This guide will cover how to fight and defeat Adam Smasher boss in Cyberpunk 2077 after his enhancements in Update 2.1.
This guide is up-to-date for Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.3
When do you fight Adam Smasher
You see Adam Smasher several times over the course of the game. Your first brush with the cyborg is while reliving Evelyn Parker’s BD of Konpeki Plaza to prepare for the Relic heist. He chooses to issue a friendly and professional greeting as the two cross paths at the elevator to Yorinobu Arasaka’s penthouse.
The last time is at Arasaka Tower when you get to fight him as the final boss of all 3 endings in the base game, past the point of no return that begins when you meet Hanako Arasaka at Embers for the mission Nocturne Op55N1.
Melee Combat
When you’re up close, he’ll throw some punches with his Gorilla Arms, and if able, will occasionally knock you down and attempt to follow it up with a shot from his Projectile Launch System Energy Blast Cannon.
Like any other enemy, you can block and counter his punches or just run away, though his knockdown and PLS Energy Blast Cannon follow-up are harder to avoid. You need to get up and out of the way ASAP.
Consider doing something that will significantly increase your mitigation chance, like Healing Item (with Dorph-head), Dash (with Can’t Touch This), or your Operating System (especially with Ticking Time Bomb). The Adrenaline Rush + Unstoppable Force Perks (Body 15) will also help prevent you from getting knocked down in the first place.
Sandevistan
After Adam Smasher drops below 80%, he’ll begin using Sandevistan whenever he runs around, causing him to be impossible to hit unless you have some sort of dedicated tech to counter it.
A Smart gun or your own Sandevistan should do the trick. Otherwise, you’ll only be able to hit him when he isn’t moving.
Vulnerability Analytics and Weak Points
Adam Smasher doesn’t have weak points like other enemies. Headshots don’t deal more damage. However, if you have the Relic Perk, Vulnerability Analytics, you’ll be shown a series of weak points for each of his limbs throughout the fight. Each weak point has a lot of health and isn’t always available.
If you can’t consistently land hits on weak points, I think it’s best to ignore them, but if you’re using a gun build, those are the only real weak points he has throughout the fight, so if you don’t aim for them, the fight will take quite a bit longer.
After you push him to 80%, his chest plate will catch fire, which he’ll promptly rip off to reveal a weak point. It’s pretty hard to hit unless you have some way to slow down time significantly, but hitting it seems to count as a headshot.
Projectile Launch System
Adam Smasher has 2 different attacks that utilize the Projectile Launch Systems mounted to each of his arms, including the Smart Machine Gun and the Burstfire Blast Cannon. Both are among his most frequently-used attacks.
Burstfire Blast Cannon
The tell for the burstfire blasts are characterized by a roughly square-shaped reddish glow coming from his arm as he aims it at you and the red circles showing where the blasts will land as he fires while tracing your movement. Once his health drops below 30%, he’ll start firing single shots at you instead.
The key is to keep moving, don’t stand still, or you’ll get hit by multiple shots that could quickly spell the end for you. He loves to use it after you’ve been knocked down too, but just get up and away as soon as you can.
Machine Gun
Machine Gun is a basic but very sustained barrage of gauntletfire. Each individual attack is weak, but he fires them for quite a while. This attack visually distinguishes itself by still including the raised arm of the burstfire blast attack, but no red lights.
Your best course of action is to find cover ASAP. Otherwise, you’ll probably need to spend all of your health item charges just to survive, and even then, your health needs to be high going into the attack.
Meteoric Slam
Adam Smasher will occasionally leap up into the air and attempt to slam down into you, causing a small explosion that will deal significant damage and knock you down.
Dodge or run away whenever you see him leap into the air, and you’ll be out of range by the time he lands.
Reinforcements
When you get him down to 50% HP, you’ll blow one of Adam Smasher’s arms off. He will retreat up to one of the sides of the room, where reinforcements will flock to him. You should chase after him because he will fire a lethal shoulder-mounted mortar barrage into the middle of the room.
Reinforcements will continue spawning in waves until he reaches 30%, and he will fire that mortar each time new troops arrive. The waves will alternate between 4 weak enemies + 2 turrets, and a couple of heavies coming from the lower level instead.
The reinforcements are just a squad of normal enemies and a couple of turrets. They don’t pose much of a threat, though Adam Smasher doesn’t relent, so you’ll need to fend them off quickly. Use whichever specialized multi-target tools your build has at its disposal.
Shoulder-Mounted Mortar Barrage
After reinforcements have arrived, Adam Smasher will periodically fire his shoulder-mounted mortar barrage. The tell with this attack is that Adam will seemingly stop doing anything for a moment as he activates the weapon and then you’ll see scattered red circles around you.
If you look close, you can see the mortar start moving, and when you see that, you gotta get outta dodge. If you get caught in the blast, you will likely not survive, as this is one of his most lethal attacks. Either keep running to avoid the explosions or take cover.
Cluster Missile Devastation
When Adam’s health gets to 30%, he will leap to the middle of the room and launch a ton of missiles in a huge circle around him, destroying all remaining cover and Vs in the immediate vicinity.
You won’t always be where he jumps to, so you might already be safe, but if you are in the lower middle area, you need to get out of there ASAP. The attack has a long and spectacular animation, so take this time to reload all of your weapons and use longer-range attacks to hit him from a safe distance.
Additional Tips for Defeating Adam Smasher
Adam Smasher is pretty similar to a Souls-like boss. He has many different, heavily telegraphed attacks, all of which are exceedingly dangerous. During their 2.1 December Livestream, the devs outright said that a big part of the reason for updating him for the Ultimate Edition was to make him more challenging, so don’t feel bad if you’re struggling to beat him.
The biggest thing to keep in mind is recognizing which attack he’s about to do and avoiding it. That’s why this guide focuses so heavily on explaining how each of his attacks works. If you’re still having trouble, you may need to improve your build, though unfortunately, you’ll need to return to before you meet Hanako at Embers.
Choosing the right Cyberware will have a significant impact on your performance. Since it’s a boss fight, you won’t benefit much at all from implants that rely on enemies being defeated or improve stealth, so you can easily give those up.
Implants that give you damage immunity or prevent you from being unalived, like Berserk (and a blunt melee weapon) and Second Heart are perhaps the most valuable. Likewise, buffing armor and mitigation will also make it more likely to survive those hits in the first place.
If your build is reliant on guns for dealing the vast majority of damage, make sure you equip Cyberware that slows down time, like Sandevistan, Kerenzikov, and Reflex Tuner, or use Quickhacks that slow him down, like Cyberware Malfunction and Cripple Movement so that you can hit his weak points more reliably.
Check out one of our numerous build guides if you just want to swap to something that you know will work, like the Pimp Build I used in the video guide.
What Loot does Adam Smasher drop
Defeating Adam Smasher will reward you with a couple of notable pieces including an Access Token for a special room aboard the Ebunike, a pair of cybernetic glasses called the NCPD Titanium ICE-protected Ocuset, and some other generic drops.
The special room aboard the Ebunike contains the schematic for a special Smart Shotgun based on the L-69 Zhuo called the Ba Xing Chong. It is included in our Iconic Items Catalog.
This concludes our guide to the Adam Smasher Boss Fight. If you want more boss guides, check the list below. For anything else, browse the Cyberpunk 2077 Master List with up-to-date guides for the game.
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