Cyberpunk 2077 Weapon Tier List: Best Guns After Update 2.5

Update 2.5 — CD Projekt Red's Edgerunners 2 Update, out now on PC, Mac, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S — hands V a new perk called Double Trouble, and it changes how a Power-build character actually plays. This is our opinion tier list for which Power pistols and revolvers are worth holstering in both hands once you've unlocked it, built from the official patch notes and the archetype mechanics the game has used for its Power weapon class since launch. Nothing here is a datamine or a leak — where CD Projekt Red hasn't published a number, we say so.

01What Update 2.5 Actually Changes About Gunplay

The headline addition is the Double Trouble perk, slotted into the Cool skill tree. Unlock it and you can equip a Power category pistol or revolver in each hand at once, and the patch notes confirm four auxiliary perks ship alongside it to support the playstyle. CD Projekt Red's public notes don't spell out what those four perks actually do — reload speed, stability, or crit synergy are the obvious candidates, but until you've unlocked the row yourself and read the tooltips, treat the specifics as unconfirmed.

One restriction is explicit in the notes: this only works with Power category sidearms. Tech pistols that charge up for armor penetration and Smart pistols that lock onto targets with guided rounds aren't part of Double Trouble, at least not based on what's been published so far. If you've built a Tech or Smart run, this update doesn't touch your loadout.

Reaching the perk also isn't free. Double Trouble sits deep enough in the Cool tree that you'll need a meaningful Attribute Point investment in Cool before the row even unlocks, which in practice means this is a mid-to-late-game perk rather than something you grab on a fresh character in the first few hours. If you're planning a dual-wield build from the start, prioritize Cool over Reflexes early and expect to be running a single Power sidearm for a while before you can afford the second.

02How We Built This Tier List

Power weapons in Cyberpunk 2077 fire in a straight line, hit hardest per shot of the three archetypes, and reward precision over spray. That's been true since 2020 and Update 2.5 doesn't change the underlying weapon class — it changes how many of them you can point at once. So our ranking weighs three things: how much a gun's identity benefits from being doubled up (a stagger effect or an elemental proc is worth a lot more when you're pulling two triggers), how easy the gun is to actually acquire, and whether its downsides — slow handling, heavy recoil — get worse or cancel out when dual-wielded. We're labeling this clearly as opinion. CD Projekt Red hasn't published dual-wield-specific damage multipliers, so don't read "S-Tier" as a verified parsed number — read it as where we'd point your perk points first.

We're also weighing how much work a gun needs before it's worth running. Crafted Power pistols you build yourself scale with your own Crafting level and whatever mods you've slotted, so a high-level crafted sidearm can realistically outperform a low-level iconic you picked up early and never upgraded. If your iconic pick from S or A tier is sitting at its base level, put a crafting spec and a couple of attachment slots into it before writing it off — the gap between "mediocre" and "excellent" in this game is usually a workbench visit, not a different gun entirely.

03S-Tier: Build Your Double Trouble Loadout Around These

Iconic Power pistols and revolvers with a built-in status effect are the clear standouts, because Double Trouble effectively doubles your chance to trigger that effect per volley. A revolver that has a chance to stun or shock on hit becomes dramatically more consistent when you're firing two of them, since you're no longer waiting on a single low-probability roll between reloads. The same logic applies to any Power sidearm with bonus crit chance against staggered or weak-spotted enemies — pair it with another hard-hitting Power gun and you can chain staggers faster than a single weapon ever could.

Johnny Silverhand's signature Power pistol belongs here too, less because dual-wielding changes its individual numbers (CD Projekt Red hasn't said it does) and more because it's simply one of the hardest-hitting Power sidearms in the game, and Double Trouble is built for weapons that already hit hard. Pairing it with a second high-damage Power pistol or revolver gives you the burst to drop weaker enemies in a single combined volley, which is the whole appeal of this perk.

