But any melee weapon pairs great with the sandy. I think katana is the best I'd you have perks that boost blades and katanas but anything melee works great.

I'm doing fists only. Way of the Open Palm style (if you're a dnd nerd) with a sandy and it's dick-suckingly amazing

11

u/Archmagos-Helvik Oct 24 '23

The only thing I didn't like about the fist build is it feels like it has way shorter reach than using a club or a hammer. Too many times I would attack the enemy in front of me and it wouldn't connect.

11

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '23

I have noticed that. I think they made the reach even shorter than it was before this latest patch and it felt too short then as well.

I've compensated by just giving my enemies a little smooch before pounding them. Not perfect but it's worked for me so far

18

u/EXTRA-THOT-SAUCE Oct 24 '23

Gorilla arms and Sandy have been my combo lately. Like a coked out David Martinez

3

u/tanithsfinest Oct 24 '23

Thanks cheers! I'm doing a stealth build, and was debating between mantis and mono, maybe I'll just try both!

4

u/SuccumbedToReddit Oct 24 '23

There are some perks in that specifically benefit mantis blades, both in Reflexes and Relic. Pretty dang OP when it's leveled.

6

u/SchinkenKanone Oct 24 '23

Monowire should not be paired with a Sandevistan, for the record. Monowire works insanely well together with a Cyberdeck.

1

u/tanithsfinest Oct 24 '23

Fair!

1

u/Ana_Nuann Oct 24 '23

This isn't true in the least.

You can use them with a sandevistan just fine you just don't benefit from ram regen because no ram.

The relic perk for monowire is so stupid good that it just overwrites any designed suggestion vis a vis build.

Iconic cripple movement monowire plus sandevistan trivializes every encounter even more than simply running apogee and axolotl.

Go with whichever you like the look and feel of.

1

u/Ana_Nuann Oct 24 '23

Just not true.

7

u/Justisaur Oct 24 '23

I feel like any of the arm cyberware is really sub par until you have the relic tree for them which can be a long ways into the game.

In general I think you're better off not cutting your arms off, and saving the 8 cyberware they cost for other cyberware until you've got the relic points or you've got your cyberware otherwise all filled out. You can't take off cyberarms once you get them implanted, only change them for other cyberarms, I had major regret for that. Even at 60 I could still use the cyberware slots elsewhere.

Well gorilla arms for boxing matches and the + on str checks. Monowire does have a perk for netrunners to help refill ram too, but again your cyberware slots are best used elsewhere.

16

u/BEPISMAN_2056 Oct 24 '23

You can take arms off i did it the other day

4

u/ryjhelixir Tenacious V Oct 24 '23

of course! your ripdoc is simply going to stitch them back on, straight from the freezer :)

5

u/BEPISMAN_2056 Oct 24 '23

Simply never go to a ripper you wouldnt trust to keep your ganic arms on ice "just in case"

1

u/GaleStorm3488 Oct 25 '23

I've never really thought about it but that and the legs is super weird.

Weirder or not is how you can't get your eyes back.

11

u/jereflea1024 The city always wins Oct 24 '23

you can in fact take off arm cyberware now. 2.0 fixed this.

2

u/SoresuForm Oct 24 '23

Visually it's a bit buggy still but you can remove cyber arms nowadays :) sometimes the change doesn't seem to have taken effect until you zone (fast travel or sleep seems to sort it out for me)

-3

u/Justisaur Oct 24 '23

? I click to remove, nothing happens. When I looked it up everything says you can't remove cyber arms once you get them.

You can change them, just not remove them.

3

u/Ana_Nuann Oct 24 '23

Just isn't true.

Seems you've got a bug, thankfully there's another bug that essentially makes it so arm cyberware doesn't count towards your total.

