HELP! Please explain cold blood.

[SpookyFX]

I thought eventually I would come to understand it but I am now level 30 and still have no clue. Why did CDPR make this so difficult to figure out how to play the game while you are in game?

-Rant ON -

Every game I have purchased in the last 20 years I ALSO purchase the game guides. This was the FIRST one I did not because I thought this forum and the in game tutorials would be all you need. Unfortunately many game articles and YouTube only regurgitate what I see in the game but do not actually explain it at all. I watch several youtubes on "complete guide to the hud and menus" and all it did was show me the in game menus. No explanation what the [!] icon meant that are all over the inventory menu.

I ask that question here (about the [!] ) and got several different answers so that shows it is not obvious. Eventually I did get the answer I think is the right one that the inventory item is part of a quest. Thanks again to the people that help he on that one.

-Rant OFF -

Anyways I will stop crying and moaning now and ask my actual questions:

I have been taking some of the perks but only the ones that seem to automatically work such as FROZEN PRECISION Increases headshot damage by 50%, no mystery there. But the ones like CRITICAL CONDITION Increases duration of Cold Blood by 5 / 10 seconds?

Um, WHAT!!!??

So is cold blood like a "magic spell pool" that you have to trigger and is depleted then must be regenerate before you can use it again?

1. If so where is the trigger for cool blood.
2. How do you know when cold blood is active?
3. Where is the meter for it to show me how much is used?

And what are stacks? I know STACKING is when you put one bonus on top of another. Sometimes that can be done other times stacks can be replaced by the new one you put on top of it such as eating and drinking. But I have a feeling this is not the same thing for Cold blood stacks, I wish they had used a different word for this.

 

[bumwhistler]

Cold blood activates on kill once first perk is chosen otherwise I think its stealth kill without xp wise.

Once its active each kill will add a stack you can get up to 6 stacks I think through perks.

There is also a perk so they drop off 1 by 1 rather than all when the time expires.

Only way to see it is by the Speed icon at the top next to health bar.

 

[DarthTrethon]

Cold Blood is triggered when you kill an enemy and stacks as you kill more in quick succession(within 10 seconds). You can see the counter for cold blood when it is active at the top of the screen to the right of your health bar. There is no meter for it and it has no limit beyond its duration time....for as long as the cold blood still has seconds ticking you have its benefits. Stacks are essentially how many ranks it can go up....if your cold blood has a max stack of two and you kill three enemies within 10 seconds of each other you cannot get Cold Blood level(stack) of 3, it will be capped at 2. Hopefully that clears it up a bit.

 

[eradmis]

Cold Blood is a timed buff. It is activated by killing or downing an enemy. When the timer runs out, the buff turns off. It is not "used up" like MP; it runs out. A stack is an instance of that buff. You can have multiple instances of the buff on your character at once and they "stack together" hence the term. Many perks in the Cold Blood perk tree increase the bonuses Cold Blood provides. It's analogous to a combo meter or bloodlust/berserk system from other games. Killing gives you bonuses to kill faster, but if you don't kill fast enough the combo breaks and you lose meter and with it your buff.

 

[EmpireMan]

Install Synaptic Accelerator as cyberwear, then every time the enemy spot you cold blood will be trigered. It is the best thing.

If you want Cold Blood "on trigger" install Sandevistan as OS. Then after pressing "E" Cold Blood will be activated.

 

[SpookyFX]

Install Synaptic Accelerator as cyberwear, then every time the enemy spot you cold blood will be trigered. It is the best thing.

If you want Cold Blood "on trigger" install Sandevistan as OS. Then after pressing "E" Cold Blood will be activated.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! That makes it so much more clear. Geeezz why did the game not just say that in the tutorials or something. Did I miss it someplace? How did you guys find this info?

Is E for this cold blood a button that can be rebind in the settings?

 

[eradmis]

How did you guys find this info?

The Cold Blood perk explains the Cold Blood mechanic.
"After defeating an enemy, gain Cold Blood for 10 sec. and increase movement speed by 2%. Stacks up to 1/2/3 time(s)."

The tree is honestly obtuse and works differently than every other so don't feel too bad.

 

[dstrelek]

Just a note regarding Sandevistan and Synaptic Accelerator. If you install both, make sure you let the Synaptic Accelerator run it's full course BEFORE activating the Sandevistan. If you don't, the Accelerator duration will end and chop off any remaining Sandevistan duration.

 

[bumwhistler]

TBH it took me a while to figure out.

 

[eradmis]

Just a note regarding Sandevistan and Synaptic Accelerator. If you install both, make sure you let the Synaptic Accelerator run it's full course BEFORE activating the Sandevistan. If you don't, the Accelerator duration will end and chop off any remaining Sandevistan duration.

Are you conflating slowed time with Cold Blood? Those aren't the same thing.

 

[Gen_Liu]

While I do agree that the game does a pretty poor job at explaining certain things and mechanics, Cold blood is ironically among the one that's very well explained on the description of the perk of the same name.

Cold blood - After defeating an enemy, gain Cold Blood for 10 seconds and increased movement speed by 2%. Stacks up to 1 time.

 

[eradmis]

While I do agree that the game does a pretty poor job at explaining certain things and mechanics, Cold blood is ironically among the one that's very well explained on the description of the perk of the same name.

Cold blood - After defeating an enemy, gain Cold Blood for 10 seconds and increased movement speed by 2%. Stacks up to 1 time.

I think the problem lies in it being the description of the "perk" despite it relating to the "skill", and also the perk not directly identifying it as a buff (and that it needs to be active to get experience for the Skill). I've seen several people confused by Cold Blood.

