Yeah, imagine the weapon trees as something out of Borderlands. And depending on what you're going for, you don't "need" all of those perks in a tree to be effective.
At the same time, there is stuff in completely unrelated trees like Cool/Stealth that have crazy utility. I think Cool has a perk that is a flat +15% to headshot damage. From any source.
When I respect my perks later on - I'll probably move all my points in Stealth from detection-related stuff to poison damage. Why? Because I can mod my Mantis blades to do poison damage and one of my go-to quickhacks, Contagion, does poison damage. With a few extra perks in that tree shifted around all poison damage I do will be at an increased clip, enemies effected by it will take more damage, and they'll be slowed
The leveling shyt is waaaaaaay more complicated than it looks and its the main reason I need to hurry up and finish my first run then run it back. I had no clue what half this shyt did or how to level trees independently. Want to level rifles and handguns? That's easy - use those weapons. Want to level Annihilation? Better rip people to shreds. Athletics? Do laps or burn your stamina by any means necessary.
This first run, my dumb ass put points in Throwing Knives
If you spec into intelligence/quickhacks, you won't even need to take the poison perk. I'm going Intelligence/Cool/Technical Ability, and I can body an entire group of goons with the legendary version of Contagion.
I forget the name of it, but there's a cyberdeck that lets quickhacks that spread jump to an additional target. I don't use it because I prefer upload and cooldown speed, but that chews through enemies.
nah I got that basic shyt already and none of it has increased my hacking speed...I want the real shyt
Save up your eddies and cop the Tetratonic Rippler Mk 4 as soon as you can. Reduces quickhack upload time by 75%, and reduces quickhack cooldowns by 45%. shyt is borderline broken. And specing into breach protocol will let you pick up a perk that gives you a daemon to shut down cameras.
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I'm always down for a completely unnecessary Smiths reference, but naming that mission There is a Light That Never Goes Out is maybe a little too spot on.