Technical Ability kind of "eh"

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Madae

Forum veteran
This still seems kind of mediocre. A lot of situations where you can force open a door you don't get the option to use technical ability instead, which seems weird. The perk tree itself is not that great, I don't find grenades all that useful to spec in (and pretty situational since you need to watch friendly fire on civilians or nearby vending machines), and the crafting stuff is ridiculously expensive, which fits more of a late game character. Holding on to a favorite weapon and upgrading it along the way just becomes more and more expensive with not a whole lot of gains, especially when the next guy you kill probably has an even better weapon by default. The extra dialogue options, so far, serve no function to convince people, it's just extra flavor text... maybe there are some situations throughout the game that I don't remember, but with everything else, it just isn't worth investing in for that.
 
Matter of taste I suppose, because since almost day one and during all my playthrough, I always go to level 18 in Tech.
Some doors locked by tech skill can hide cool stuff... who know.
During dialogues, Tech is not really useful, but we can say the same for other skills...
And for weapons, I'm not sure that any enemy can randomly drop "better" than legendary (fully upgraded) Overwatch, WidowMaker, Psalm 11:6, Prototype Mark V, Skippy, Crash, Archangel, Satori or Black Unicorn... but hey, it's not required to own and use the "most OP" weapons in the game.

In my opinion, even if I don't use often Tech weapons and almost never grenades, Tech skill is useful, but everyone play as he want :)
 
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Tech wepons are probably the most op tbh. with a ping you can clear a building without ever beeing in danger. Speccing into tech wepons makes it even more OP. Tho i get your point, think it was supposed too make use of the spider bot long before release but it ended up beeing too similar too netrunner (CDPRs words, not mine). That said i generaly go 18 point in too on every character since i like too craft myself some great legendary gear and its pretty much the only way too keep gear relevant.

Kinda wish sometimes you could craft without speccing into it but i guess that was whats left after they stoped the techie development.
 
Every single serious minmax guide was done with technical at 18 or 20. You can't access the best weapons otherwise. In fact, the opposite should be the topic. Why did they make maxing tech a must?
 
My issue with the tech skill tree is that it's kinda all or nothing. From a build making standpoint, I can go anything from 3-20 in all the other trees to synergize with the other trees. While the tech tree has always seemed very much as a case of "either you dump it completely or max it out". Having made lots of builds I have never managed to make a decent one, even only for RP, where for example going 8, 10, 12, 14 tech is worth it.

IMO I think the tech skill tree - unlike the others - should have had some of the current end-game perks in the middle. Like 12 tech to craft legendaries. This would make it harder instead of easier to make builds which is good, and would help make the tech skill tree less of a all or nothing skill tree.
 
I always think that talking about min-maxing in Cyberpunk (and any game without a multiplayer component) kind of beats the purpose of roleplaying. I played as a hacker with intelligence, body and cool on 20 and never needed a weapon besides blunt melee.
The game isn't proportionally more fun when the "numbers go up" – but that's just my opinion.
 
Every single serious minmax guide was done with technical at 18 or 20. You can't access the best weapons otherwise. In fact, the opposite should be the topic. Why did they make maxing tech a must?
Seems a bit of an oversight for there not to be vendors who can craft stuff for V, you provide the materials, crafting spec and eddies, and you get to put those stat points somewhere else.
 
Tech wepons are probably the most op tbh. with a ping you can clear a building without ever beeing in danger.

All you need is Buzzsaw as it has the piercing effect without even the need to charge shots.

Tech is mostly usefull to craft legendary stuff while tech tree is questionable in value. Same as reflexes it's not really needed to perform well with given weapon type or use alternatives.

If CDPR wants to change more like with evasion they could look into archetype/weapon specific perks - like say Burya requires 10 body now while weapon "lore" mentions even need for cyberware to not loose an arm when using it. Body could have some perks or reflexes gun tree could have body unlocked perks related to Burya.

Same could happen with other unique weapons for tech or other attributes. Few generic perks of like increasing elemental effects of weapons and then specialized for Satara, Achilles and alike, maybe even previously junk SOR. Smart weapons could be a mix of Tech + Int and int could also handle full offensive netrunner build vs netrunning as support to other build.
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Every single serious minmax guide was done with technical at 18 or 20. You can't access the best weapons otherwise. In fact, the opposite should be the topic. Why did they make maxing tech a must?

Same with cool - cold blood is always useful, although after nerfing crit chance it's less obvious go-to. Reflexes aren't really needed for guns, body at best is needed to open doors, but now gorilla arms provide bonus for that. Tech, int and then cool as the most impactful that actually gate performance/power level/things. 1.5 did made clothing self crafting less important though.
 
