A complete Cyberpunk 2077 Pimp Build and Guide to designing an aggressive flesh-peddler that always comes out top against enemies both near and far. Featuring the Pimp’s top tier weapon – the Cottonmouth Cane!
This guide is up-to-date for Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.3
Table of contents
Introduction to the Cottonmouth Cane “Pimp” Build
There’s a pimp cane called the Cottonmouth that you can find on a coffee table in Fingers’ office on Jig Jig Street. This guide will show how to create a robust build featuring that pimp cane (and how to swing around its impressively long shaft with style and grace).
The playstyle of the Pimp build is aggressive and flexible. It combines the pimp cane’s impressive melee prowess with long-range precision weaponry that uses debilitating poison-laced ammunition, which can be used to dispatch individual targets from afar.
If you stumble upon an orgy that you weren’t invited to, you can also whip out some dirty bombs you carry around, though they also work quite well against groups of enemies or if you need to finish off some gonk that “forgot” to pay and is now trying to run away.
In less flamboyant terms, you’ll be using a blunt melee weapon, a Tech precision rifle, a silenced revolver, and a Projectile Launch System (PLS) implant, all of which can apply a debilitating poison. These weapons will allow you to take out enemies from afar, in large groups, or silently when needed.
The poison deals significantly less damage than an electroshock, but the poisoned enemies take more damage from everything else, thanks to the Black Mamba implant. The rest of the Cyberware in this build focuses on enhancing the attack power of your specific weapons and maximizing your survivability.
From a skill tree perspective, you’ll be investing heavily in Body and Technical Ability, acquiring almost all of the Perks in these areas. Additionally, you’ll be making a significant investment in the left branch of the Cool tree, which is dedicated to buffing your handgun and rifle.
A Less Flashy Solo Berserker
The constant blasts of electricity from the Solo Berserker build certainly look cool, but they can be a bit harsh. The Pimp mitigates this issue by building around applying poison instead, resulting in a build that still has some pomp (most of which comes from the outfit) while being much easier on the eyes and still offering a very similar playstyle.
You won’t completely ditch electricity damage with this build, though it will be far less frequent. Sometimes your girls accidentally leave their tasers at the crack house, so you usually have one on you when things get hard.
Blades vs Blunt Weapons
When it comes to melee combat, the choice between blades and blunts is crucial. Blades are typically silent, speedy, lethal, precise, and have about as much range variety as guns, though blades offer superior short-range performance while guns have long-range supremacy.
Blunt weapon attacks themselves are quiet just like blades, though they accompany a noisy playstyle with multiple group-focused capabilities. They are slower than average than blades, are non-lethal, and have a more consistent set of ranges, all of which are melee. However, there are not as many types of blunt weapons compared to blades.
Survivability-wise, blades synergize better with high mobility and mitigation, while blunt weapons focus more on blocking, crowd control (CC), and armor.
Weapons for this build
All of the weapons in this build have a chance to apply poison as a secondary effect. They are meant to synergize with the Black Mamba implant in the Circulatory System, which almost entirely eliminates the damage dealt by the poison in exchange for making you deal more damage with everything else against poisoned enemies.
The poison applied by these weapons is pretty weak and often isn’t enough to finish stronger enemies off. The Black Mamba lets you take down these guys a bit quicker.
Cottonmouth
The Cottonmouth is a one-handed club that looks like a Pimp’s cane. It is your blunt melee weapon. Its unique effects give it a chance to deal both electrical and poison damage and apply a status effect.
You can loot the Cottonmouth from Fingers’ office while interrogating him about Evelyn’s whereabouts. Since he doesn’t sell any special implants, feel free to punch Fingers or beat him with this cane as much as you think is necessary.
Widow Maker
The Widow Maker is a Tech precision rifle that deals chemical damage, hits twice, and has a chance to apply poison. You’ll be using this gun a whole lot more often than the other one because it’s pretty good against individual targets at any range.
It’s more useful for targets that are far away or higher up, like Netrunners or Snipers where it would be impractical to run over and cane them.
You can loot the Widow Maker from Panam’s former partner, Nash, in a tunnel out in the Badlands during the mission “Ghost Town”.
Mancinella
The Mancinella is a power revolver that has a chance to apply poison with each hit. It also has a silencer and lets you keep your stealth damage boosts for a little longer after entering combat.
