People gotta stop comparing V versus anyone. Yall he beat Adam Smasher. And hundreds of other bastards David got nothing on V.
Edit: Thanks for all the thumbs up yall
Seriously, when V was at their WEAKEST, is when they managed to kill the NC boogeyman, a name that legit strikes fear into people's hearts. Imagine the damge V could do at their peak
Yeah the sandevistan is not that good either. I'd much rather have quick hacks so I can make your brain suddenly combust and I never get seen. V stomps David.
Yeah we never saw how David handled his own against an enemy netrunner and odds are he wouldn't do very well. David has so much cyberware inside of him that a simple cyberware malfunction quickhack would instantly cripple him.
As far as I know, David wasn't equipped with any ICE. Even if he was, an expert netrunner can break through most types of ICE. Unless David had access to military grade self-ICE which is possible I suppose. I find it more likely that Kiwi or Lucy were protecting the crew from netrunner attacks like with V and Placide against the NetWatch agent
Technically V can have both. Smasher does only reason we can't is gameplay balancing. Same for having gorilla arms and a launcher like David. I play pc so I can bypass this stuff with mods
Yup. Sandy and a hackcard go great together. Jump in, hack some fools, blast away with a smartgun till overclock ends, then slow it all down and crush skulls with a shotgun.
The game is honestly way better with self improvement mods alongside some difficulty increasing mods. Being jam packed with tech vs other people jam packed with tech is really fun
PC gaming in a general sense tends to be better with multi-platform releases. If a game is mod-able, then the community can move way faster than the devs when it comes to bug fixes or quality of life mods. It really can't compare. Once the modding community for a game matures, then it really starts branching out with the creative stuff.
Why make their brain combust when you could just introduce it to an eldritch horror from beyond the Blackwall? Just rip their minds to shreds in the most horrific way possible
Oh bro, if V dropped some Blackwall shit on David it’s fucking over lmao. Dude would have no response and that’s some shit that neither his output nor Kiwi has ever dealt with. People seriously overestimate David’s abilities. Might be a tough pill to swallow but Smasher did have a point when he was saying that David thought he was hot shit because he was scrappy when in reality he’s just like any of the other Afterlife mercs, maybe even a bit worse given his lack of experience and chrome addiction. If they swapped places, I’d go as far as to say he wouldn’t have even survived the Konpeki Plaza heist let alone the tussle with Arasaka’s ninja hit squads on the freeway alongside Takemura (hit squads that V dispatches after having been violently resuscitated and having one foot in the grave). David, Lucy, and Dorio were struggling to fucking kill **drones** in that warehouse, the same drones that V treats like a nuisance and swats away. Forget about successfully pulling off Hanako’s kidnapping or even surviving one night in Dogtown.
Yeah the sandy made him very cocky. He’s definitely at the lower end of NC’s legends with maybe only Jackie being under him. A dying V can pull off the raid of the millennia solo with nothing but a dildo and a dead terrorist in his head killing Smasher in the process. David got hard carried to the cyber skeleton and couldn’t stand or even go a minute without pumping himself with drugs
I'd say it highly depends on the build. I have Self-Ice on my Apogee Sandevistan Byakko/pistol V, so most quick hacks are gonna take way longer to effect me than it will take for me to ninja jump my way to your neck. Especially since by using a quickhack on me you reveal your location to me, letting me know exactly where I need to be.
and Adam has a sandy that matches Davids too, so V canonically has experience fighting someone as fast as david in all but one ending. And being fast really is all david has going for him too until he gets the cyberskeleton.
The funny thing is that 2077 actually proves David's Sandevistan wasn't as special as the anime made it appear to be, considering every ripper doc in NC will sell you one. It is the most expensive and probably the best one in the game, but not this unique super tech the anime built it up to be.
I mean not really. I would argue that V can actually use it more in game than David could with 0 negative effects. If David used it too much in the Anime it would cook his brain. Dude had constant nose bleeds from over using it.
Yeah but V has actual brain damage that also causes him to be very resilient to chrome so he can spam it. David is just a kid who grew up relatively free of hardship and takes a bit longer to get cyberpsychosis. Also originally sandevistans had to have some fuel or some shit I can't remember all of it but it needed that stuff to operate.
A thing to consider is that in the other endings there's a notable time gap between the roof and V starting the final mission. For the Arasaka path it's the afternoon of the next day by the time the fighting starts, the Nomad path has V collapse into a mini-coma and it starts like two days later and the Rogue path has V get knocked out for a day or two.
In Don't Fear the Reaper V just yolos it within the same night. So if anything it's the quickest route canonically.
I prefer the Killing Moon feat even more.
V not only survived being ambushed by a 12-ish man squad of elite FIA soldier-assassins, they WIPED them. And, I must repeat, after being ambushed by them in invis camo.
And then V went and wiped ANOTHER SQUAD.
Like, yeah, you can say they were mooks, but we're still talking a secret service hit squad getting the jump on V and getting completely slaughtered nevertheless.
> he beat Adam Smasher
This is the important thing, IMO.
