1.5 hit during my previous play-through (my third) and by then I was well into the end-game at level 50. That build was initially going to be a knife-throwing build but when I realised you lost the knives I decided against that (I know you can manage despite that but I dislike mid-battle inventory management so... no thanks). So I completed that V, did DFTR ending on Very Hard (first time I tried it, so it was a personal moment for me) and then promptly started my fourth V 
I think I am now officially an addict.
Now that 1.5 has improved knife throwing, I thought it was the perfect time to try it out and now I've done that I thought I'd share my thoughts on it. It's on Very Hard (kind of can't play any other difficulty now, it's the only one that feels challenging throughout). My intention was to build this V only using two knives, a katana (just because I love the katana, but I think a third knife would be entirely viable still so I may switch it up to that) and, for the first time, a mono-wire (originally because it scales off cool, but also because it now scales off reflexes and I've just never tried it before). I did try to force myself to only use these weapons throughout the early stages but did have to switch to a rifle early on for one particular organised crime spot because Very Hard and melee only is brutal for the first few levels, particularly when you do it how I have (focused on leveling up tech early). I think in total I've only used a ranged weapon that once (excluding one small spree where I used it for a few fights to get to assault level 3 and a +1 perk point).
But I have used the throwing knives 90% of the time, if not more. It has been challenging! But it's a ton of fun. I'm now level 18 and it's all just starting to "click". And I think this will be one of the most fun builds I've done so far, if not the most powerful.
So this is my build plan (bear in mind this site is not up to date with 1.5 so the perks aren't all correct, it's just a guide - in reality, you can get way more perk points than 84 anyway so this is mostly just to show the level distribution I've chosen).
(PS if anyone knows an excellent quality V builder that's up to date, please hit me up, chooms).
My current V looks like this:
Some of the items:
As I'm limiting myself to 15 tech, I won't be crafting any legendary stuff so that's all bought or found, except for the outter and inner tops, which you get for free from Vik early on - as of 1.5 these two items can be upgraded enough times that they "level up" in rarity as you go, which is awesome. This is the same for the Black Unicorn katana, which is just two upgrades away from being Legendary. But two legendary knives is more than enough to almost constantly be able to throw them (the higher the quality, the faster they return to you). And I love katanas so there.
The Quick access is camo, of course. This is very powerful when engaging larger groups that have seen you but it's also very useful for stealth missions (and missions where stealth nets you an optional extra). As I'm going to max out cool (for the first time), I'm going to be able to get quite a few nice things I never had before. The main one I'm looking forward to is using the pain editor. This build will be all about taking damage (you simply cannot avoid it a lot of the time when using melee weapons) and dealing it more, but using stealth initially wherever possible to thin the herd.
I've decided to go with Berserk for this build too. I honestly think any option here works and so I thought about this one for a while and weighed up my options:
1) Using quick hacks and deamons. I've had enough of using QHs in previous builds (used them in two) and I really don't enjoy the whole "pause the game to do stuff" game play that comes with this. This is a primary reason I'll probably never go "full netrunner".
2) Sandevistan: I already used Sandevistan in one build and it's super strong but... it just wound up with most fights sort of being done and dusted before Sandevistan ran out and it just felt dull in the end, almost zero challenge, particularly when followed up using camo.
So this time I'm trying berserk (I'll be using the Militech one eventually) and it's going to be much more brutal, no slow-downs and no "pause to kill" game play. Just fun, melee and throwing combat. That's the plan anyway.
So how has it gone?
First up, trying to get by with just throwing gray/green knives in stealth on Very Hard at level 2-5 is really hard Even head shots don't do enough damage to one-shot kill and so you're frequently needing to fight open battles. This forced me VERY EARLY ON (like the second NPCD scanner fight I had, the one on the bridge near to the roundabout island Dex drops you off at in his car) to think about where I'm engaging my opponents.
With ranged weapons and guns, you're often able to fire enough to pin your enemies and so just finding one solid cover point to duck behind is enough to last most battles. But the delay between using knives doesn't give you this at all, not early on. I was rushed quickly and frequently by NPCs and they took no more than 3 hits to kill me and so I needed to retreat or reposition myself often. This meant I had to think what was behind me when I engaged, not just in front of me; do I have easy egress? Do I have lots of cover behind me that I can fall back to?
Once I started asking myself these sorts of questions, I began to cope quite well. I dismissed stealth initially (no point, couldn't realiably one shot kill with knives) and so just threw my first two knives quickly then relocated whilst they "returned to me". Even now I do still plan ahead before fights and this definitely helps, although I can go in "all knives blazing" now in Watson and Japantown so it does get easier. Having good cover is essential and a lot of my earlier fights involved me ducking behind cover whilst my knives returned so I could pepper my opponents with them. It began to be quite fun at this point.
As soon as I was level 16 (the requirement) I bought two legendary knives. I can now one-shot level appropriate targets (helps that I have the +50% headshot damage Kiroshi mod!) and so I can implement stealth properly into most of my engagements. This has helped a lot. One thing I had to learn (and only really just got used to last night) was the best way to hit the head and do the most damage is to be reatively close (10m or so) and to aim just above the head, not directly at it. This results in a 100% headshot every time. You can get decent damage much further out, it's just harder to hit the head or get a critical hit.
But if I get a crit, my knives are deadly now. And it's so much fun to run into a fight, thwack, thwack, to kill two targets then sprint in to take another down the katana/mono before switching back to knives again.
I actually think the way CDPR fixed knives has been very well balanced as an initial pass. They are challenging early on but practice and patience really pays off. I cannot wait to push Cool up to max! The build will really come into its own then.