It usually takes 2 headshots to defeat most enemies in combat, but can easily one-shot everything if they haven’t noticed you yet.
You won’t need to use it too often, and it does clash with the loud and aggressive playstyle, but it’s really nice to have for missions that incentivize stealth.
You are given the Mancinella by Mr. Hands at the Heavy Hearts Club in Dogtown during the mission “Run This Town” as part of your Aguilar disguise.
Alternatives
If you come across a weapon that applies poison, feel free to use it in the meantime, but I really think the weapons I recommended are the best fit. There are a couple of Iconic alternatives if you want to swap the Mancinella, but they clash with what the rest of the build is trying to accomplish or are just straight-up worse.
Check out our catalogs on All Legendary and Iconic Items in the base game and All New Iconic Items in Phantom Liberty for more information on these weapons.
Core Attributes and Perk Points
In this build, practically all of your Perk Points are allocated to Technical Ability, Body, and Cool. This allocation means you aren’t really starved for Attribute Points, and you can easily cut off a specific branch in the Body tree when you’re short on Perk points.
All Attributes
This build requires you to invest heavily in multiple attributes to access the top perks in specific branches, though you won’t be getting any Perks in Intelligence and only a couple in Reflexes at the most.
I recommend spending 10 points on Intelligence when you max everything else out so that you can make more money by being able to hack most Access Points. If you don’t want to do this, by all means, spend those on Reflexes for a tad bit of extra critical chance.
Body
BodyBody boosts your effectiveness with blunt weapons and improves your survivability. The middle branch is all about passive health regeneration. It gives access to an effect called Adrenaline Rush, which gives you some overshield (or rather overhealth) whenever you use your healing item.
The right branch buffs your blunt weapons, primarily by greatly expanding what you can do while wielding one. It also reduces your stamina consumption and attack speed.
The Legendary Perk in the right branch gives you access to some finishers that allow you to pick up and throw your victims so violently that their bodies break apart on impact, or you can do a more standard finisher that just kills the target. You recover a ton of HP each time you use one of these finishers to defeat an enemy.
Before that, you’ll gain the ability to periodically slam the ground, which sends out a Quake that damages and knocks down nearby enemies. The Quake effect can scale with your fall speed and fall distance. Once you get most of the points in the middle branch, you can take a unifying Perk that enables you to recover HP and stamina for each enemy you manage to hit.
In the early game, dump as many points as you can into buffing blunt weapons (right branch) until you start running into survivability issues, then invest points into health regeneration (left branch) as needed. You can get the Cottonmouth pretty early, but until you do, just use any other one or two-handed club you find.
Technical Ability
Technical AbilityTechnical Ability increases your Cyberware Capacity, gives your Tech weapons a special precision charging effect called Bolt, and improves the effectiveness of your Healing Item, Explosives, and Cyberware. Just about everything in this tree is valuable, so if you have a spare Perk Point, spend it on something here, whatever you feel you need at the moment.
Keep in mind that some of the Perks in this tree have more specific use cases than the other trees, so be sure to read each Perk effect carefully and only spend it if you will benefit from it now. In particular, some of the Perks only apply to Grenades, not the Projectile Launch System.
Cool
CoolIn the Cool tree, all you’ll need are the buffs to damage and stamina regeneration for rifles (and handguns) in the left branch. Focus and Deadeye trigger when you have high stamina; they make aiming easier, make your headshots deal significantly more damage, and refund stamina.
You’ll want to spend more points in the left branch whenever you have a hard time landing a headshot or can’t deal enough damage to one-shot most enemies, assuming your guns have been upgraded to your current item quality tier. Often, having low stamina will be the culprit for low damage since Deadeye and Focus won’t apply unless your stamina is high.
If you have Phantom Liberty, you’ll be able to get some extra nice-to-haves in Cool related to out-of-combat damage with the Mancinella and gain the ability to poison non-human enemies.
The Perk in question, Corrosion, says it only applies to throwing weapons, but that is not the case. I suspect it still works because they had a very similar general-use talent in the pre-2.0 version of the game that they likely just copied over.
You will also be able to spend 2 points in Reflexes on Slippery and Muscle Memory, and could get access to Dash if you wanted to give up some of the Perks in the right branch of the Cool tree.