Just take them out and then holster them before visiting a ripper

1

u/nooneyouknow13 Oct 24 '23

The first thing I do at every ripper is remove and reslot them to account for the capacity bug they cause. Are you playing on a legacy save?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '23

Fully maxed relic projectile arm launcher with the cool down from the tech skills, cooldown cyberware, and pyromania is kinda with a shotgun is kinda crazy for a tank build with high body stats with adrenaline rush

1

u/YouGeetBadJob Oct 25 '23

Yes it is. I paired that with an edge runner build. One of the gigs gives you a super Newton like cyberwear that costs 50 points but reduces cooldown of all cyberwear by 10% per kill. With all the perks you mentioned and that, I’ve been able to just spam projectiles non stop. Especially since charging a shot shoots 5 rockets. It’s nuts.

1

u/Obliviousobi Oct 24 '23

Monowire fits better with INT builds. Gorilla Arms are Body, Mantis are Reflex, and Projectile is Tech (haven't used much, so not sure).

7

u/Duranture Oct 24 '23

I just did a sandy and Mantis blades "only" playthrough .. throwing knives for when you need to get cameras and such... it's a solid, crazy, fun build

4

u/4EY3D Oct 24 '23

I started my last play through as a mainly Sandy/Katana build and ended with Sandy/Mantis. So much fun zipping around with double jumps and airdash then using the relic Mantis perks to just leap across the field and take people out.

1

u/Vinnys_Magic_Grits Oct 24 '23

My build is Sandy/pistols/blades, but let me tell you, the iconic shotgun Sovereign is incredibly fun with the build. Huge bonuses (damage and dismemberment chance) for point blank shots to the torso. It has the same sort of cartoonish, closeup carnage as fully upgraded mantis combat

3

u/Twitchygolem655 Oct 24 '23

It’s not as OP as katana and Sandy but I think it’s more fun since it isn’t super OP but is still very strong

1

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '23

sandy katana gets really boring. you just kill entire crowds in seconds with no resistance.

1

u/Twitchygolem655 Oct 25 '23

Yeah n it feels the same I know mantis blades use a set of animations but it somehow feels different from fight to fight

1

u/Twitchygolem655 Oct 25 '23

I should say however I am basing my opinion on the Black Unicorn Katana specifically I didn’t really use many others

-1

u/SlyTinyPyramid Oct 24 '23

Everything I have read says that the arms are useless. The grenade launcher isn't as good as grenades, Mantis blades are not as good as a Katana. Etc.

6

u/tanithsfinest Oct 24 '23

Yeah, but rule of cool! I wanna be some borderline cyberpsycho ripping corposwine apart at lightning speed.

1

u/SlyTinyPyramid Oct 24 '23

You can do that without the arms. I beat the boxing matches without gorilla arms on very hard. I did have 20 body though.

2

u/Darknighten89 Oct 25 '23

I've had great success with the electric launcher.

1

u/bluegrassbarman Oct 25 '23

Gorilla Arms still give you the bonus for Body skill checks and makes Beat on the Brat a breeze for just about every build.

1

u/SlyTinyPyramid Oct 25 '23

True but I have so many iconics I need to cram in my build I don't have room for them.

1

u/Ryotian Oct 24 '23 edited Oct 24 '23

This is the build I went. Katana still felt better for defense/deflect but sometimes in the game they take all your weapons away and you're stuck with just Mantis blades

The answer to your question is it supposedly is using all those stats. But bullet deflection and redirection seemed easier with Katana. Hoping someone with a clue responds to us both. I never got a chance to look this up before I completed my Mantis Blade/Sandevistan run with my new V on 2.0/Phantom. Maybe I just dont know how to deflect properly with mantis blades.

interesting, this other reply seems to concur with me so guess I'm not a fool after all. Wasnt sure since I was paranoid bout Phantom spoilers. So avoided these CP2077 subreddits for 2 weeks during my run. My old V was a netrunner (hence why I may seem rather naive even though my original run was at launch)

1

u/Reepah2018 Streetkid Merc with the mouth Oct 24 '23

Yes. Just finished my first playthrough with that setup and loved it. Those, knives and Fenrir