This guide will cover everything you need to know about the Technical Ability Attribute and Perk Tree, including explaining what each branch of the skill tree does and helping you to determine which branches and perks of the skill tree are valuable to your build.
This guide is up-to-date for Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.3
Table of contents
Introduction to the Technical Ability Attribute
Technical Ability is the engineer attribute, so it’s a bit of a grab bag. Its Perks enhance many things that fall under the umbrella of equipable and tech-related items. More specifically, it has 2 full branches and 1 partial branch.
The first full branch is dedicated to upgrading your Health Item(s) and explosives, while the second branch is dedicated to upgrading your Cyberware capacity and its effectiveness. The small branch is focused entirely on enhancing the charging capability of Tech Weapons.
Each point in Technical Ability also gives you +2 Armor along with specific conversation options and actions that are reliant on having technical know-how. If there’s a piece of tech being discussed, you’ll be able to comment on the intricacies.
The most impactful benefit provided by the Technical Ability attribute is that it enables you to interact with a ton of devices, including being able to unlock a ton of doors, both of the normal and car variety, and it’s not just doors! With Technical Ability, you can do things like turn off security cameras, make turrets friendly, and even fix power stations sometimes.
Engineer Skill Progression
Engineer is the Skill associated with the Technical Ability attribute. Every 5th level in Engineer offers a small stat bonus or Perk-like effect that is valuable to players that invest heavily in Technical Ability. Using Tech Weapons, Grenades, and Health Items, as well as interacting with devices that have the associated Technical Ability requirement, all increase your Engineering Skill Level.
| Skill Progression Level | Engineer Skill Progression Reward |
|---|---|
 | +15 Armor |
 | +5 Cyberware capacity |
 | +1 Perk Point* |
 | +10% Grenade damage and explosion radius |
 | +25 Armor |
 | +10 Cyberware capacity |
 | +1 Perk Point* |
 | Increased Shock chance from charging Tech Weapons and Electric Batons |
 | +15% Health Item effectiveness |
 | +30% to all Cyberware stat modifiers |
 | +10% Burn damage with Bolt shots +40% Burn chance with Bolt shots Chain Lightning now also sets enemies on fire |
 | While Fury is active, you frequently release an EMP Blast |
It’s pretty easy to level up Engineer by just running around and turning off all the security cameras in each mission area, even if you aren’t trying to be stealthy, but unless you give up the Edgerunner Perk, beware that you can’t control when Fury activates, and that can cause problems for both stealthy builds and innocent bystanders.
Health Items and Explosives (Left Branch)
The Perks in the left branch of the Technical Ability tree focus on enhancing your Health Items and explosives. The Rookie tier (4 Technical Ability) focuses primarily on buffing Health Items, whereas the Phenom tier (15 Technical Ability) focuses exclusively on buffing your explosives. The Pro tier (9 Technical Ability) in between offers buffs to both.
There are 2 Perks, Doomslayer and Ticking Time Bomb, that require you to invest pretty heavily in both the middle branch, which focuses on upgrading Cyberware, as well as the left branch. However, both Perks are explosives-oriented, so I consider them to be more part of the left branch.
The Health Item Perks at the bottom are valuable to just about everyone since almost every build under the Sun uses Health Items, but the explosives Perks are a bit more niche. Most of the explosives Perks revolve around a stacking buff called Pyromania, which gains more effects with the surrounding Perks, but it all boils down to you being more effective if you use your explosives effectively. If you go for one of them, you should probably get them all.
That said, you need to pay close attention to whether or not a Perk says it buffs the Projectile Launch System because many of the Perks really only buff your Grenade. Many of them get buffed separately (and in roughly the same way) by the Doomlauncher Perk.
Please note that many of the explosives Perks require something specific to be assigned to your Gadget slot, either a Grenade or Projectile Launch System. Optical Camo uses the same slot, so it’s hard to make use of it and the explosives Perks at the same time.