Everything you should know about the Cool Attribute and Perk Trees
Relic
RelicYou can make pretty consistent use of both the buffs to your Arms Cyberware, Jailbreak and Launch Capacity Override, as well as Vulnerability Analytics and Machine Learning. The former pair buff your Projectile Launch System (PLS) give you an extra activation of the PLS and to allow you to charge up and fire 5 explosive shots while only consuming a single charge.
The latter pair cause red squares to sometimes appear on enemies. If you deal enough damage to the highlighted region, you’ll cause an electrical explosion that will deal damage to everything nearby and make new vulnerabilities more frequent and powerful.
The only ones you really can’t make good use of are the ones that buff Optical Camo since you aren’t using that implant to begin with. You have to find Militech Data Terminals in Dogtown to fully unlock and upgrade the Relic Skill Tree and we have all of their locations available in that guide.
Cyberware
In this section, I’ll be covering the Cyberware I recommend you use with the Solo Berserker build.
General Cyberware Recommendations
The amount of Cyberware you can equip is too variable to offer a one-size-fits-all solution. The Cyberware you’ll be able to equip depends on your exact street cred, level, current perks, and how many Cyberware capacity shards you’ve found. As a result, I’ve divided up my Cyberware recommendations into 3 categories based on their importance to the build.
Primary Cyberware Only
Primary Cyberware is what I consider to be essential to the build. It should be what you prioritize equipping first before anything else. For this build, the essentials mostly increase your damage output in ways that are unique to this build and provide all of your active ability Cyberware.
| Icon | Cyberware Implant | Category |
|---|---|---|
 | Dense Marrow | Skeleton |
 | Microrotors | Circulatory System |
 | Blood Pump | Circulatory System |
 | Black Mamba | Circulatory System |
 | Kiroshi “Cockatrice” Optics OR Kiroshi “The Oracle” Optics | Face |
 | Militech Berserk OR Biodyne Berserk | Operating System (read its dedicated segment further down in the guide) |
Secondary Cyberware Included
Secondary Cyberware is what I consider to be important to the build but not to the same degree as the Primary Cyberware. Almost all of it focuses on enhancing survivability.
| Icon | Cyberware Implant | Category |
|---|---|---|
 | Self-Ice | Frontal Cortex |
 | Mechatronic Core | Frontal Cortex |
 | Epimorphic Skeleton | Skeleton |
 | Para Bellum | Skeleton |
 | Painducer | Integumentary System |
 | Chitin OR Pain Editor | Integumentary System |
 | Peripheral Inverse OR Proxishield | Integumentary System |
 | Fortified Ankles | Legs |
Tertiary Cyberware Included
Tertiary Cyberware is what I consider to be valuable to the build but not essential. The attunements are variable, and they’re really just nice to have if you have some spare Cyberware capacity that can’t be used on a Primary or Secondary.
You could absolutely give up or change any of these if you prefer something else, but this lets you fill in every available slot and fill up all but the final point of Cyberware Capacity for your Fury EMP after maxing out your capacity.
| Icon | Cyberware Implant | Category |
|---|---|---|
 | Newton Module | Frontal Cortex |
 | Neofiber | Nervous System |
 | Atomic Sensors | Nervous System |
 | Adrenaline Converter | Nervous System |
 | Ballistic Coprocessor | Hands |
 | Tattoo | Hands |
Funnily enough, you actually do need one of the Tattoos to fill the second hand slot. You need to have all slots filled in order to benefit from the Cyborg Perk, and you have to take Ambidextrous, which unlocks the second hand slot, in order to get Doomlauncher, which is responsible for significantly upgrading the Projectile Launch System (PLS).
Active Ability Cyberware
Active Ability Cyberware is Cyberware that you have to activate in order for it to provide any benefit in combat. With this build, there are 2 pieces of Cyberware that offer a distinct active effect, including Berserk and the Projectile Launch System (PLS).
Berserk
Berserk is one of the three types of Operating System Cyberware. This type is dedicated to improving your performance while using a melee weapon. Activating Berserk restricts you to melee weapons (no guns, healing, or grenades), eliminates the Stamina cost for using melee weapons, makes you immune to death, and heals you for 25% of your maximum HP for each enemy you defeat once the effect ends.
