In the near future of Cyberpunk 2077, technology has leveled the playing field between guns and swords. While firearms are still the default defensive armament for nearly every Night City citizen, some noble mercenaries harken back to a simpler time--a time of blade and steel rather than gunpowder and chrome. Those mercs are called street samurai.

It takes deep knowledge to learn how to defeat modern weaponry using tools developed centuries ago. True, all these builds will make use of cutting-edge chrome, but the actual cutting will be performed by weapons as old as time. Read on to discover the best melee builds of Cyberpunk 2077.

Updated October 23, 2023, by Sean Murray: Since Cyberpunk has received its 2.0 update with the release of Phantom Liberty, we’ve updated this guide to account for the all-new perk trees and equipment.

These builds are all possible without the Phantom Liberty DLC, but there will be notes for how each build can be expanded if you have the DLC installed.

Blunt Gorilla

Sadly, V can never quite gain the mass of a true Animal. However, he can still feel like an enormous tank by investing heavily in his body and his cyberware.

The two main attributes in the Blunt Gorilla build are Body and Technical Ability. On the Body side, you’ve got every perk that helps with your health regeneration, the Adrenaline Rush perks, and anything that boosts blunt weapons. On the Tech side, you’ve got every perk that boosts your cyberware and every perk that boosts your healing and grenade items.

Although the point of the build is to charge in to either start throwing fists or swinging your hammer, you’ve got many grenades that can provide quite a bit of utility. Consider tossing a flash, smoke, or EMP grenade before you charge into combat like an angry gorilla.

Throw on a Blood Pump and a Biomonitor to automatically heal yourself while you focus on racking up a body count. The combination of health regen perks, maximum Tech attributes for high armor via cyberware, and your Tech-improved health items, makes you almost impossible to kill except in the case of overwhelming firepower.

With Phantom Liberty installed, you could throw in some attribute points into Reflex to get more frequent critical hits and better air dashes, or you can unlock more of the Cool tree to be a somewhat sneaky tank. Your Relic perks should certainly be Jailbreak followed by Limiter Removal.

Key Cyberware

• Blood Pump
• Biomonitor
• Militech Berserk
• Gorilla Arms
• Cellular Adapter
• Dense Marrow
• Proxishield
• Jenkins’ Tendons
• Newton Module
• Microrotors

Recommended Weapons

• Gold-Plated Baseball Bat
• Sir John Phallustiff
• Sasquatch's Hammer
• Caretaker's Spade

Street Samurai

The Street Samurai and the Gorilla have a lot in common, but one uses bladed weapons instead of hammers and fists.

Just as with the Gorilla, the idea is to charge into battle with your sword drawn, using forward dashes to close the gap quickly. The big difference is your blade can fully mitigate the damage of incoming bullets thanks to Bullet Deflect and Lead and Steel, meaning you're slightly less reliant on health regeneration to keep you alive.

You still have plenty of health regeneration, though. With 15 points into Technical Ability, you've got access to all the same health item-enhancing perks as the Blunt Gorilla build.

Maximum Body provides all the Adrenaline Rush perks, maximum Reflexes ensures maximum mobility through dash and blade finishers, and most of the points in Tech ensures plenty of armor through cyberware. You've got just enough Cool to be a little sneaky when the situation calls for it.

Unlike the Blunt Gorilla, we're going with a Sandevistan for the Street Samurai build. Although you don't get quite the same damage boost, being able to slice and dice several enemies before they can even respond fits the idea of a hypermobile sword-wielder, but feel free to swap the Sandy for a Berserk if you prefer.

With Phantom Liberty installed, you should definitely max out your Technical Ability for access to EMP and Edgerunner, and then put the rest into Cool for better critical damage and the Ninjitsu perks. Vulnerability Analytics and Machine Learning will be your preferred Relic perks.

Key Cyberware

• Blood Pump
• Biomonitor
• Militech "Apogee" Sandevistan
• Cellular Adapter
• Proxishield
• Dense Marrow
• Stabber
• Jenkins’ Tendons
• Newton Module
• Microrotors

Recommended Weapons

• Satori
• Scalpel
• Tsumetogi
• Byakko
• Thermal Katana

Monowire Hacker

Perhaps the most uniquely focused of the melee builds, the Monowire Hacker is a sneaky netrunner that eschews guns in favor of the deadly silence of the monowire cyberarm.

Intelligence is your highest attribute in order to unlock all the hacker perks as well as the Siphon perk, which retrieves RAM whenever you slice up an enemy with your monowire. A healthy distribution in Reflex, Tech, and Cool provides dash perks, cyberware perks, and sneaky perks, respectively, making this build quick, silent, and deadly.

You'll generally want to avoid open combat with this build as much as possible. With little in Body and few of the Tech tree's health item perks, you're far more fragile than the other builds on this list. Stick to the shadows, hack enemies from cover, and only dive in once your quickhacks have mostly done the job of disabling enemies for you.

Make liberal use of the Optical Camo cyberware to keep yourself hidden for as long as possible.

With the Phantom Liberty DLC, maxing out your Technical Ability can provide you with access to the Edgerunner perk and more of the Tech tree's healing perks. The Relic's Jailbreak and Data Tunneling perks should be your first picks.

Key Cyberware

• Monowire
• Ex-Disk
• Arasaka Shadow Cyberdeck
• Optical Camo
• Adrenaline Converter

Recommended Weapons

• Monowire

Poison Ninja

Throwing weapons were terrible in Cyber Punk 2077 1.0, but in 2.0, they’re a force to be reckoned with. The Poison Ninja combines the potency of these throwing weapons with stealth and cyberware to become the perfect assassin.

Cool will be the first attribute you'll want to max out for all the enhancements to your thrown weapons and the Ninjitsu perks, which will make you incredibly hard to detect. The Body tree provides the Adrenaline Rush perks, Tech provides cyberware and item enhancements, and Reflexes provides the all-important dash.

Your standard operating procedure will be to sneak around picking off enemies with a well-thrown knife to the head. When you're spotted, activate your Sandevistan and line up knife/axe headshots until your Sandy runs out. By then, everyone should be dead. If they're not, just keep throwing knives.

Don't forget you can also throw grenades when you don't want to be stealthy. Grenades are a great way of killing grouped-up enemies so long as you don't mind a little noise.

You'll want to focus on knives as your preferred thrown weapon as they have shorter return times and better headshot multipliers. That said, the Agaou axe from the Phantom Liberty DLC has an AOE that is almost like throwing grenades constantly.

If you have the Phantom Liberty DLC, pick up that Agaou alongside more attributes in Tech and Body to max out your toughness and unlock the capstone perks found in both trees. You'll also want the Vulnerability Analytics and Machine Learning Relic perks as they provide a useful alternative to silent headshots.

Key Cyberware

• Handle Wrap
• Militech "Apogee" Sandevistan
• Stabber
• Newton Module
• Optical Camo
• Biomonitor
• Blood Pump

Recommended Weapons

• Headhunter
• Stinger
• Blue Fang
• Agaou

Next: Cyberpunk 2077: Complete Guide And Walkthrough