Is the Monowire Good in Cyberpunk 2077? A Deep Dive
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Absolutely, the Monowire is good in Cyberpunk 2077, but with caveats. Its effectiveness hinges heavily on your build, playstyle, and understanding of its mechanics. While it boasts impressive damage potential, particularly when fully charged, it’s not a universal “best weapon.” Think of it as a scalpel designed for precision strikes rather than a sledgehammer for brute force. A well-optimized Monowire build can shred through enemies, especially netrunners leveraging quickhacks. However, it demands a specific investment in skills and perks to truly shine. Let’s delve deeper to understand why.
The Allure of the Monowire: Strengths and Weaknesses
The Monowire offers a unique blend of stealth, damage, and crowd control. Its appeal lies in:
- High Damage Potential: When fully charged, the Monowire delivers devastating damage, capable of one-shotting many enemies, especially when targeting weaknesses or using critical hits.
- Stealth Capabilities: As a silent melee weapon, the Monowire excels in stealth gameplay, allowing for covert takedowns from the shadows.
- Crowd Control: The Monowire can stagger most low to medium-threat targets, disrupting enemy attacks and creating openings for further strikes.
- Netrunner Synergy: The ability to use the Monowire as a quickhack delivery system opens up a world of possibilities for netrunners, allowing them to combine melee combat with their hacking skills.
- Cyberpunk Aesthetic: Let’s be honest, whipping out a molecule-thin wire to slice through enemies is incredibly cool, echoing the cyberpunk ethos of blending technology and violence. Lucy from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a strong testament to this.
However, the Monowire isn’t without its drawbacks:
- Charge Time: The Monowire requires a charge-up time to reach its full damage potential, which can leave you vulnerable in fast-paced combat.
- Limited Range: As a melee weapon, the Monowire’s range is limited, forcing you to get up close and personal with your enemies.
- Perk Dependency: To maximize its effectiveness, the Monowire requires a significant investment in Blade perks and potentially Ninjutsu and Cold Blood perks.
- Vulnerability During Attacks: While swinging and charging attacks, V can’t block or parry enemy attacks.
Building the Ultimate Monowire Assassin
To truly unlock the Monowire’s potential, you need to invest in the right skills and perks. Here’s a general guideline:
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Blade Perks: Focus on perks that increase attack speed, damage, critical hit chance, and bleed chance. “Deathbolt” is a great perk because it restores health and provides bonus movement speed after defeating an enemy.
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Ninjutsu Perks: Consider perks that enhance stealth, movement speed, and evasion. The ability to remain undetected is crucial for maximizing the Monowire’s stealth capabilities.
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Cold Blood Perks: Perks that provide temporary buffs after defeating enemies can further enhance the Monowire’s combat effectiveness.
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Intelligence Perks: For Netrunner builds, invest in perks that improve quickhack damage, RAM recovery, and the ability to use quickhacks through the Monowire. A good perk is “Finisher: Live Wire.”
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Cyberware Mods: Prioritize mods that increase damage, critical hit chance, and status effect application. Experiment with different damage types to exploit enemy weaknesses.
Monowire vs. Other Cyberware: A Comparison
Monowire vs. Mantis Blades
The choice between Monowire and Mantis Blades depends on your preferred playstyle. Mantis Blades are faster and more aggressive, ideal for a bullet-time ninja build, while the Monowire favors a more calculated and strategic approach, particularly for Netrunners. Mantis blades can also dismember enemies making it a viable choice for aggressive players who value damage.
Monowire vs. Gorilla Arms
Gorilla Arms offer a non-lethal melee option and are less dependent on specific builds, making them a good choice for players who don’t want to invest heavily in melee skills. The Monowire, on the other hand, requires a more specialized build but offers higher damage potential and stealth capabilities.