I'm not saying Tech is useless, just to be clear. Crafting is clearly useful, but not something worth choosing early on, I think, mostly because of the aforementioned problems. A good start, imo, is just to distribute the tech skill to all the doors that have force open, and vice versa.

the crafting stuff is ridiculously expensive, which fits more of a late game character.
And maybe it's just that it's so passive. My first character was a glass cannon samurai jumping bean with fashion over function in mind, and I had a blast playing stealthy that way. Everything I kind of wish I can do I'm sacrificing for passive crafting stuff that is no doubt powerful in the end, but it's a lot of build up that leaves the game rather boring in my mind. It's the "min-max" playstyle of "waiting until the end" to see real gains. So, mediocre, OP, whatever, it's probably just the way the tree was designed, like people said.
 
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Do tech weapons scale by tech ability perks and the category they belong to (shotgun, rifle, etc.)? Or only from tech perks? If this is the case, then the possibilities of boosting damage of any energy weapon are much higher. Plus, the tech ability slightly increases the effectiveness of the armor. But I agree, the Edgerunner Artisan perk requirements can be lowered a bit. Iron like Satori or Crash get huge damage boost from incresing its rarity. Cuz its raise non % damage.I would say they need this perk(legendary craft) more than other weapons.
 
I'm not saying Tech is useless, just to be clear. Crafting is clearly useful, but not something worth choosing early on, I think, mostly because of the aforementioned problems.
You need 5 tech to craft up to blue stuff, 9 to unlock some more crafts (blue knives if you want to throw some). Pre 1.5 you could get Armadillo early on and make your gear god-tier with armor. 1.5 nerfed mod slots count and made Armadillo pattern harder to get so the question is what's good left there? Blue Buzzsaw is also 5 tech. Sovereign would be epic at 12 but can be easily replaced with Testera - like there are singular items which makes it also prone to being dead on any balancing patch. Mass crafting legendary gear is handy but if you want good look then you are either force to pick up world legendaries or force refresh stores - and with mod slot changes you don't always have to go legendary for best value or 99% of it.

Do tech weapons scale by tech ability perks and the category they belong to (shotgun, rifle, etc.)? Or only from tech perks?

Tech weapons use their weapon type perks and if they have charge mechanic - from tech charge perks. Tech perks like ignoring armor were broken pre-1.5 and not sure how it's now but it's still questionable. From charge based weapons you have Satara, Omaha and Achilles type weapons. Nekomata if you want a sniper riffle that shakes. There are tech weapons that do not charge as well like Burya. And those charging weapons benefit way more from their weapon type perks than tech perks. Plus Buzzsaw exist which makes charge weapons semi-obsolete.

Also note that weapon damage has any meaning if you are fighting things on your but more likely above your level. It's quite easy to overlevel content and then your damage will overkill anyway. And if you are fighting something above your level you want CC and not pure damage if you aren't anywhere near overkill damage.
 
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Tech weapons use their weapon type perks and if they have charge mechanic - from tech charge perks. Tech perks like ignoring armor were broken pre-1.5 and not sure how it's now but it's still questionable
As i thought , this iron is crazy. But i still prefer power weapon like Crash , Malorian. Love heavy handgun and sword\dagger type of weapon. Good thing u can make op build with everything u want. It's kinda fun. And i do really hope they add some insane bosses in future expansions with interesting mechanics.
 
Good thing u can make op build with everything u want. It's kinda fun. And i do really hope they add some insane bosses in future expansions with interesting mechanics.
They should focus on that - enabling diverse builds. Everything is overpowered in the end but that's the point in a single player game.
 
I personally always go for 18 in TECH just so I could decorate my weapon wall with those craftable guns. That's it. Feel wrong keeping it empty.
 
I thought all of this on my first playthrough so didn't put a point into it but then on my second I decided to try crafting out and I was interested to see how much easier the game was given so many doors can be opened by tech, and so maxed it to 20.

I now cannot build a V without at least 14 tech (prefered 16 tech due to the hugely valuable Waste Not Want Not perk). The argument that crafting "costs a lot" is null given 14 tech grants you infinite eddies (once you've got the cost cutting perks, crafting and selling even epic pistols will earn a profit even if you buy the components directly from the same vendor). It's understandable that players might think crafting is really expensive because it starts out prohibitively expensive and only becomes cheaper when you invest a good chunk of points into the tree. By the time you're at level 14 tech, with all the right perks (achievable by level 15-18 on Very Hard, realistically speaking), crafting stuff is very, very cheap. Actually, a lot of the time, it's FREE.

But by the time you're level 18 or so, all of that difficulty starts to drop away (doing level appropriate content, of course). And that's because I've got a full set of legendary gear (minus the hat which is still epic, because CDPR decided hats would be ultra difficult to obtain) that's currently upgraded to level 18 and no limitation on eddies (I just make more if I need more). And the best thing about leveling up tech is that I can easily maintain the gear I have by upgrading it once every single level until I'm 50. And that's really cheap now (again, sometimes it is FREE).

The whole doors thing is almost pointless anyway in my opinion. I can count on one hand the number of times this is a huge time-saver...