It also turns on a heavy red filter and turns off many UI elements, allowing you to focus on the combat, but makes you less informed about the state of the world around you, so you can’t be quite as strategic, just like someone who has gone berserk. You can turn it off early, but you have to wait for the cooldown to finish before you can use it again.
Most Berserks are attuned to Body and provide some other bonuses while active that synergize with your melee attacks. Upgrading Berserk improves these unique bonuses.
I recommend using the Militech Berserk, which is the only Iconic version of this type of Operating System. It costs a ton of Cyberware capacity, but it’s worth it because it’s significantly stronger than the non-Iconic versions.
Notably, it makes you immune to damage instead of just preventing your HP from dropping below 25%. However, you still have a strong incentive to use it at low health because it also makes you also deal more damage the lower your health is when it was activated.
Before you unlock the Iconic, I recommend using Biodyne Berserk.
See all Berserk Operating Systems in our Cyberware Catalog
Projectile Launch System
Projectile Launch SystemThe Projectile Launch System (PLS) is effectively a grenade launcher mounted to your arm. It takes the place of your Gadget Quickslot, so you can’t use it at the same time as Grenades, Optical Camo, or Behavioral Imprint-Synced Faceplate.
Normally, each charge fires a single explosive; with the Relic skill tree, you can charge up a shot to fire 5 explosives in sequence while only consuming a single activation charge. Some separate Perks in the Technical Ability Tree along with the Relic Perks enable it to have the same buffs as Grenades.
The 5-shot burst, faster travel time, and incorporation of explosive damage alongside each status effect make the PLS superior to Grenades. Only the FG-X Frag Grenade will trigger the effects of Pyromania in the Technical Ability tree, so you need to use the PLS if you want to get those powerful effects and be able to apply poison like we want to do with this build.
The Toxic PLS causes an explosion that deals chemical damage and has a chance to apply poison, so it synergizes with Black Mamba.
It’s worth using over the Molodets Biohaz Grenade for 2 reasons. First, it still causes that explosion, so it can benefit from Pyromania. Second, the toxin doesn’t hang in the air and is fired away from you, so you won’t poison yourself by using it.
You should use the PLS whenever you need to hit multiple enemies, though make sure to charge it up.
You can also use it to quickly finish something off when you’d otherwise have to spend time reloading for that final shot. Since you were just firing the gun, you should already be aiming at them and be able to land a direct (uncharged) hit.
Steal This Look
If you have a darkness inside you and want to channel your inner Gator, or are otherwise uninterested in playin’ no shit and have never been about that, you might want to look the part of the Pimp too. Don’t forget to use that Cottonmouth of yours to bludgeon your bitches that didn’t use Jimmies and their baby daddies!
| Icon | Clothing Name |
|---|---|
 | Enhanced Cebra Exentrica Carbon-Reinforced Trilby |
 | Stylish Polarized Aviators |
 | Silkie with Modacrylic Fur Trim |
 | Paris Blue Office Shirt and Vest with Reinforced Seams |
 | Heavy-Duty Flamingo Aramidweave Riding Pants |
 | Cut3 Brainzz Tear-Proof Sneakers |
Of course, no look is complete without a sweet ride, and you’ll find the sweetest Heywood owned by one César Diego Ruiz, boxing champion of The Glen. You’ll encounter him during the Beat on the Brat mission. All you gotta do is thrash the gonk in a fistfight in front of his pregnant girlfriend, and his sweet ride will be yours.
I recommend purchasing a pair of Gorilla Arms for this mission and raising the stakes by putting some eddies on the line. That way, you get to ruin his relationship with his girlfriend and his baby’s future when you take the car and the money!
Check out my Solo Berserker build if you want a very similar playstyle but a different, more intense visual style. If you’re interested in a build on the opposite side of the gameplay spectrum, check out some of my other build guides, like the Blade Assassin and Netrunner.
The Blade Assassin build relies on stealth, knife-throwing, and a bit of poison to topple enemies, while the Netrunner build uses their Cyberdeck to execute Quickhacks from afar along with Smart weapons since they spent all their time at the academy instead of the firing range.
For everything else, visit our Master List of Cyberpunk 2077 Guides – a collection of highlighted guides about the game and its expansion.
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