Unlike the explosives Perks, all of the Perks that apply to Health Items also work with the Blood Pump Cyberware, which has the same sort of relationship to Health Items as the Projectile Launch System has to Grenades.
Cyberware (Middle Branch)
The middle branch offers Perks that are focused on increasing your Cyberware Capacity, enhancing its effectiveness, and giving you access to additional slots. The branch is meant to let you make V more like David Martinez from Cyberpunk Edgerunners, where you’re really pushing the limits of how much chrome your body can handle.
The Perks in the Rookie tier (Technical Ability 9) are a little more generalist than those in the Phenom tier (Technical Ability 15). However, there really isn’t too much of a pattern to the relationship of the Perks in each tier in this branch. Most builds can make use of most of the Perks here, but you’ll have more of a puzzle on your hands in terms of maximizing their benefit.
Be mindful that many of the Perks in the middle branch are only conditionally useful. For example, there’s no use spending a Perk point to unlock that extra Hand Cyberware slot if you don’t have the Cyberware Capacity (or eddies) to afford to install such an implant in the first place.
You can reallocate individual Perk points pretty much whenever you want, so spend the point on something else in the meantime and then swap it over when you’re actually under the knife at your friendly neighborhood Ripperdoc clinic, ready to install the implant in question.
All of the Perks in the image above have an effect that is completely dependent on some sort of specific Cyberware being equipped, so make sure you satisfy the requirement if you’re gonna take one! Most of the conditionally useful Perks relate to either the Integumentary System or Skeleton and pertain to the associated Cyberware Capacity cost and slot utilization.
The devs tried to compensate for the increased challenge by giving you more options in those categories, and each has at least 1 implant that has almost no Cyberware Capacity cost. You should be able to retain the effects of those conditional Perks if you want to use them, even as you add and upgrade your chrome. Check out our complete Cyberware Catalog for more detailed information.
Tech Weapons (Right Partial Branch)
The Tech Weapons branch is the smallest in the game, and it’s completely disconnected from the rest of the Technical Ability tree. There’s no synergy with the other branches at all, so the only reason you’d want to spend any points there is if you’re using a Tech Weapon and have some spare points.
All of the perks have something to do with the charging aspect that makes Tech Weapons unique, and most of them revolve around an effect called Bolt, which you get for spending the third point on the central Perk.
Bolt rewards you for firing a Tech Weapon right before it reaches full charge, and treats the shot as if it were fully charged for damage purposes. The Perks expand on the benefits gained when you fire a Bolt shot.
Projectile Launch System Synergies
The Projectile Launch System is one of the four types of Arms Cyberware you can equip. Each type of Arm Cyberware synergizes with a specific Attribute, either by having a few dedicated perks or benefitting from a whole branch, and the Projectile Launch System is the one that synergizes with Technical Ability.
There are 6 Perks in the Intelligence tree and 2 Perks in the Relic skill tree that directly enhance the Projectile Launch System, though the Doomlauncher Perk is the main one in Technical Ability that enables the implant to function as a viable replacement for your Grenade.
The Relic Perks are what enable the Projectile Launch System to be objectively stronger than the Grenades it replaces, simply because you can fire multiple shots with the Relic Perks, which makes the damage dealt per charge surpass that of the Grenades.
Be mindful that many of the Perks that affect Grenades do not have any effect on the Projectile Launch System, though most of the effects of those separate Grenade Perks are contained within the Doomlauncher Perk.
Once you gain access to the Relic Skill tree at the start of Phantom Liberty, it’s time to equip a Projectile Launch System and get Doomlauncher. You can and should reallocate those Grenade-only Perk points elsewhere, and it just so happens that a good candidate for those points is over in the middle branch of the Technical Ability tree!
By the time you can begin the expansion, you should be at a high enough level to where you can start making use of those conditional Perks in the Cyberware branch, so you always have something you can spend your Perk points on in that tier!
Both our comprehensive Netrunner and Blade Assassin build guides for Update 2.0 make considerable use of the Technical Ability tree, so consider checking them out if you want to see a practical application of the Attribute.
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