04A-Tier: Reliable Second Guns

Most of the Power revolvers you'll pick up from side jobs and gigs land here. They don't carry a flashy proc effect, but they hit hard, have decent handling for a revolver, and are common enough that you won't be grinding a specific vendor or fixer relationship to get a second copy. If your S-tier pick is a slow revolver with a long cylinder reload, pairing it with a faster-handling A-tier pistol in the other hand smooths out your overall time-to-kill between the two guns' reload windows — you're rarely reloading both at once.

This is also where we'd put any Power pistol with a bonus against armored or cybernetic targets specifically, since Night City's tougher enemies — Arasaka security, Militech patrols, the Edgerunners' own old crew — skew toward exactly that profile in the back half of the game.

05B-Tier: Fine, But You Can Do Better

Base-game, non-iconic Power pistols and revolvers without a named perk or status effect sit here. They work, and if you're still leveling Cool and haven't unlocked your preferred iconic yet, there's no shame in running two of these while you save up eddies or finish the quest that unlocks something better. Just don't expect them to carry a build once you're deep into the endgame — their damage falls behind crafted or legendary iconics fast, and Double Trouble doesn't change their base stats.

06C-Tier: Skip These for Dual-Wielding Specifically

Slow-handling, heavy Power revolvers with long reloads are the weakest fit for this perk, not because they're bad guns, but because dual-wielding is about maximizing shots on target per second, and a revolver that's already sluggish to bring back on target doesn't get faster just because you're holding two. You're better off running one of these as a single sidearm with a Tech or melee weapon in your other hand than pairing two of them together. The other category to skip: anything with a charge-up mechanic. Charge effects don't stack across two separate weapons the way a flat damage bonus does, so you're paying the wind-up cost twice for no extra payoff.

07Should You Bother With Tech or Smart Pistols At All Right Now?

If your current build leans Tech or Smart, Update 2.5 isn't asking you to respec. The patch's dual-wielding feature is explicitly scoped to Power category pistols and revolvers in the official notes, and there's no indication Tech's armor-piercing charge shots or Smart's homing rounds are getting a parallel treatment. That's not a knock on those archetypes — Smart weapons in particular remain the easiest way to land consistent headshots against moving targets without much aim — it just means this specific update's tier list doesn't apply to them. If CD Projekt Red extends dual-wielding to other weapon classes in a future patch, that's a different ranking for a different day.

08Final Verdict

Double Trouble rewards a specific kind of Power build: one or two hard-hitting iconics with an actual effect attached, backed up by a reliable A-tier pistol or revolver you can swap to when your main guns are reloading. It's a genuinely new way to play a gunslinger V rather than a reskin of an existing build, and it's worth testing even if you've already finished the main story — this is exactly the kind of system update that makes a second playthrough's combat feel different from your first. Just go in knowing the four auxiliary perks and any dual-wield-specific damage math haven't been detailed publicly yet, so some of what you find once you unlock the row will be new information even to CD Projekt Red's own patch notes.

How to Unlock Double Trouble and Start Dual-Wielding

1. 1Double Trouble is deep in the Cool skill tree, so you need enough Attribute Points spent in Cool before the row even unlocks. This is a mid-game milestone, not a day-one pick.Ongoing
2. 2Spend a perk point on Double Trouble once Cool is high enough. This is the node that lets you equip a second Power pistol or revolver in your off hand.1 perk point
3. 3CD Projekt Red's patch notes confirm four supporting perks ship with Double Trouble, but don't detail their effects publicly. Unlock them as you go and check their tooltips in-game — treat their exact effects as unconfirmed until you do.Unconfirmed
4. 4Open your inventory and slot a Power category pistol or revolver into each hand. Tech and Smart sidearms don't qualify based on the current patch notes.1 min
5. 5If your off-hand pick is a low-level iconic or a base-game drop, put it through a crafting bench with your current mods before judging it — Power weapons scale hard with Crafting level and attachments.5-10 min
6. 6Update 2.5 adds dual-wield-specific Photo Mode poses, a quick way to confirm both guns are actually equipped correctly before you head into a fight.2 min

CD Projekt Red's official Edgerunners 2 Update Features Overview, published the day before Update 2.5 launched.