The Riders of the Storm mission is the most hilarious example of this; all that planning with the drone and you can complete it using tech in about 30 seconds :D

... but then I always, always return to the location after completing a mission, where possible, to kill everything anyway because if you don't you miss out on tons of experience and tons of loot. But it's still nice to have the option (and of course it's essential for getting +1 perks by leveling it up).

As a "main weapon choice" it's mostly useless unless you go for a tech main weapon, in which case it's perfect. And you can build a Very Hard Don't Fear the Reaper build based solely on one tech weapon if you like (I can confirm this as I just recently tried this mission for the first time and beat it in one go on Very Hard using just a single weapon - the Widowmaker maxed out on the tech tree). Obviously you also need Reflexes as well and so it's sort of limited in that sense.

Tech isn't essential. I beat the game without it. But it does bypass a lot of things that will otherwise slow you down a ton (making eddies, getting good gear). And I'd argue that it's almost impossible to find a decent legendrary head item with a slot in it without tech 18 (the one in Delamain appears to now be gone and I believe the others "in the world" don't have a slot). But it's not an "end game" thing. Building a V around the tech tree can net you benefits as early as Act 1. I just tried it (I crafted green, then blue items and upgraded them to get me through the early game on Very Hard instead of relying on the trashy gray drops you will tend to see at this stage). And this build I've restricted myself to tech 15 (I really wanted to try a max Cool knife throwing build and I'm glad I did, it's so much fun). So I don't even get the most powerful single perk you get from the tech tree at level 16: Waste Not Want Not.

The last two plays I completed with used that perk. It's huge; You never lose a single slotted mod when you dismantle any item at all throughout the play-through, once you reach tech 16. My current play-through, I can definitely feel I'm missing that! So if you push to tech 18 you get that and the ability to craft some very powerful legendary mods too (and slot them into legendary items). I personally don't think the crafted item bonuses are worth it if you want to make a build that prevents you hitting tech 18, so I'd personally be happy to sacrifice that (you can fill most legendary slots without crafting them). But I'd be hard pressed to flat out ignore the tech tree now.

Yet... you can. And the game is still fun. But I imagine it'll take sooo long to get everything you really want by mission and LCPD markers alone. And you'd need to watch what you spend too. With tech, eddies become irrelevant. And that's a bottleneck I'm happy to spend 11 levels to avoid entirely. But this long post wasn't aimed to persuade anyone to try the tech tree, rather to suggest that it's way more powerful than you might initially think (and it does seem a poor choice until you do actually invest points into it and then use it).

If you play Normal difficulty (or maybe even Hard, never tried that one) then I don't think any one tree is "essential". But I'd argue that running Very Hard (and absolutely if you wish to attempt the Don't Fear The Reaper mission without dying) would demand a very good set of gear and the easiest way to get that (and the only way to absolutely max it out to the statistical best) is a high tech tree.
 
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Yet... you can. And the game is still fun. But I imagine it'll take sooo long to get everything you really want by mission and LCPD markers alone. And you'd need to watch what you spend too. With tech, eddies become irrelevant. And that's a bottleneck I'm happy to spend 11 levels to avoid entirely. But this long post wasn't aimed to persuade anyone to try the tech tree, rather to suggest that it's way more powerful than you might initially think (and it does seem a poor choice until you do actually invest points into it and then use it).

If you play Normal difficulty (or maybe even Hard, never tried that one) then I don't think any one tree is "essential". But I'd argue that running Very Hard (and absolutely if you wish to attempt the Don't Fear The Reaper mission without dying) would demand a very good set of gear and the easiest way to get that (and the only way to absolutely max it out to the statistical best) is a high tech tree.
This was very good summary of certain approach and something I must return later, but for now:

Actually no. I'm playing on Normal difficulty and have Tech 7. So far things have worked though there has been some annoyances, like difficulty to find Epic / Purple pants with a mods slot, this is due certain clothing mod that is only available as Epic and very convenient during certain thing with Delamain.

Other annoyance is Overwatch that is too expensive to keep upgrading which is an issue because it's only suppressed sniper rifle in game. Otherwise, for Body focused builds there are good stuff around.

For clothing, there are head wear available in world and shops with mod slots also Epic and Legendary ones with two slots for shirts and jackets at least.
 
I always think that talking about min-maxing in Cyberpunk (and any game without a multiplayer component) kind of beats the purpose of roleplaying. I played as a hacker with intelligence, body and cool on 20 and never needed a weapon besides blunt melee.
The game isn't proportionally more fun when the "numbers go up" – but that's just my opinion.
I find this assessment amusing, although I don't disagree. That's because the term "min/maxing" referring to a game character actually got started in the tabletop/pen & paper RPG scene.
 
honestly i was thinking about this the other day, doors that have a restriction on them should be able to be opened with tech or body. the idea that "you cant open this door no matter how strong you are" just seems silly and the same for tech. i could see if doors had different levels of being hack proof or strength proof, but not entirely immune.
 
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