A Cyber Warrior Adept for Shadowrun Hong Kong.
Roll up a troll that looks something like the Bagels-1.png attachment.

Having 3+ Charisma is good especially early on, you’re not an unstoppable killing machine yet. This is helpful with conversation options which can save you nuyen, and have you avoid needless fights. Gang etiquette is especially good for this in the early game, and Shadowrunner etiquette will be useful even in some of the later runs.
You don’t need any Cyberware Affinity right away, since you plan to get the Spur anyway and that costs less essence than the Hand Razors. You can’t sell old cyberware, but you can sell the weapon you’ll get from picking Unarmed right away, and you’ll want to sell the Killing Hands spell you get from Qi Casting too.
Strength, Close Combat, and Body will be your main focus, so you need to raise those up high as fast as you can. They are the ones that will keep you alive and earn you nuyen.

Hold on to your nuyen until you get the Whampoa job, take the run and buy your Shock Glove from one of the vendors there. You can also buy a nice suit in Whampoa. Not only does it let you run the shadows with style, but it also protects you with its 4 armor. You’ll need a total of 1200￥. If you do this run right (and if you bring Gobbet and Izz you should have all you need to do it), you will not have to fight anything and Gaichu will join your crew.

You’ll need 3 Karma and 850￥ to get your first Spur, the Cross Cyber Spur, so make sure you have that available once you gain access to Chrome Alley.

Aside from that just focus on raising your main stats 7+, do the jobs in more or less the order in which you get them (go find Gobbet as soon as she heads out), and things should be ok. However, as soon as you can get Magic Resistance and Qi Casting 2, get them. You could save 14 Karma by opting out of Stride and Quick Strike, but you’d lose the tremendous value you get out of those two spells throughout the entire campaign. In the end that 14 Karma doesn’t change much about your main stats. The extra movement alone is worth it, and the 0AP attack is very handy for finishing off low health enemies. Their high active cooldowns are irrelevant to this build. So whenever you end up with 14 Karma and enough ￥ make sure you consider this, but don’t wait too long.

Upgrade to the Yamatetsu spur asap and hold off on Cyberware Affinity 6 until later on. As of writing this, after you get that the game includes the bonuses from cyberware when calculating the cost of a stat. I ended up wasting some Karma because of that. It’s best to start with the JoltAlert and/or Cross Dermal Sheath, bring Dodge up to 2 and then go for the cyberlegs. Finish things off with the Alpha Cyberarm and the Kevlar Bone Lacing. This build didn’t include any cybereyes, but you could easily add in Vision Magnification Eyes (Alpha) for 1000 nuyen. The extra hit % will be useful early on, though by the endgame you’ll practically never miss anyway.

￥ tips:
- Save the mummy at the end of the museum run: You can’t sell the sword you get from killing it, but you can sell the totem.
- Don’t let the other shadowrunner crew keep the prototype laser in the Ares run: Gun Show can use it, and if you need to it sells for 1000￥.
- Skip some outfits: Avoid the 3 armor outfit, again that suit from Whampoa is pretty classy, and there’s other armor 4 options later on in Heoi. Skip armor 6 and wait for the outfit with armor 8. I ended up missing out on the armor 9 outfit from the Prosperity Tower run, as this was my first playthrough and it caught me off guard… missed it my 35￥… If you really want it, just make sure you head there with at least 2000￥. It should be easy enough.

Combat:
- Be aggressive: Hitting characters in melee makes them lose cover. Charge in and Shock Glove Spur Stun you way through the hostiles. If the target has no more AP, ignore it, leave it to the crew and move on to the next one. Use Shock Glove, Spur Stun and Feint Attack whenever they’re available.
- Use Eviscerate first on targets with highest armor and health. Barrage’s higher Ar-P isn’t worth the extra AP cost, not with how high your Strength is, so ignore it.
- Using Gobbet, Izz, and Gun Show is the easiest way to guarantee a smooth and successful run. If you need to bring someone else, leave Duncan behind.
- Have Gobbet cast Haste on you and Aim on everyone, Duncan first. Have Izz mark Gun Show’s targets and full-auto away like your life depended on it.
- If you want to use grenades and such do so before running in with Bagels obviously, and don’t pick Magnet Arm in Gun Show’s build, again bad idea obviously. Take the Bean Bag, the Mercy Kill, and the reduced recoil on full-auto.

By the time you reach endgame, punching demon-gods in the face will be a breeze, and your character sheet should look a little something like the bagelsbuild attachment.

... sorry I don't know how to embed the images, I'll edit if I ever find out how.

That's the thing with this game though.

You don't need uber builds, in fact they can be detrimental in so far as making the game too easy but too restrictive. Yes your build can kill everything, but what else can it do?

I'm quite happy making a decker/rigger who's good at their job (although unfortunately with the new matrix, decker skills don't really enter in to it anymore, which kinda defeats the purpose :<), but is also a sweet-talking bullethole factory, with the rest of the skills in your party you're not getting stuck in battle.

If you really want you can also go for the cyborg mage decker/rigger and that kind of build is even easier now (maybe too easy?) with the cyber affinity increasing essence and the new low essence loss cyberware.

I don't think I'd ever roll a pure damage character, there are other things to concentrate on, leaving your team purely as combat support.

It's fun to min/max.

I totally agree with you Tormentfan you don't need an uber builds to enjoy this game, but I do find them fun. This was my first shot at the campaign (well, 1st one I played past the Whampoa job and did the endgame with...), so I also read every dialogue, talked to everyone, explored everywhere, and I read every Shadowlands BBS post. I loved every second of it. Jivebot, the "Looking for Decker" thread, the characters' stories...

This game is awesome. The writing is really good. By the end you've spent somewhere around 200 Karma points and the possibilities on viable ways to use them and reach an endgame are a plenty. Much like in the first two games.

I was expecting however for things to be a bit harder in the end, which is why Bagels ended up being an overkill machine, but then again I did spread my points a bit into each attribute. I was being careful not to spread around too much.

Sometimes the line between overkill and no kill dead is pretty fine.
Now I'm trying a smartass charismatic shamage, and a med-rigger human girl who prefers pistols... that one's a rough start.

Bagels could have gone up higher in Qi Casting I suppose, or more dodge or biotech. There's not much else useful for this character to spend his Karma on though, or ￥ than on cyberware for that matter.

It's what Bagels' is, he's not into guns or drones or cyberdecks. He's about punching demon-gods in the face, hard.

>>>>>[Minimize loses
Every single point counts
Maximum Value]<<<<<

- Jivebot <2:55:32/08-30-ER>



**edit: Minimize loses > Min/max for the win

Most builds are going to be strong at the end. I took virtually no damage at the end with just rifles.

The only real difficult fight I had in this game was to save Raymond, because for some reason Is0la was taking full damage to her actual HP instead of just matrix damage. I'm sure it was just a glitch, and probably if I didn't force my way through I could maybe have just avoided the fights to begin with. On a second playthrough I'll see if things are easier on that as well.

That is intended. Most of the time in this run you fight Black ICE and in Shadowrun Lore Black ICE does damage to the Deckers Health, not his mental health. Meaning in this case, she gets damage outside of the matrix, not inside of it like with Whtie ICE.

"Gang etiquette is especially good for this in the early game"

I'm glad to hear that, since I remember Gang Etiquette being just shy of useless in DMS and DF.

Haha the only two you needed in DMS and DF were Security and Corporate.

In this one there aren't only two, although Academic is good for companions (nothing necessary though really), and otherwise Socialite and Shadowrunner are fairly useful.