Hope you enjoyed reading about my build. If you have tried a throwing build since 1.5, please do share your thoughts/builds too!
I think I am now officially an addict.Now that 1.5 has improved knife throwing, I thought it was the perfect time to try it out and now I've done that I thought I'd share my thoughts on it. It's on Very Hard (kind of can't play any other difficulty now, it's the only one that feels challenging throughout). My intention was to build this V only using two knives, a katana (just because I love the katana, but I think a third knife would be entirely viable still so I may switch it up to that) and, for the first time, a mono-wire (originally because it scales off cool, but also because it now scales off reflexes and I've just never tried it before). I did try to force myself to only use these weapons throughout the early stages but did have to switch to a rifle early on for one particular organised crime spot because Very Hard and melee only is brutal for the first few levels, particularly when you do it how I have (focused on leveling up tech early). I think in total I've only used a ranged weapon that once (excluding one small spree where I used it for a few fights to get to assault level 3 and a +1 perk point).
But I have used the throwing knives 90% of the time, if not more. It has been challenging! But it's a ton of fun. I'm now level 18 and it's all just starting to "click". And I think this will be one of the most fun builds I've done so far, if not the most powerful.
So this is my build plan (bear in mind this site is not up to date with 1.5 so the perks aren't all correct, it's just a guide - in reality, you can get way more perk points than 84 anyway so this is mostly just to show the level distribution I've chosen).
(PS if anyone knows an excellent quality V builder that's up to date, please hit me up, chooms).
My current V looks like this:
Some of the items:
As I'm limiting myself to 15 tech, I won't be crafting any legendary stuff so that's all bought or found, except for the outter and inner tops, which you get for free from Vik early on - as of 1.5 these two items can be upgraded enough times that they "level up" in rarity as you go, which is awesome. This is the same for the Black Unicorn katana, which is just two upgrades away from being Legendary. But two legendary knives is more than enough to almost constantly be able to throw them (the higher the quality, the faster they return to you). And I love katanas so there.
The Quick access is camo, of course. This is very powerful when engaging larger groups that have seen you but it's also very useful for stealth missions (and missions where stealth nets you an optional extra). As I'm going to max out cool (for the first time), I'm going to be able to get quite a few nice things I never had before. The main one I'm looking forward to is using the pain editor. This build will be all about taking damage (you simply cannot avoid it a lot of the time when using melee weapons) and dealing it more, but using stealth initially wherever possible to thin the herd.
I've decided to go with Berserk for this build too. I honestly think any option here works and so I thought about this one for a while and weighed up my options:
1) Using quick hacks and deamons. I've had enough of using QHs in previous builds (used them in two) and I really don't enjoy the whole "pause the game to do stuff" game play that comes with this. This is a primary reason I'll probably never go "full netrunner".
2) Sandevistan: I already used Sandevistan in one build and it's super strong but... it just wound up with most fights sort of being done and dusted before Sandevistan ran out and it just felt dull in the end, almost zero challenge, particularly when followed up using camo.
So this time I'm trying berserk (I'll be using the Militech one eventually) and it's going to be much more brutal, no slow-downs and no "pause to kill" game play. Just fun, melee and throwing combat. That's the plan anyway.
So how has it gone?
First up, trying to get by with just throwing gray/green knives in stealth on Very Hard at level 2-5 is really hard
Even head shots don't do enough damage to one-shot kill and so you're frequently needing to fight open battles. This forced me VERY EARLY ON (like the second NPCD scanner fight I had, the one on the bridge near to the roundabout island Dex drops you off at in his car) to think about where I'm engaging my opponents.With ranged weapons and guns, you're often able to fire enough to pin your enemies and so just finding one solid cover point to duck behind is enough to last most battles. But the delay between using knives doesn't give you this at all, not early on. I was rushed quickly and frequently by NPCs and they took no more than 3 hits to kill me and so I needed to retreat or reposition myself often. This meant I had to think what was behind me when I engaged, not just in front of me; do I have easy egress? Do I have lots of cover behind me that I can fall back to?
Once I started asking myself these sorts of questions, I began to cope quite well. I dismissed stealth initially (no point, couldn't realiably one shot kill with knives) and so just threw my first two knives quickly then relocated whilst they "returned to me". Even now I do still plan ahead before fights and this definitely helps, although I can go in "all knives blazing" now in Watson and Japantown so it does get easier. Having good cover is essential and a lot of my earlier fights involved me ducking behind cover whilst my knives returned so I could pepper my opponents with them. It began to be quite fun at this point.
As soon as I was level 16 (the requirement) I bought two legendary knives. I can now one-shot level appropriate targets (helps that I have the +50% headshot damage Kiroshi mod!) and so I can implement stealth properly into most of my engagements. This has helped a lot. One thing I had to learn (and only really just got used to last night) was the best way to hit the head and do the most damage is to be reatively close (10m or so) and to aim just above the head, not directly at it. This results in a 100% headshot every time. You can get decent damage much further out, it's just harder to hit the head or get a critical hit.
But if I get a crit, my knives are deadly now. And it's so much fun to run into a fight, thwack, thwack, to kill two targets then sprint in to take another down the katana/mono before switching back to knives again.
I actually think the way CDPR fixed knives has been very well balanced as an initial pass. They are challenging early on but practice and patience really pays off. I cannot wait to push Cool up to max! The build will really come into its own then.
Hope you enjoyed reading about my build. If you have tried a throwing build since 1.5, please do share your thoughts/builds too!
Attachments
-
1645875837326.png
Last edited:
