There are a number of excellent build strategies one can employ in Cyberpunk 2077, ranging from the subtle trickery of a netrunner to the highly unsubtle swordplay of a street samurai. But all these complex builds fall down in the face of the sniper’s simplicity. One shot. One kill.

In the near future of 2077, sniper rifles have improved by an order of magnitude. They shoot further, hit harder, and some even provide their bullets with tiny gyrostabilizers so they never miss a cranium. And while you can certainly still snipe from afar, Cyberpunk’s 2.0 update has provided entirely new perk trees that add a certain variety to sniping that didn’t exist at the game’s launch. Read on to discover the best sniper builds in Cyberpunk 2077.

Updated October 20, 2023, by Sean Murray: With the release of its 2.0 update and the Phantom Liberty DLC, Cyberpunk 2077 has all-new perks, weapons, and equipment to make new sniper builds possible. We've updated this guide with a few new sniper builds so you can plink your way to success in Night City.

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.

Classic Sniper Build

The Classic Sniper build is what you’d typically think of when you think of a sniper: a sneaky, shadowy figure firing from cover at great distances as they pick off targets one by one.

Your primary perk tree is the Cool perks, which enhance sniper and precision rifles as well as provide improvements to your stealth abilities. Optical camo and distance will keep you concealed, while the Ninjitsu perks will get you from cover to cover quickly. When you are spotted, the Reflex tree's Dash perks will turn you into a hard-to-hit airborne threat or take you out of combat entirely.

Because these perks also enhance pistols and revolvers, feel free to swap to one of these weapons when you don't require the long-range stopping power of a sniper or precision rifle.

You've got just enough Intelligence to be a decent hacker, with a few quickhacks coming in really handy (Ping certainly comes to mind). The Tech tree also unlocks some powerful cyberware that will enhance your sniping skills with some highly-buffed stats.

Sniper rifles aren't the sneakiest weapons, but the Overwatch rifle comes with a built-in silencer that really sets this build apart. Be sure to complete Panam's questline to the point of acquiring the Overwatch.

If you have the Phantom Liberty DLC installed, you can improve your Intelligence to be an even better hacker, or increase your Technical Ability to unlock the Edgerunner perk, or have better grenades and healing items.

For every one of these sniper builds, you should unlock the Vulnerability Analytics Relic perk first. This provides an even better alternative to headshots as it can potentially damage nearby enemies as well.

Key Cyberware

• Ballistic Coprocessor
• Shock Absorber
• Visual Cortex Support
• Kerenzikov
• Clutch Padding
• Optical Camo
• Rangeguard

Recommended Weapons

• Overwatch
• O’Five

Hacker Sniper

Sniping and hacking go hand in hand. You pop people's heads from afar, and when your clip runneth dry, you hack them to death.

Naturally, your highest attributes are Intelligence and Cool. Cool provides the necessary sniper rifle-enhancing perks, while Intelligence unlocks all the quickhack perks and some of the smart gun perks too.

There's really only one smart sniper rifle, the Ashura, and its slightly upgraded iconic variant, Yasha. However, these rifles can only fire one bullet at a time, making some of the smart gun perks that improve multi-target locking useless.

With so few smart snipers available and with limited capabilities, you'll naturally gravitate to one of the tech or power sniper rifles. That's fine, and quickhacks can certainly make up the difference in your capabilities, but feel free to use smart pistols to round out your offensive prowess. Your Cool perks work equally well with sniper rifles as they do with pistols.

With nines in the rest of your attributes, the Renaissance Punk provides ample cyberware capacity to pack a potent cyberdeck alongside some decent upgrades. Reflexes provide enough to dash, and you've got some sneaking perks where gigs call for stealth.

With Phantom Liberty installed, you can definitely fill in the rest of the Tech tree to get better cyberware, or you could keep going down the Reflex tree for better dashing and improved critical chance.

Key Cyberware

• Memory Boost
• Smart Link
• Araska Shadow Cyberdeck
• Kerenzikov
• Visual Cortex Support

Recommended Weapons

• Ashura
• Yasha
• O'Five
• Overwatch
• Skippy

Bolt Sniper

Sniping is typically a defensive strategy, staying hidden and out of sight to pick off targets one by one. The Bolt Sniper says nuts to that and says yes to an extreme offensive strategy while maintaining the capacity for stealth should the player so choose.

As usual, Cool is your main attribute with all the unlocked sniper and sneaking perks. Second is the Technical Ability perks, with the center and far right trees mostly unlocked. This provides impressive cyberware upgrades as well as the Bolt and Chain Lightning perks for your tech sniper rifle and precision rifles.

With Chain Lightning, you're capable of eliminating groups of enemies with a single well-placed shot.

Body has enough to unlock the Adrenaline Rush perks, which when combined with the healing item upgrade perks of the Tech tree, provide impressive survivability. While the opening stages of each engagement will likely start from cover, you'll eventually dash to find better sight lines that quickly allow you to pick off enemies with well-placed headshots.

We're eschewing Intelligence with this build in favor of a Sandevistan. The time-dilation effect lets you line up multiple headshots in a row before most enemies can even respond. It also pairs well with your sneak skills; kill enemies silently with Overwatch until you’re spotted, then activate Sandevistan and switch to Breakthrough to kill everyone you can see.

With the Phantom Liberty DLC, you can improve your Body attributes to unlock the Pain to Gain capstone perk, or you can improve Reflexes to have even more damage mitigation during your dashes.

Key Cyberware

• Kiroshi “Stalker” Optics
• Biomonitor
• Feedback Circuit
• Visual Cortex Support
• Cellular Adapter
• Optical Camo
• Militech "Apogee" Sandvistan

Recommended Weapons

• Breakthrough
• Rasetsu
• Widowmaker
• Overwatch
• O-Five

Explosive Sniper

The Explosive Sniper cares not for stealth. This build is all about blowing people up, whether they’re far away or right in front of you.

The build focuses on Cool and Tech the same as the Bolt Sniper, but instead of unlocking the Ninjitsu perks and the tech gun-related perks, you go straight for Pyromania. This provides you with improved explosive damage, better grenades, and improved healing items. It also procs whenever there's an explosion, something that is easy to do with the right weapons.

To get the most out of this build, you'll want to use a rifle that fires explosive rounds. The O'Five, Osprey, and Hypercritical all fire explosive rounds, proccing Pyromania and improving your damage output.

You still have enough sneak perks to use the Overwatch for stealth kills when you want, but the idea here is to open up on opponents with an explosive sniper from afar, and then toss a grenade or two when they get close.

The combination of the Tech tree's cyberware perks and the Body tree's Adrenaline Rush perks provide a solid base of survivability, with high stats and health regeneration keeping you safe even as the world burns around you. Trigger your Sandevistan to either eliminate a bunch of targets quickly or get you to safety.

With the Phantom Liberty DLC, add more to Body to get the Pain to Gain perk, or add more to Reflexes to get a better dash ability. Or you could even use those extra levels to get the Bolt and Chain Lightning perks if you wanted to add Breakthrough and Rasetsu to your arsenal.

You can get the Doom Launcher Projectile Launch perk if you prefer using that to grenades, but if you do, be sure to grab the Jailbreak and Launch Capacity Override perks too.

Key Cyberware

• Shock Absorber
• Visual Cortex Support
• Cellular Adapter
• Militech "Apogee" Sandvistan

Recommended Weapons

• O'Five
• Hypercritical
• Osprey
• Overwatch
• Comrade's Hammer

Next: Cyberpunk 2077: Complete Guide And Walkthrough