Question about Katana Builds

[luther84695]

I have finished the game but I am going for a Katana build which I haven't tried before. It looks like the game goes at a much faster pace which I like but I am at a juncture where decisions have to be made.
So there are two main questions. First is cyberdeck vs Sand vs Bersk. I have briefly tried using a Sandy. It is not bad but I still die a lot. Toward the end game, you can get a much more powerful rig, but you can also get a really powerful cyberdeck that cause blindness and weapon glitch to everyone with passives. One possible build is to max out INT at level 15 and then dumping the rest into flex while there is still left over to max out tech or cool. But the mini-game of the cyberdeck gets really old. So a major decision is whether a netrunner ninja is better or sandevistan ninja.
Assuming that I go for Sandevistan, is it better to level up cool first or reflex? I know reflex to 10 is needed for an epic rig, but I can't get a legendary until at least mid game when I have enough cred. But meanwhile I am thinking maybe to level up cool for knife throwing. Some missions could be difficult if i don't take out a few with stealth first.
Assuming that I go for cyberdeck, what is the intel needed to get legendary hacks? Some people say 10 is enough for the terminal that gives you legendary quickhack and some people say 12.
Lastly, will i survive if I ignore body? if not, what is the stats needed for body to survive the secret ending?

[Lucus]

reflex or cool would be based on what you want to aim for. if stealth aim to spend more on cool first, if direct combat go for reflexes. if the goal is to level up both trees bonuses i'd keep enough points in both to keep the exp bars from maxing out and wasting exp.

the big benefit of sand is the arasaka software which allows you to kill a few people quickly before being detected. berserk is good for direct combat killing with beast mode to boost melee damage.

normal cyberdecks have the advantage of opening doors/shutters and turning off cameras to avoid detection.

the biggest benefit is being able to ping enemies and then while using the slowdown effect of the quick hacking interface to tag enemies behind walls so when ping expires you can still see the locations of most enemies (the ones in range of ping) usually a few enemies may be missed since they are out of your perception range.

if stealth is the goal "judge jury executioner + jeepers creepers + sniper" perks will let you kill enemies instantly provided you headshot them with a thrown knife or a katana then later on when your melee damage is even higher a body shot with a thrown knife can kill them most of the time.

The INT Requirement is based on the access points themselves. there are a few that can give out legendary quick hacks with about 11 int, people recommend 12 int because of "datamine virtuoso" perk which will give 50% - 100% chance to get a quickhack from breach protocol which makes it easier and faster to save scum legendary quickhacks.

as far as i know there is no body requirement for the secret ending.

[Rabidnid]

Reflex and/or cool, or intelligence for the cyberdeck. Secondary is tech for weapon/armour upgrades and body for HP and the immunity cyberwear.

You can do a reflex/intelligence build with tech and some body. High reflex will give you a range of speed and health recovery options good for melee builds, and you can still get a high end cyberdeck.

[RobotParty]

Sandevistan works best if you focus on criticals and sneaking up on enemies to get the extra time before being spotted. If you're having trouble with getting spotted, you can always get the mod that makes it so you get spotted slower (the 70% reduction one). I kind of went all out myself with going for the monowire, so a lot more DPS there, but with a katana you can easily get the critical perks from reflex and cool. I did a int / cool(stealth techy build) and that was fun, but if you're going to do a cyberdeck build, you might as well go all out and get the perk that allows you to crit with hacks and get the legendary short circuit ASAP.

If you're wanting an interesting build, I'd say netrunner ninja. I went for DPS / effectiveness with my int build, so I had the Netwatch deck. If you want to go for pure destructive force, go for the sandevistan ninja. There's a really good free(I think?) sandevistan rig you can find somewhere on the beach? I haven't found it myself but the sandevistan also has some really good crit mods for it too.

This is all on the hard difficulty(not the hardest difficulty though), so plenty of 1HKOs for me. I did fine with the sandevistan as long as I didn't try to overextend my sandevistan timer(I think it was 30 seconds with the one I had, something like that)

[Doombringer]

Originally posted by luther84695:

Assuming that I go for cyberdeck, what is the intel needed to get legendary hacks?

You need 3 Int for legendary quickhacks.
There are low, high, and very high value access points.
Low always give green quickhacks (when you get a quickhack, these give much less $)
High give rarity based one your level (40+ for legendary)
Very High give rarity based on your level (35+ for legendary, these give slightly more $)
(Access points that don't give $ could be any of the 3)

The Int req of access points has nothing to do with their value, there are enough 3 Int req high/very high value access points to get a full set if you don't waste them by using them at low level.