Monowire vs. Projectile Launch System
The Projectile Launch System provides a ranged non-lethal option or can be loaded with various projectiles for different effects. It’s a versatile option, but it lacks the raw damage potential of the Monowire in a melee-focused build.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Is the Monowire good for stealth?
Yes! The Monowire is excellent for stealth. Its silent nature allows you to perform stealth kills from the cover of darkness, eliminating enemies without alerting others.
2. Is the Monowire a blade or blunt weapon?
The Monowire is a Blade weapon (it used to be Blunt). This means it benefits from Blade perks, so that’s where a monowire build should focus its attention.
3. What does Monowire scale with?
Monowire receives benefits from Blade perks. Prior to Patch 1.5, Monowire damage scaled with the Cool attribute and counted as a blunt weapon for Street Brawler perks.
4. Why does Monowire have 3 mod slots?
You will have three slots for which to amplify your Monowire. One slot only changes the type of damage done, which can be helpful if you sense an enemy’s weakness, but the standard physical damage is a great all-around choice. Crit chance can also be increased.
5. Why use Monowire?
The Monowire will stagger most low and medium-threat targets, so you’ll be able to whip down a targeted enemy before they can start shooting. Ideally, combat should flow nicely by killing one enemy and then stun-locking any other enemies who see you do this. It is also great for those who value the aesthetic of the weapon.
6. Is Monowire the best melee weapon?
The Monowire is one of the most powerful and flashy pieces of cyberware you can come across in Cyberpunk 2077. A melee weapon composed of a thin whip-like wire only a molecule in thickness, the Monowire delivers extremely high damage when fully charged. However, it is not the only viable weapon.
7. Does Monowire do more damage than Mantis Blades?
The legendary mono wire from Doc Ryder had a DPS of 1607 while the Mantis Blades is only 728 DPS.
8. What should I upgrade for Monowire?
You will have three slots for which to amplify your Monowire. One slot only changes the type of damage done, which can be helpful if you sense an enemy’s weakness, but the standard physical damage is a great all-around choice. Increases crit chance by 2%.
9. Is Monowire quiet?
Yes. The Monowire is silent, allowing you to achieve stealth kills from the cover of darkness.
10. Where is the best Monowire?
The Legendary Monowire location is right next to the “Charter St” Fast Travel point in Watson, a short distance to the north-east of your apartment.
11. How strong is Monowire?
Strong attacks deal 30/40/50% more damage. Increases damage against enemies with max health by 50/75/100%. Increase attack speed by 10/20/30%. Defeating an enemy restores 20% of health and increases movement speed by 30% for 5 seconds.
12. What’s better, Gorilla Arms or Monowire?
The Monowire also recharges pretty fast which means you are nearly always at 100% damage. All in all, Monowire is the best! Monowire for those Johnny Mnemonic vibes. Gorilla arms, if you don’t intend to put points in body much.
13. Do blades upgrades affect Monowire?
The Monowire receives benefits from Blade perks, so that’s where a monowire build should focus its attention. However, there are also a number of beneficial Ninjitsu and Cold Blood perks that are also helpful.
14. Can you use Sandevistan with Monowire?
It’s best to use melee weapons alongside the Sandevistan because any bullets you fire will leave your gun in slow-motion, whereas melee weapons will hit at your increased speed. For the best effects we’d recommend using either the Gorilla Arms, Mantis Blades, or Monowire alongside the Sandevistan.
15. How to quick hack with Monowire?
Once the Jailbreak perk has been unlocked open the menu to the Cyberware screen. Bring the cursor over the Monowire cyberware arm slot and there will now be an option to open the quickhack menu just like Cyberdecks. Click the Right Stick to open this quickhack menu.
Final Verdict
The Monowire is a powerful and versatile weapon that can be incredibly effective in the right hands. It is not the “best” weapon, as that depends on your playstyle and build. If you’re willing to invest the time and effort to master its mechanics, the Monowire can transform you into a deadly and stylish assassin, slicing through enemies with ease.
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