The best Cyberpunk 2077 David Martinez build

Playing with the best Cyberpunk 2077 David Martinez build is a bit like playing on hard mode, but without actually changing the difficulty level. Going all-in on David’s unique form of combat means sacrificing a lot of perks and skills you’d normally leap at the chance to unlock in favor of brawling and maxing out your cyberware perks.

If you’re still thinking in terms of old Cyberpunk, you really shouldn’t. The new Cyberpunk 2077 skill progression system means that most of the old skills that helped buff David Martinez builds are gone, so you’ll need cyberware to fill the gap.

Cyberpunk 2077 David Martinez build

Cyberpunk 2077 David Martinez build – Best weapon

If you want the accurate David Martinez life, then you go pretty much without weapons that aren’t your Gorilla Arms cyberware. There is one exception, though: David’s pistol, the Militech Lexington. You can find these on enemies in the Only Pain quest or from vendors across Night City. The Mobile Camp in the Badlands, which you’ll visit as part of the story during Act 2, has a particularly good one with a Legendary rating.

Some players add the M-76 Omaha or even a shotgun to help get a fighting chance. Depending on how closely you want to roleplay the David experience, you should technically stop using the Lexington after you upgrade your Cyberware and get stronger with your fists. Whether you want to do that is up to you, but this build follows that logic and focuses on melee damage.

TL;DR: Gorilla Arms are your main weapon, and you can use whatever elemental affiliation takes your fancy.

David Martinez cyberware

Bionic Lungs are your best choice for Cyberware, since they increase your stamina. A melee build like David’s requires a lot of stamina, so it’s a natural fit. Bionic Joins and Kiroshi Cockatrice Optics raise your defense and critical chance, respectively, and that’s a basic pattern you want to follow for this build’s cyberware. A David build needs as many stat modifiers as you can squeeze in, since those and his arms are doing all the work of keeping him alive.

Skeleton cyberware plays a key role as well. Epimorphic Skeleton is a strong choice for HP boosts, and if you’re having trouble with armor, consider the Para Bellum or, if you’re lucky, Rara Avis.

Your operating system depends on how close to an actual David build you go. If you supplement with guns more often, you may want to opt for the Apogee variant of the Sandevistan. That one slows time substantially – by 85 percent – raises your critical rate and headshot damage, increases your stamina when you defeat an enemy, and increases the effect’s duration when you defeat an enemy. It also has a comparatively short cooldown timer.

That’s a lot of perks, but the main draw is making headshots easier and getting more damage from them – handy, but not if you’re using arms.

The QianT WarpDancer benefits a melee-oriented build more. The QianT raises your mitigation strength and chance and reduces incoming damage from thermal, chemical, and electrical choices. Punchy David will find himself in the thick of combat a lot, so the extra mitigation is a substantial bonus. The downside is the QianT’s 90-second cooldown, so just make sure to time it carefully.

David Martinez Sandevistan mods

You’ve got a few mods to choose from depending on what you find you need the most after experimenting with the build a bit.

• Arasaka Software – Enemies take longer to notice you
• Heatsink – Shortens Sandevistan cooldown
• Rabid Bull – Restores health after defeating an enemy while Sandevistan is active
• Tyger Paw: Restores 15 percent stamina after defeating an enemy while Sandevistan is active
• Neurotransmitters – Increases critical hit rate by 15 percent

You might opt for Arasaka Software and Neurotransmitters to avoid combat and then make hits count when you do engage with foes or perhaps Rabid Bull and Tyger Paw so you can stay in the thick of battle for longer. Tinker with it, and see what you like the most.

Cyberpunk 2077 David Martinez skills and attributes

Your very David Martinez-seeming skills under body, cool, and the other categories are gone with Cyberpunk’s 2.0 update. Now, Engineer and Solo are the most important skill areas to rank up.

You should get the Engineer skill category up to at least rank 30, which gives you two extra cyberware capacity buffs, and the Solo category to at least level 20. The bonus at level 20 increases your Gorilla Arm and Fist damage by 20 percent and gives them a chance to cause bleeding.

You also pick up some health boosts, and if you get to rank 40, you add a 10 percent critical hit chance against all enemies within five meters. With a fist-and-arms build, that’s basically every enemy.

The best attributes for a David Martinez build are:

• Body
• Tech
• Reflexes

David Martinez build perks

Try these for your Body perks:

• Painkiller (all sub-perks)
• Adrenaline rush (all sub-perks)
• Quake (only for the level 3 slam effect)

Your Technical perks help make healing items more effective and boost your cyberware effects

• All Things Cyber (all sub-perks)
• License to Chrome (all sub-perks. Reach level 3 to unlock a new skeleton slot)
• Glutton for war (just one level)
• Health Freak (all sub-perks)
• Edgerunner (of course)

A few Reflex perks help boost your mobility, so you can escape danger and run circles around your enemies.

• Slippery
• Dash

Those are the most important perks and attributes, though you can try others if you want to experiment a bit. For example, if you use your pistols or other guns more, you may want to try Die! Die! Die!, while Wrecking Ball is useful if you supplement your fists with blunt weapons.

If you're playing the Phantom Liberty DLC, make sure to unlock the Jailbreak Relic Skill. Jailbreak and its sub-perks boost your arm cyberware attack power. You'll need to track down Relic Point locations to get the most out of these as well, so gear up for a trip into the Dogtown's even seedier side.