As for katana, Satori with the 20req Cold Blood perk(+extra points) can get you to 100% crit while Cold Blood is active.
The +damage vs full hp enemies and +damage based on how many hp enemy is missing are must have perks, so is +attack speed and heal on kill. (and +crit if using legendary Short Circuit/Satori)



The best way to do the secret ending is by using a weapon the shoots through walls.
(and fires quickly/gets a lot of kills/reload - I used buzzsaw)
You can die quickly and have to fight a lot of stuff and your max hp gets nerfed...
(buzzsaw isn't the best choice on Adam Smasher though)

[luther84695]

That's what I thought. The last time I beat the secret ending is with a netrunner shotgun build using a tech shotgun that shoot through walls. I remember it was hard as hell. I had to use optical camo a lot. Using Katana Sandevistan is theoretically doable as someone on youtube has done it, but I imagine it to be really difficult.

I think the easiest Katana build is probably the one using cyberdeck with legendary quickhack passives. It is hard to die with enemies who are all blind and have broken weapons for the fight, and on top of that, you can turn one into cyberpsycho or memory wipe them. But the downside of that is that the game could be quite difficult before getting the legendary quickhacks through terminals. That means it is a good idea to use sandevistan first before cyberdecks. But it also sucks to having to switch back and forth between cyberdeck and sandevistan so you can back track all the AP terminals to get the quickhacks.

I think a lot of people have done the techno ninja build, and it is generally considered a way more interesting way to play.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Originally posted by luther84695:

That's what I thought. The last time I beat the secret ending is with a netrunner shotgun build using a tech shotgun that shoot through walls. I remember it was hard as hell. I had to use optical camo a lot. Using Katana Sandevistan is theoretically doable as someone on youtube has done it, but I imagine it to be really difficult.

I have done it with katana and sandevistan, wasn`t that difficult, died once when one guy just one-shotted me in narrow corridor.
Imho INT with cyberdeck and katana is kinda pointless since cyberdeck is too damn powerful and kinda defeats the point of having katana in the first place. Might as well play netrunner then.

[VhagarTheLastOne]

I couldnt get Katana to work. I think Katana might work if you go with Netrunner stuff. Lots of Body.

[luther84695]

Originally posted by Cyberpunker:

I couldnt get Katana to work. I think Katana might work if you go with Netrunner stuff. Lots of Body.

Once you get to reflex level 15, Katana build is a breeze with Sandevistan if you take all the perks except for the perks related to bleeding. You need to get heal on kill. With Satori, nearly half of my hits are critical in early.

I think the post above is right that a cyberdeck is too power and the game loses its challenge. So I am sticking with a Sandy build.

[Doombringer]

Originally posted by Cyberpunker:

I couldnt get Katana to work. I think Katana might work if you go with Netrunner stuff. Lots of Body.

HP from body helps, but I think stealth detection time+cold blood buffs make a bigger difference.
Katana is silent, with a long detection time you can sprint up to enemies and kill them before they alert their buddies, then cold blood buffs help once an alert is raised.
(legendary move speed shoe mod also helps close the gap faster)

[Tokenn]

I've found the Sandevistan+katana thing fun for a while, but it gets a little boring doing the same thing over and over.

What I like to do to amp up my melee skills is use non-lethal quickhacks like Memory Wipe or immobilization to disable enemies and then have at them with fists, bat or sword. Keep in mind that you can switch between Sandi and cyberdeck with a visit to a ripperdoc when you feel the need to change things up.

[Bishop-Six]

Originally posted by Tokenn:

I've found the Sandevistan+katana thing fun for a while, but it gets a little boring doing the same thing over and over.

What I like to do to amp up my melee skills is use non-lethal quickhacks like Memory Wipe or immobilization to disable enemies and then have at them with fists, bat or sword. Keep in mind that you can switch between Sandi and cyberdeck with a visit to a ripperdoc when you feel the need to change things up.

Sandevistan+Baseball Bat=Art

[luther84695]

With Sandevistan, I constantly run into the problem of the bullet time cut short due to kill animation. So I walked into a room with 4 guys thinking that I could chop them down easily. I killed the first guy but exited the bullet time due to kill animation and then was shot and kill by the other three guys shooting at me. Do you guys know if that is a bug and if not, how to avoid that?