Cyberpunk 2077 best Relic skills in Phantom Liberty

Picking the best Cyberpunk 2077 Relic skills is a bit more straightforward than choosing which regular Cyberpunk 2.0 skills to pick. The Relic functions that Songbird activates are fewer in number and less specialized, and while they’re still worth integrating into your cyber-kit, the scarcity of Relic points means you want to pick the most useful ones as early as you can.

If you're stuck trying to unlock more skills, check out our handy Cyberpunk 2077 Relic Points locations guide.

Cyberpunk 2077 Relic skills

Best Cyberpunk 2077 Relic skills

The best skills unlock multipurpose abilities - ones that get you out of combat and make stealth easier, for example. The Relic tree's focus is squarely on the Jailbreak set, but you'll actually want to leave those for later - or never - unless you're big on arm combat. Unlike your skills in the main game, these won't progress, so you don't have to focus on meeting certain conditions to unlock new perks. What you see is what you get

You can use Relic skills outside of Dogtown, but you have to own the Phantom Liberty DLC to unlock the tree and your first Relic points.

Emergency Cloaking

Jailbreak might be at the Relic tree’s center, but Emergency Cloaking is the most useful skill. When you activate Optical Camo while in combat, enemies engaged with you suddenly lose sight of where you are. Dogtown isn’t exactly short of enemies who gang up on you in large numbers, so you’re almost guaranteed to need Emergency Cloaking to get out of a hairy situation.

Vulnerability Analytics

This one exposes enemy weak points, and you have a 100 percent chance of scoring a critical hit if you land a shot on those points. You also get weak spot damage bonuses and 25 percent additional armor penetration.

As if that weren’t enough, hitting an enemy weak spot creates a small EMP blast as well.

Machine Learning

If you unlock Vulnerability Analytics, we strongly recommend you get Machine Learning as well. Targeting enemy vulnerabilities creates a 10 percent chance of a new vulnerability appearing and grants you a five percent critical hit chance buff against vulnerabilities. These effects stack five times, and once you hit five stacks, the effect doubles. That’s a 100 percent chance of new vulnerabilities appearing and a 50 percent critical hit increase – perfect for tough foes and clearing groups of enemies quickly.

Sensory Protocol

Sensory Protocol builds on Optical Camo and makes it easier not just to escape battle, but to avoid it completely. Enemies become aware of your presence more slowly when you’re crouched, and if you dodge or dash out of an enemy’s sightline, they forget you’re there. The skill only works once every two minutes, though, so you’ll need to plan wisely.

Jailbreak

Jailbreak is essential if you use any arm skills. This one skill unlocks enhancements for Mantis Blades, Gorilla Arms, and the Monowire and makes using them much more worthwhile. Gorilla Arms are stronger and create a shockwave, so you’re not out of luck if you use them in a crowded setting. The Mantis Blades charge automatically when you defeat an enemy so you can chain strong attacks, and the Monowire lends itself more readily to hacks.

Your projectile launcher can even fire more objects and cover a broader area.

Spatial Mapping

Spatial Mapping is a handy skill, though not quite as spectacular as your other Relic options. Leap attacks with the Mantis Blades will cripple enemies and give you a higher chance of dismembering them for 10 seconds. You can ignore this one if you don’t use Mantis Arms.

Limiter Removal

You can also ignore this one if Gorilla Arms aren’t your thing. If they are, then this is another skill with incremental benefits that shouldn’t be a main priority. The shockwave from your charged attacks will knock down all enemies within range.

The other two skills are just kind of okay, so feel free to ignore them.

If you're after more ways to power up, check out our Cyberpunk 2077 crafting guide for tips on making legendary weapon upgrades by hand.