Is crafting (level 20 INT / TECH) worth it?

[Fredasa]

I've been trying to get a straight answer to this for the last several hours. I'm at a crossroads and need to figure out whether to continue investing in INT / TECH (whose further perk upgrades aren't of much interest to me) or dismiss them as pointless.

It all depends on one simple consideration: Are the things I can create at level 20, INT or TECH, in some way unique to the crafting ability? Meaning, specifically, are there things I can only get through crafting? I can partially see the answer already: You can get a 5% bonus to crafted armor, or, like, 5% more damage, or something like that. Obviously that's not really doing much for me, or I wouldn't be here asking. Are there things that you can only craft? Or is basically everything available for grabs somewhere in the game world, through static loot or random drops?

Obviously what I'm hoping for here is that crafting gives you access to things that can only be had through crafting. Something significant. My suspicion doesn't lean that way. But anyway, that's my question.

Since I'm still playing the game un-spoiled, I'm not really looking for specific examples here. All this is is me trying to avoid potentially wasting the next 20-30 hours on something potentially useless.

 

[brago90]

Several iconic weapons have to be crafted and some of them are crafted as legendary weapons.
All iconic weapons (and iconic clothing) can be upgraded to higher rarity through crafting, and increasing crafting experience unlocks recipes including legendary weapons and clothing.
Intelligence, on the other hand, has 2 strong points to highlight, the first is obviously netrunning and the second is the implants that improve critical probability and critical damage.

 

[flippimonkey]

Gosh that's a good question.

Eventually, like most of this game, yes. For now it is only really for the mods, if you want to level up Johnny's clothes and Legendary weapons. The mods will make combat a snap and even though they start out basic as you level and put points into Crafting perks they have a chance to be of higher rarity (tier). Also if you are disassembling a lot you can make consumables. So you will always have the best meds and grenades.

You can find some recipes at shops. Others are discovered from boss fights and exploration. Other than that it gets tedious and unnecessary later in the tree.

Goodluck!

 

[Hexipoo]

Crafting is the only way to upgrade Iconic items. I would take 18 crafting, at least, for any character. You also get Tech perks and some Tech weapons are absolute monsters. My Comrades hammer at 47 crits for over 800k. That's a pistol that shoots through walls.

Here is build advice from someone with 180h played. Cool and Tech to 20, then pick Body, Reflex or Int depending on what you want to play with.

 

[drkstorm1]

Don't know the answer personally. On pc anyway the game has a save bug related to file size. Apparently crafting will inflate your save file size and potentially frag your save files. once they get above a certain size.

 

[Starchs]

I know you need Technical if you want to play the stealth build because it will give alternative and offend quieter routes

 

[Hudatyebam]

Don't know the answer personally. On pc anyway the game has a save bug related to file size. Apparently crafting will inflate your save file size and potentially frag your save files. once they get above a certain size.

I've read this as well but I'm not sure what the people that have had this happen have been doing as I have every iconic weapon in my stash along with around 50 clothing items, I've crafted loads of guns, mostly the iconics up to legendary and I craft 30 mods at a time to get the higher tier ones then delete the lower tiers and I've done this ALOT, 100's of epic medpacks and grenades to disassemble for parts, I'm close to finishing the game, just running the last quests with Johnny and finishing off side quests and my save file is at 5.87MB (it bugs at 8MB supposedly) so no idea how they have managed to get their save files so big unless they are maybe duping items so unless you're intending spending hours crafting 1000's of items to sell or something I wouldn't worry too much.

 

[cerberusdest]

Here is build advice from someone with 180h played. Cool and Tech to 20, then pick Body, Reflex or Int depending on what you want to play with.

why is Cool so good? I did 1 playthrough with 0 investment in cool, wondering what kind of benefits it offers

 

[Fredasa]

implants that improve critical probability and critical damage.

I used to think crit chance would be a big deal in this game, like it is in Fallout. But after I found two pieces of armor on the same dead hobo, both of which had a +15% crit chance mod, I realized that getting/maintaining 100% crit chance will be trivially easy (90%+ from clothing alone), and it's probably more sensible to focus on other damage boost options.

 

[Hudatyebam]

I used to think crit chance would be a big deal in this game, like it is in Fallout. But after I found two pieces of armor on the same dead hobo, both of which had a +15% crit chance mod, I realized that getting/maintaining 100% crit chance will be trivially easy (90%+ from clothing alone), and it's probably more sensible to focus on other damage boost options.

Crit mods don't stack on clothing but there's plenty of perks for it, mods for weapons and some weapons have it built in so still easy enough to get high crit.

 

[Fredasa]

Crit mods don't stack on clothing

Huh. Can I get clarification on this? In the example I mentioned before, I found a jacket and sunglasses. They had +15% crit chance each. My assumption is that this netted me +30% crit chance. I'm unsure whether to interpret what you're saying as: "You only get one crit mod across your entire wardrobe, whichever happens to be the best." If that's how it works, I'd love to know how that was figured out, since there are no tutorials for this sort of thing, nor is there a way to see your character's current crit chance (that I know of).

 

[Hudatyebam]

Cl

Huh. Can I get clarification on this? In the example I mentioned before, I found a jacket and sunglasses. They had +15% crit chance each. My assumption is that this netted me +30% crit chance. I'm unsure whether to interpret what you're saying as: "You only get one crit mod across your entire wardrobe, whichever happens to be the best." If that's how it works, I'd love to know how that was figured out, since there are no tutorials for this sort of thing, nor is there a way to see your character's current crit chance (that I know of).

Click stats on inventory page, few posts floating round here on clothing mods and how a lot of them don't stack or are completely broken. Also when you remove the item with the extra crit mod it actually removes the one you still have equipped from your stats until you unequip and equip the item again, dunno if this is intentional to stop crit stacking or a bug and doubt we'll get confirmation from CDPR in the near future.

 

[SakariFoxx]

In the games current balance state, tech is almost mandetory.

 

[Hexipoo]

why is Cool so good? I did 1 playthrough with 0 investment in cool, wondering what kind of benefits it offers

+100% headshot damage, 50% crit chance, 150% all attack speeds, 45% dmg resist, immunity to all statuses, 100% armor and some other minor bonuses.

No, not good at all.

 

[JC_Denton_86]

Unless Tech is part of the build you're going for, it isn't that important until late game.

But imo, Tech is mandatory eventually. You need it to upgrade the best gear.

Currently I'm going for a Int, Ref and Cool build. Tech is my dump stat, but I know I'll be investing heavily into it later.

The one stat that seems kinda pointless to me is strength. I can see going for a Str over Ref build, but so far I've only felt underpowered in the Beat On The Brat questline, due to lack of Str. I've never really needed it otherwise.