Another big issue is you can't even get a single stack without the perk. If you won't see it do anything, gain xp, or activate until you buy in and it's not clear what will do if you will buy in, a lot of players won't even touch it.

 

[BarefootWarrior]

Good information here from all. I couldn't figure this one out either so I avoided it. I primarily use stealth and my Satori katakana, so this is good to know. I'm playing as a Nomad.

Good post.

 

[Guest 4375874]

good answers so far. I played stealth/hacker and while I did understand cold blood I only used it early on and much less later. I think while it's under "Cool" it's more fitting for someone focused on melee and direct attacks not stealth because there's a high chance you'll want to go back in hiding after the first stealth kill and then the time runs out. I have ultimate hacks now so unless the enemies are close together I don't use cold blood that much.

 

[Gen_Liu]

I think the problem lies in it being the description of the "perk" despite it relating to the "skill", and also the perk not directly identifying it as a buff (and that it needs to be active to get experience for the Skill). I've seen several people confused by Cold Blood.

Another big issue is you can't even get a single stack without the perk. If you won't see it do anything, gain xp, or activate until you buy in and it's not clear what will do if you will buy in, a lot of players won't even touch it.

I think you're right, it was obvious to me because I checked the Perk but they should probably have made it clearer that the Skill and the Perk are...Well, basically the same thing.

About the fact you can't get a single stack without the Perk, I think the problem is the fact that the game doesn't mention it.
It makes sense that you need the Perk in order to benefit from Cold blood since it's meant to help players who want to focus more on Stealth (making them more competent in combat despite spending less perk and attribute points in other more combat oriented areas). If it was available to everybody by default, it would make combat oriented build OP (since they would benefit from every combat oriented attributes/skill/perks on top of receiving bonuses from Cold blood without having to spend any point in it).

It makes sense but again, they should have explained the whole deal with Cool and Cold blood better I guess. Not what it does but the fact that you need the Perk to benefit from it and other details of the same kind.

 

[VtheAstronaut]

It is such a weird perk. I can move 2% faster after it triggers but I can't really tell the difference. I feel like you have to get every Cold Blood perk maxed just to be able to feel that it's active.

 

[eradmis]

good answers so far. I played stealth/hacker and while I did understand cold blood I only used it early on and much less later. I think while it's under "Cool" it's more fitting for someone focused on melee and direct attacks not stealth because there's a high chance you'll want to go back in hiding after the first stealth kill and then the time runs out. I have ultimate hacks now so unless the enemies are close together I don't use cold blood that much.

I think the theme of the Cool stat is less "stealth" and more "discipline". Cool represents coolheadedness. The Stealth tree is how that lets you avoid making mistakes that would lead to detection or drawing attention to yourself. The Cold Blooded tree is how that lets you enter a flow state that makes you more effective in combat, turning you into a mechanical (no pun intended) killing machine.

Or to put this in more fantasy RPG terms, it's not uncommon to see a stat that does different things for different classes. A warrior might use Dex or Agi for attack speed or dodge chance while a thief uses it for sneak speed or for lockpicking success or even bow damage. Int might raise a warrior's SP and MDef, but is used for attacking by a mage. It's not very uncommon for stats to have different uses for different builds. Not everything needs to be Strength to hit hard unga bunga.

If it was available to everybody by default, it would make combat oriented build OP (since they would benefit from every combat oriented attributes/skill/perks on top of receiving bonuses from Cold blood without having to spend any point in it).

Unupgraded Cold Blood is just a mild movement speed buff. A single stack of that isn't unbalanced.

 

[Guest 4375874]

I think the theme of the Cool stat is less "stealth" and more "discipline". Cool represents coolheadedness. The Stealth tree is how that lets you avoid making mistakes that would lead to detection or drawing attention to yourself. The Cold Blooded tree is how that lets you enter a flow state that makes you more effective in combat, turning you into a mechanical (no pun intended) killing machine.

Or to put this in more fantasy RPG terms, it's not uncommon to see a stat that does different things for different classes. A warrior might use Dex or Agi for attack speed or dodge chance while a thief uses it for sneak speed or for lockpicking success or even bow damage. Int might raise a warrior's SP and MDef, but is used for attacking by a mage. It's not very uncommon for stats to have different uses for different builds. Not everything needs to be Strength to hit hard unga bunga.


Unupgraded Cold Blood is just a mild movement speed buff. A single stack of that isn't unbalanced.

True however the stat boost you get for Cool are mostly stealth related...and the other abilities that Cold Blood extends like armor boost or crit (I think) all encourage direct combat. That's kind of my point, it can be conflicting but I think it would work well for a pure melee stealth build. It definitely has applications, don't get me wrong, as I said I used it pretty early on. I just preferred hacking after a while. In my next play through as street kid I'll probably use it for melee.

 

[eradmis]

True however the stat boost you get for Cool are mostly stealth related.

• Increase Crit. Damage by 2%
• Increase all Resistances by 1%.
• Increase stealth damage by 10%.
• Reduce the speed at which enemies detect you in stealth by 0.5%
• Increase Monowire damage by 3.

That's 2 stealth related, 2 combat related, and 1 multipurpose.

 

[SpookyFX]

I wish there had been more perks for dedicated snipers. I mean there is DEDICATED ammo for sniper riffles (they do not use the riffle ammo) so they should not share the riffle perks. But this game seems to not really be designed well for snipers.

The scopes are very limited, you get 6x (or is it 8x?) just with your scanner eyes but only 3x for scopes? And looking with your eye scanner maxed out you see that all the people and cars are actually only 2D Sprites not real targets.

You cannot shoot the flying cars and the shipping drones AND there are no birds in the world like in almost all other AAA open world games.

If it had been designed more for snipers I could think of some great coldblood perks that could be used.