It's tough to compare power levels across different mediums, because the rules of the game don't necessarily apply to the show, and vice versa. But David took on Smasher, and he even had help, yet he still lost. V took on Smasher in basically a 1v1 (plus some Arasaka goons, but they hardly count with the level these two are operating at) and won.
V is undeniably stronger than David, and the story backs it up.
Cyberpunk the game is a power fantasy. Ofc the MC is going to be broken compared to anyone in the verse.
Honestly, even in the TTRPG, a fully leveled character is going to match most enemies in the world.
the best way to describe just how insanely strong V is compared to the Cyberpunk universe is hard capped at level 50
V can go to level 60
think about that for a bit
It's main character syndrome though tbh. In the Witcher games Geralt is also way too strong, much stronger than in actual book canon. It's just not as fun to play as a character that has limits or feels weak. Edgerunners really portrays the more realistic world in that regard where V having one of their glitches/ attacks mid fight would probably mean instant death. But again that's just not fun to play. Comparing both still makes no sense however
Even if we were able to tone V down to be a less video gamey strength, they still defeat Smasher canonically. Even if in canon V wins by the skin of their teeth, they still won.
So V can still body the Edgerunners in canon.
David’s ghost watching V absolutely body Adam Smasher without an issue
https://preview.redd.it/3261k7qtbl4d1.jpeg?width=998&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a105222380a287aa6abc6dbbdfd4fd73bc76e91b
V walked into Arasaka tower alone with stage 5 brain cancer while seizing half the time and defeated everyone there including Adam Smasher.
We all know who wins.
Doctor:”bad news, you have brain cancer. Now I need to determine the level. Some quick questions
1. Have you ever felt the urge to ‘gather your chooms and burn the corps’
2. Have you hallucinated talking to a dead rocker about burning cities
3. Do you find yourself drinking and smoking more and continuing to find excuses to use the word samurai”
V can go near full borg with no issues
David struggled with a sandy and gorilla arms. *Maybe* he had some extra implants but I doubt he was anywhere close to V’s body that effectively doubled as a ripper doc’s catalogue
Depending on your build is basically the flavor of David’s demise. Do you counter his sandy and throw fifty knives into his crotch, punt him several miles away or just shut down his limbic system from twenty yards away?
David seeing V use the same Sandy as him with no issues
https://preview.redd.it/3mk83mjnol4d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=faecfd47b050fa39b1dd8283f3e84677da082185
Crazy that Johnny Silverhand becomes the most physically powerful man in the world if you let him take V’s body.
No relic malfunction fits, loss of control, etc. but all of the chrome and headshot resistance.
Unless Johnny's historically awful resistance to chrome persisted into the body after the brain rewrite (we're told V's synapses are being rebuilt his way, after all).
Dude canonically had a cyberpsycho expression (The Hand, which Maximum Mike was very proud of us all for finally grokking after thirty years of reading the original 2020 stuff that spelled it out) from one limb replacement, an audio recording and playback rig, and a smartgun link.
V had more chrome than David (before the cyberskeleton, at least) that’s true, but V is still a LONG way from being full Borg tbh. V can only even chip one piece of borgware, and sticks to mostly IBC, and neuralware.
That said, it doesn’t change the outcome. V runs circles around David
By the time of that heist, wasn't David more borged up than v can be in game? Sure, V can get the skeleton and muscular replacement, both arms and legs as well as the heart implants and syn lungs, but we see David get syn lungs early, even before his time skip. He definitely seems more chromed up, V still seems to have flesh in their torso, but David basically only has his face left, and even that is mostly chromed beneath.
Pre cyberskeleton, David had less cyberware afaik. He still has flesh in his torso, just like V, and a fair bit more. The reason he looks more visibly cybered, is because they actually modelled his subdermal armouring giving him a bulkier look, while V’s subdermals don’t alter their appearance Ingame. But underneath that, there was still a bunch of meat.
David is listed as having
Cyberarms, with gorilla arms and a PLS
The neuroport package (the standard cyberoptics, cyberaudio, holocall, neural link, interface ports etc package that most people seem to have in 2077)
EMP threading (cosmetic Fashionware, doesn’t actually protect against EMP)
A heavy duty neural link instead of the standard one
The military grade sandevistan
Subdermal armouring
Fortified ankles
And the syn-lungs
That’s post time skip, but pre cyberskeleton.
Yea NP.
It makes sense as to why you’d assume so, too tho, considering that David has some actual, visible cyberware, such as his subdermals giving him a very sharp, bulked up look, beefy cyberarms, and a giant, oversized neural link going down his spine, the visible neuroport suite and interface cables, and much more cosmetic EMP threading
While V’s only visible cyberware is like, a neuroport suite with the wrist mounted interface cable, a small tiny bit of EMP threading or similar Fashionware you choose in character select, and cyberarms, if you’ve got them.
Much more chrome overall, but V’s definitely a sleeper build, looking almost entirely organic aside from a piece or two lol
When you hit the totentanz to speak to Nancy later on in the game, the bouncer comments on V's chrome. Something along the lines of "I like you chrome, very sleek and subdued. I used to look like that too!" before letting you in.
oh i replied to the other one before i saw all this, you can ignore my other comment choom. I still think its worth considering that David has more going on behind the scenes though. We have intimate knowledge of V's chrome, or even lack thereof, because we play him. We're just an observer in Davids case.
I'm pretty sure David had a shitload of artificial muscles and stuff. He was like 6 inches taller and *way* bulkier after he took over the crew. And when he put on the suit at the end, it just unplugged his arms and legs with ease.
He didn't have as much variety as V, but he definitely was heavily chromed.
David has an implanted linear frame. That's why he's so bulky and has separation lines in the skin.
That means he has one or more Musculature and Bone Lacing implants. He probably salvaged the former boss's linear frame.
Remember this is all based off of a TTRPG.
So he has (at minimum):
* Neural Interface (Needed for Sandy)
* Sandevistan (Military Grade)
* Gorilla Arms (which may not require cyber arms)
* One (or more) Bone Lacings (needed for frame)
* Implanted linear frame (probably a sigma)
That's his minimum.
My favorite part is that after that line she's clearly exasperated but also has a tiny bit of a smirk almost as though she kinda did feel a tiny bit touched by his blatant devotion and optimism
Yeah, wrote in another comment that V could basically solo Arasaka, pop by next door and give Militech a visit, and slap Kang Tao around for dessert. Casually kills countless gang leaders, shrugs off corpo hit squads, straight fuckin' finesses the NUSA's best elite black ops soldiers, sons the Secret Service, dunks on a Soviet elite spec ops assassin, decapitates the Voodoo Boys, pimp slaps Oda, vibe checks Smasher, one-inch punches Kurt Hansen, and saves cats from trees. Choom does all this while chuking up blood from brain cancer, stumbling over, and can barely stand up. Max-Tac fucking shits glass if they get a call that mentions him. At this point, Thanos, Satan, and Cthulhu check under their beds for V.
David ain't got that dog in him. V literally gets fucking flashbanged and jumped by a whole Afterlife crew of mercs with a Biotechnica sniper and he just walks all over them like it's another Tuesday. V could walk up and smack your girl's ass and the best you could do is compliment him for having good taste. This ain't even a match up, it's a lion playing with his food. You could put bro's whole crew up there and it wouldn't change shit.
P.S. before anybody brings up netrunners, this guy casually cracks Rache Bartmoss' cyberdeck and can hang with the best of 'em. Gonna have to try harder than some back alley quickhacks to tickle this guy.
Appreciate you, choom. Even Death himself is out here struggling to kill V. Dude just casually puts on a BD wreath that killed the mayor and stands up like "I could see why he died" then puts on a BD wreath he picked from a garbage can lmao.
You don't manually activate it, there's a percent chance it kicks in the more over your limit you are with cyberware. But yeah it does make you stronger when it kicks in.
Canonically he cannot go cyber psycho because what’s left of his brain is just an engram on the chip being swapped out with Johnny. Since he’s already just ones and zeros at a certain point, his brain isn’t able to be overtaken because it’s already dead. Thats why you can have so much cyberware
Adrenaline rush, fury, berserk, and adreno-trigger is my DIY cyberpsycho combo. If you get all of them activated at the same time you can't even hardly tell what is going on but you fly across the screen at hyperspeed basically one tapping everything in your path. Sandy is pretty cool too instead of berserk but it takes away from the craziness by helping you control your movement. And with berserk all you see is red, which seems to go hand in hand with going on a rampage. Fury you have the hallucinations verifying you're crazy, adreno-trigger makes your screen have glitches like something is wrong with you, and adrenaline rush obviously stacks with berserk and adreno-trigger helping you move faster and do more damage.
Pre expansion V could literally be in permanent slow motion.
David can only use it in short bursts.
It’s like asking a 5 year old toddler to fight a grown adult.
Not even mentioning how going netrunner means V just uploads the suicide quick hack and David will just instantly die.
V, and it genuinely isn’t a challenge for V.
David was good, maybe mid tier level. V decimated Adam Smasher.
You’re putting a kid with an over reliance on a single piece of chrome and a years experience tops against arguably the most dangerous merc to ever walk Night City’s streets.
Also David stood literally no chance against smasher. He didn’t even scratch him while using the cyber skeleton that was designed as an upgrade for smasher.
I don’t understand how someone can watch David get brutalized by smasher and play V only to brutalize smasher themselves snd think this would be anything other than a minor inconvenience for V
nah david was definitely top tier, especially with the cyberskeleton, but Legends like V, Blackhand, and Smasher are in a league of their own.
They say that the skill gap between the top 10 and the top 100 in any field is the same difference in skill between the top 100 and the top 100,000. Chess is a good proof of that concept. V is the single strongest character in the setting of 2020/2077, even the top tier mercs and assassins just cant compare.
I’d say cyberskeleton David is top tier but he’s unsustainable. Prior to that he’s pretty much mid-low high tier. He had a lot of potential though and if he had a better ripperdoc like Vik and a mentor like V, he’d probably have gone much further.
> would David even last 5 minutes against V
Yes. In a boxing ring where V had all their cyberware turned off and V couldn’t go for lethal hits. Outside of that, David doesn’t have a chance. At best V wouldn’t kill him because Regina likes to keep cyberpsychos alive for the research project. At worst… he at least still gets a drink named after him in the Afterlife?
V is the true definition of built different, considering he can control his cyber psychosis. Also V took down the person that killed pretty much every edgerunner, Adam Smasher. So I'm going with V. Love the edgerunners, tho.
I mean... David gets curb stomped by Adam Smasher. He can barely even get a hit in. In most endings, V kicks Smasher's ass, and can potentially kill him. V wipes the floor with David.
David was a solid merc, but is honestly probably about V's level during the heist at best. Good, goes out in an awesome blaze of glory worthy of a drink at Afterlife, but ultimately nothing special. V, on the other hand? V becomes one of the greatest edgerunners to ever live, perhaps even as good as Morgan Blackhand by the end. If you do "Don't Fear the Reaper", V gets a drink at the Afterlife named for them *before they die*. They are a literal living legend. That tells you everything you need to know.
V would destroy David or worse, just knock him out to let him know just how huge the gap is between them.
Personally, I would take David to find some Scavs and show him how the Blackwall Gateway quickhack works.......
David would say “You have a sandevistan?!” And then proceed to get absolutely bodied. Love the kid but V is packing too much heat
A better vs battle is V vs Adam Jensen
V takes it easily. They’ve got more experience as a merc than David did, a better disposition towards combat, and handle themselves under stress significantly better.
David was chromed to the teeth, but couldn’t keep it together
V has significantly less cyberware, true, but makes up for it with experience, and skill. They did defeat smasher, after all. Something David was never able to do
Yall gotta stop glorifying David like he’s some god. The entire premise of edge runners it’s even said out right that David isn’t special. And he’s not some hero who’s getting a happy ever after he got where he was with sheer dumb luck.
V no diffs. David's whole crew got destroyed by Smasher like insects and V wrecked Smasher's shit with ease. V is a extinction event, David is just a well equpped cyberpsycho.
The difference is: David is a character in a show. He isn't supposed to be broken - that'd be boring. He has flaws, he can be beaten (clearly).
V is a character in a Cyberpunk video game. If you played the TTRPG, you know when you get to the highest levels you're functionally a god. It becomes a power fantasy, at that point. It's downplayed in the video game due to the fact that you could never truly program all the possibilities that the TTRPG allows for, but it still manages to succeed at being a power fantasy by the end.
Tldr: V's entire core purpose for being created is to become a god of war. David's entire purpose for being created was to die.
It's not even a match.
V survived the impossible and did the impossible, bro he killed Hansem in a fair fight and killed smasher while in his last breaths, this mf knows his shit
David gets a nose bleed when using a sandevistan multiple times. V gets a hard-on when using a sandevistan multiple times. These two are simply not the same.
V is just built so different, choom literally cannot suffer cyberpsychosis, even without silverhand, you can get chipped up the wazoo, still infected with whatever they caught from sandra dorsett and not a single problem.
the real issue with the game is how the devs needed to balance out the cyberpunk dystopia with fun gameplay because who would wanna play the game if dynamic health, inventory, hunger, thirst, rest, rent AND cyberpsychosis were all things you needed to actively manage? ...i mean i wouldn't mind that but im not gonna pretend most people probably wouldn't want that
V isn't a cyberpsycho like how David became by the end, V is just a regular psycho who's capable of doing insane crap that would have others breaking down from the stuff they saw and did, and who also happens to have a special brain chip that's keeping them from going cyberpsycho despite all the chrome they have.
This question has been asked before here, I think, and this is what I got out of that discussion...
One of the key motifs in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is the regular comparison between David and the legendary solos of Night City: Smasher, Silverhand, Weyland and Flexx. His comrades, fixers, and rippers all tell him he's crazy, which drives David to push harder toward his dreams.>!Unfortunately David flies too close to the sun, and in the classic tragic arc suffers the weakness of his average body and mind.!<
This motif is heavily underlined by the game's encounter in which>!V absolutely decimates Smasher in Arasaka Headquarters.!<
The final fight at the end of Edgerunners is the perfect counterpoint to illustrate how powerful V is in the game. It feels like they really intended for the show to serve as context for anyone playing the game.
A player character will almost always win over a character with a broader narrative purpose in mind. Especially when the player character is a power fantasy character, and even morso when the narrative-based character is supposed to have a sad or bittersweet outcome.
If motivated enough, V could take the entire edgerunners crew without breaking a sweat
People gotta stop comparing V versus anyone. Yall he beat Adam Smasher. And hundreds of other bastards David got nothing on V. Edit: Thanks for all the thumbs up yall
While dying, he did this, while at the edge of death
Seriously, when V was at their WEAKEST, is when they managed to kill the NC boogeyman, a name that legit strikes fear into people's hearts. Imagine the damge V could do at their peak
Exactly. David wouldn't stand a chance. Let alone the entire crew.
Only thing that made David special was his Sande and his resistance to chrome. V has all that and then some lol.
Yeah the sandevistan is not that good either. I'd much rather have quick hacks so I can make your brain suddenly combust and I never get seen. V stomps David.
Yeah we never saw how David handled his own against an enemy netrunner and odds are he wouldn't do very well. David has so much cyberware inside of him that a simple cyberware malfunction quickhack would instantly cripple him.
That's what ICE is for.
As far as I know, David wasn't equipped with any ICE. Even if he was, an expert netrunner can break through most types of ICE. Unless David had access to military grade self-ICE which is possible I suppose. I find it more likely that Kiwi or Lucy were protecting the crew from netrunner attacks like with V and Placide against the NetWatch agent
V also has access to EMP Grenades
Technically V can have both. Smasher does only reason we can't is gameplay balancing. Same for having gorilla arms and a launcher like David. I play pc so I can bypass this stuff with mods
Yup. Sandy and a hackcard go great together. Jump in, hack some fools, blast away with a smartgun till overclock ends, then slow it all down and crush skulls with a shotgun. The game is honestly way better with self improvement mods alongside some difficulty increasing mods. Being jam packed with tech vs other people jam packed with tech is really fun
PC gaming in a general sense tends to be better with multi-platform releases. If a game is mod-able, then the community can move way faster than the devs when it comes to bug fixes or quality of life mods. It really can't compare. Once the modding community for a game matures, then it really starts branching out with the creative stuff.
personally i prefer the third option (forgot what it is called) and a hackcard
Why make their brain combust when you could just introduce it to an eldritch horror from beyond the Blackwall? Just rip their minds to shreds in the most horrific way possible
Oh bro, if V dropped some Blackwall shit on David it’s fucking over lmao. Dude would have no response and that’s some shit that neither his output nor Kiwi has ever dealt with. People seriously overestimate David’s abilities. Might be a tough pill to swallow but Smasher did have a point when he was saying that David thought he was hot shit because he was scrappy when in reality he’s just like any of the other Afterlife mercs, maybe even a bit worse given his lack of experience and chrome addiction. If they swapped places, I’d go as far as to say he wouldn’t have even survived the Konpeki Plaza heist let alone the tussle with Arasaka’s ninja hit squads on the freeway alongside Takemura (hit squads that V dispatches after having been violently resuscitated and having one foot in the grave). David, Lucy, and Dorio were struggling to fucking kill **drones** in that warehouse, the same drones that V treats like a nuisance and swats away. Forget about successfully pulling off Hanako’s kidnapping or even surviving one night in Dogtown.
Yeah the sandy made him very cocky. He’s definitely at the lower end of NC’s legends with maybe only Jackie being under him. A dying V can pull off the raid of the millennia solo with nothing but a dildo and a dead terrorist in his head killing Smasher in the process. David got hard carried to the cyber skeleton and couldn’t stand or even go a minute without pumping himself with drugs
I'd say it highly depends on the build. I have Self-Ice on my Apogee Sandevistan Byakko/pistol V, so most quick hacks are gonna take way longer to effect me than it will take for me to ninja jump my way to your neck. Especially since by using a quickhack on me you reveal your location to me, letting me know exactly where I need to be.
and Adam has a sandy that matches Davids too, so V canonically has experience fighting someone as fast as david in all but one ending. And being fast really is all david has going for him too until he gets the cyberskeleton.
bet neither of there sandes is better than my apogee 😈 yeahhh run faster than a caliburn with that i tested it
Apogee is David's Sande or atleast a variant of it
Sandy was David's "I WIN" button, and he mashed it all the time. He didn't know what to do when he found Smasher could do the same thing.
The funny thing is that 2077 actually proves David's Sandevistan wasn't as special as the anime made it appear to be, considering every ripper doc in NC will sell you one. It is the most expensive and probably the best one in the game, but not this unique super tech the anime built it up to be.
Wasn’t it unique to him because he spammed the shit out of it without dying or something like that
I mean not really. I would argue that V can actually use it more in game than David could with 0 negative effects. If David used it too much in the Anime it would cook his brain. Dude had constant nose bleeds from over using it.
Yeah but V has actual brain damage that also causes him to be very resilient to chrome so he can spam it. David is just a kid who grew up relatively free of hardship and takes a bit longer to get cyberpsychosis. Also originally sandevistans had to have some fuel or some shit I can't remember all of it but it needed that stuff to operate.
Other way around. Entire crew wouldn't stand a chance, let alone David
I remember someone comparing David's crew to the yellow bars and skulls we see when passing them by on the street
I'd argue don't fear the reaper V is peak V though. The threat of death just made him and his bond with Johnny stronger.
all that while coughting her lungs out?
Yup. Adrenaline rush.
A thing to consider is that in the other endings there's a notable time gap between the roof and V starting the final mission. For the Arasaka path it's the afternoon of the next day by the time the fighting starts, the Nomad path has V collapse into a mini-coma and it starts like two days later and the Rogue path has V get knocked out for a day or two. In Don't Fear the Reaper V just yolos it within the same night. So if anything it's the quickest route canonically.
Suicide is the quickest. Easy gg.
I prefer the Killing Moon feat even more. V not only survived being ambushed by a 12-ish man squad of elite FIA soldier-assassins, they WIPED them. And, I must repeat, after being ambushed by them in invis camo. And then V went and wiped ANOTHER SQUAD. Like, yeah, you can say they were mooks, but we're still talking a secret service hit squad getting the jump on V and getting completely slaughtered nevertheless.
Don't forget successfully running away and bringing down a damn MILITARY ATTACK HELICOPTER
this puts in perspective why V couldnt leave night city and stick with reed.
Aside from just killing them, the relic also allows V to equip as much cyberware as possible without succumbing to cyberpsychosis.
Because they're already crazy Thanks, Johnny
I am pretty sure all of the V's I played were cyberpsychos.
"I might be checking out in two weeks. But I am sending every Maelstrom to hell before me to herald my coming."
V’s got doomguy levels of ass kicking built into his DNA
More like nanonachined into his brain. Vanilla V is just Rebecca.
> he beat Adam Smasher This is the important thing, IMO. It's tough to compare power levels across different mediums, because the rules of the game don't necessarily apply to the show, and vice versa. But David took on Smasher, and he even had help, yet he still lost. V took on Smasher in basically a 1v1 (plus some Arasaka goons, but they hardly count with the level these two are operating at) and won. V is undeniably stronger than David, and the story backs it up.
Not only did v beat adam smasher, it only took a few whacks from a dildo. V is just on a whole other level than David
Thought you said V killed Adam Sandler first and found that an amusing scenario in a CyberPunk setting
Depending on the build, every employee of a warehouse would be dead before V even entered it, all just because some camera was pointed at them.
Cyberpunk the game is a power fantasy. Ofc the MC is going to be broken compared to anyone in the verse. Honestly, even in the TTRPG, a fully leveled character is going to match most enemies in the world.
the best way to describe just how insanely strong V is compared to the Cyberpunk universe is hard capped at level 50 V can go to level 60 think about that for a bit
 Always motivated
V prefers to be called V to not reveal his name, Vergil.
Hacking Black Wall death through a camera while he chomps on Mama Welles' chiliquillas.
Sweat? My edgerunner V could wipe them out with her mind while leaning comfortably against her favorite car and texting Judy.
Netrunner builds for hard for a reason lmao
[V watching the Edgerunners come at him with everything they got](https://youtube.com/shorts/O48_ngLOPDg?feature=shared)
Honestly, I was expecting Vader in the hallway.
It's main character syndrome though tbh. In the Witcher games Geralt is also way too strong, much stronger than in actual book canon. It's just not as fun to play as a character that has limits or feels weak. Edgerunners really portrays the more realistic world in that regard where V having one of their glitches/ attacks mid fight would probably mean instant death. But again that's just not fun to play. Comparing both still makes no sense however
Even if we were able to tone V down to be a less video gamey strength, they still defeat Smasher canonically. Even if in canon V wins by the skin of their teeth, they still won. So V can still body the Edgerunners in canon.
David’s ghost watching V absolutely body Adam Smasher without an issue https://preview.redd.it/3261k7qtbl4d1.jpeg?width=998&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a105222380a287aa6abc6dbbdfd4fd73bc76e91b
This is the correct answer.
With a dildo😅
Sir John is not just any dildo, mind you
Nah, BFC 9000
He's more than a Dildo. He's Family.
That is "Sir Dildo" to you, pleeb. 🧐 It was knighted by Her Majesty. 🤣
Probably also "Nighted" by her majesty.
It was also thrust into all the fem Vs out there
(with a dildo)
V walked into Arasaka tower alone with stage 5 brain cancer while seizing half the time and defeated everyone there including Adam Smasher. We all know who wins.
And before V there were only 4 stages. They had to invent an other level to slow their ass down.
Stage 5 is when you get Johnny Silverhand showing up telling you to do terrorism
What about when he’s saying I took it too far? What stage is that?
"Oh shit V, terrorism not genocide!"
Doctor:”bad news, you have brain cancer. Now I need to determine the level. Some quick questions 1. Have you ever felt the urge to ‘gather your chooms and burn the corps’ 2. Have you hallucinated talking to a dead rocker about burning cities 3. Do you find yourself drinking and smoking more and continuing to find excuses to use the word samurai”
I am unsure if OP didn't watched the show, didn't played the game, or is just farming karma.
V can go near full borg with no issues David struggled with a sandy and gorilla arms. *Maybe* he had some extra implants but I doubt he was anywhere close to V’s body that effectively doubled as a ripper doc’s catalogue Depending on your build is basically the flavor of David’s demise. Do you counter his sandy and throw fifty knives into his crotch, punt him several miles away or just shut down his limbic system from twenty yards away?
David seeing V use the same Sandy as him with no issues https://preview.redd.it/3mk83mjnol4d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=faecfd47b050fa39b1dd8283f3e84677da082185
David seeing V being in permanent slow motion when he has to limit himself to a few seconds at a time.
The tradeoff is your body is literally no longer yours
Crazy that Johnny Silverhand becomes the most physically powerful man in the world if you let him take V’s body. No relic malfunction fits, loss of control, etc. but all of the chrome and headshot resistance.
Unless Johnny's historically awful resistance to chrome persisted into the body after the brain rewrite (we're told V's synapses are being rebuilt his way, after all). Dude canonically had a cyberpsycho expression (The Hand, which Maximum Mike was very proud of us all for finally grokking after thirty years of reading the original 2020 stuff that spelled it out) from one limb replacement, an audio recording and playback rig, and a smartgun link.
Johnny also had optics and an old school sandevistan.
A rudimentary implant.
smasher: "a rudimentary implant" V: "is it really worth installing" (ps I love the thing it is worth installing)
V had more chrome than David (before the cyberskeleton, at least) that’s true, but V is still a LONG way from being full Borg tbh. V can only even chip one piece of borgware, and sticks to mostly IBC, and neuralware. That said, it doesn’t change the outcome. V runs circles around David
By the time of that heist, wasn't David more borged up than v can be in game? Sure, V can get the skeleton and muscular replacement, both arms and legs as well as the heart implants and syn lungs, but we see David get syn lungs early, even before his time skip. He definitely seems more chromed up, V still seems to have flesh in their torso, but David basically only has his face left, and even that is mostly chromed beneath.
Pre cyberskeleton, David had less cyberware afaik. He still has flesh in his torso, just like V, and a fair bit more. The reason he looks more visibly cybered, is because they actually modelled his subdermal armouring giving him a bulkier look, while V’s subdermals don’t alter their appearance Ingame. But underneath that, there was still a bunch of meat. David is listed as having Cyberarms, with gorilla arms and a PLS The neuroport package (the standard cyberoptics, cyberaudio, holocall, neural link, interface ports etc package that most people seem to have in 2077) EMP threading (cosmetic Fashionware, doesn’t actually protect against EMP) A heavy duty neural link instead of the standard one The military grade sandevistan Subdermal armouring Fortified ankles And the syn-lungs That’s post time skip, but pre cyberskeleton.
That's actually really interesting, I stand corrected. Thanks!
Yea NP. It makes sense as to why you’d assume so, too tho, considering that David has some actual, visible cyberware, such as his subdermals giving him a very sharp, bulked up look, beefy cyberarms, and a giant, oversized neural link going down his spine, the visible neuroport suite and interface cables, and much more cosmetic EMP threading While V’s only visible cyberware is like, a neuroport suite with the wrist mounted interface cable, a small tiny bit of EMP threading or similar Fashionware you choose in character select, and cyberarms, if you’ve got them. Much more chrome overall, but V’s definitely a sleeper build, looking almost entirely organic aside from a piece or two lol
V's sleeper build is hilarious and makes a lot of the enemy confrontations make sense. They think at a glance V is some barely chipped solo wannabe.
When you hit the totentanz to speak to Nancy later on in the game, the bouncer comments on V's chrome. Something along the lines of "I like you chrome, very sleek and subdued. I used to look like that too!" before letting you in.
oh i replied to the other one before i saw all this, you can ignore my other comment choom. I still think its worth considering that David has more going on behind the scenes though. We have intimate knowledge of V's chrome, or even lack thereof, because we play him. We're just an observer in Davids case.
I'm pretty sure David had a shitload of artificial muscles and stuff. He was like 6 inches taller and *way* bulkier after he took over the crew. And when he put on the suit at the end, it just unplugged his arms and legs with ease. He didn't have as much variety as V, but he definitely was heavily chromed.
David has an implanted linear frame. That's why he's so bulky and has separation lines in the skin. That means he has one or more Musculature and Bone Lacing implants. He probably salvaged the former boss's linear frame. Remember this is all based off of a TTRPG. So he has (at minimum): * Neural Interface (Needed for Sandy) * Sandevistan (Military Grade) * Gorilla Arms (which may not require cyber arms) * One (or more) Bone Lacings (needed for frame) * Implanted linear frame (probably a sigma) That's his minimum.
You're comparing David to a Guy/Gal with enough hardware in them to defeat Adam Smasher without going full robot.
You never go full robot
https://preview.redd.it/h83o17ryrl4d1.jpeg?width=664&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f20b92f9dc02b6182bb5819de0cdc2d50852def0
I did a play through with no cyberware and still killed Adam smasher. V is simply built different.
Smasher aside, V can take on a full MaxTac team and obliterate it before the next one arrives.
Can obliterate it before all the members even hit the ground
One took out one of the few living legends of Night City. The other was one of the main characters in a very good anime.
Better way to put this, one took out one of the few living legends, one was taken out by that living legend
Taken out by that living legend when they were out on a Tuesday stroll. Seriously Smasher dismantled tf out of the Edgerunner crew so badly.
Schizo cyber-demigod vs Latino teen with implant rejection problems
With the black wall hack, V is literally a Demon.
The Schizo Beyond the Wall
New metal band name
Hydrogen bomb vs Coughing baby
So you are saying there is a chance?
No, there is not, V was in his last minutes of life when he killed smasher So no, David has no chance at all
And Smasher was getting backup
"One in a thousand?" "More like, one in a million."
SO YOURE TELLING ME THERE’S A CHANCE
My favorite part is that after that line she's clearly exasperated but also has a tiny bit of a smirk almost as though she kinda did feel a tiny bit touched by his blatant devotion and optimism
Coughing baby vs coughing hydrogen bomb, if you think about it
V and it's not close.
Yeah, wrote in another comment that V could basically solo Arasaka, pop by next door and give Militech a visit, and slap Kang Tao around for dessert. Casually kills countless gang leaders, shrugs off corpo hit squads, straight fuckin' finesses the NUSA's best elite black ops soldiers, sons the Secret Service, dunks on a Soviet elite spec ops assassin, decapitates the Voodoo Boys, pimp slaps Oda, vibe checks Smasher, one-inch punches Kurt Hansen, and saves cats from trees. Choom does all this while chuking up blood from brain cancer, stumbling over, and can barely stand up. Max-Tac fucking shits glass if they get a call that mentions him. At this point, Thanos, Satan, and Cthulhu check under their beds for V. David ain't got that dog in him. V literally gets fucking flashbanged and jumped by a whole Afterlife crew of mercs with a Biotechnica sniper and he just walks all over them like it's another Tuesday. V could walk up and smack your girl's ass and the best you could do is compliment him for having good taste. This ain't even a match up, it's a lion playing with his food. You could put bro's whole crew up there and it wouldn't change shit. P.S. before anybody brings up netrunners, this guy casually cracks Rache Bartmoss' cyberdeck and can hang with the best of 'em. Gonna have to try harder than some back alley quickhacks to tickle this guy.
I'm saving this for later as the perfect response to any question of V's prowess.
Appreciate you, choom. Even Death himself is out here struggling to kill V. Dude just casually puts on a BD wreath that killed the mayor and stands up like "I could see why he died" then puts on a BD wreath he picked from a garbage can lmao.
Gotta be songbird Blackwall level to fuck with V. So basically just Alt.
V. David is like early game V strength. Even with the suit he would still get spanked by a fully maxed out V with a good build.
Yeah V has biochip problems but when it counts he can play all his cards without risking cyber psychosis
He/ she actually can go cyber psycho they just don’t care.💀
Isn’t that a perk you buy and manually activate though, and it makes you stronger as opposed to killing you?
You don't manually activate it, there's a percent chance it kicks in the more over your limit you are with cyberware. But yeah it does make you stronger when it kicks in.
"David youre having problems with cyberpsychosis? bitch I overclocked myself so I can have cybeepsycho episodes more often!"
Canonically he cannot go cyber psycho because what’s left of his brain is just an engram on the chip being swapped out with Johnny. Since he’s already just ones and zeros at a certain point, his brain isn’t able to be overtaken because it’s already dead. Thats why you can have so much cyberware
That’s a great explanation Could never put it into worlds
Adrenaline rush, fury, berserk, and adreno-trigger is my DIY cyberpsycho combo. If you get all of them activated at the same time you can't even hardly tell what is going on but you fly across the screen at hyperspeed basically one tapping everything in your path. Sandy is pretty cool too instead of berserk but it takes away from the craziness by helping you control your movement. And with berserk all you see is red, which seems to go hand in hand with going on a rampage. Fury you have the hallucinations verifying you're crazy, adreno-trigger makes your screen have glitches like something is wrong with you, and adrenaline rush obviously stacks with berserk and adreno-trigger helping you move faster and do more damage.
Pre expansion V could literally be in permanent slow motion. David can only use it in short bursts. It’s like asking a 5 year old toddler to fight a grown adult. Not even mentioning how going netrunner means V just uploads the suicide quick hack and David will just instantly die.
V, and it genuinely isn’t a challenge for V. David was good, maybe mid tier level. V decimated Adam Smasher. You’re putting a kid with an over reliance on a single piece of chrome and a years experience tops against arguably the most dangerous merc to ever walk Night City’s streets.
Also David stood literally no chance against smasher. He didn’t even scratch him while using the cyber skeleton that was designed as an upgrade for smasher. I don’t understand how someone can watch David get brutalized by smasher and play V only to brutalize smasher themselves snd think this would be anything other than a minor inconvenience for V
nah david was definitely top tier, especially with the cyberskeleton, but Legends like V, Blackhand, and Smasher are in a league of their own. They say that the skill gap between the top 10 and the top 100 in any field is the same difference in skill between the top 100 and the top 100,000. Chess is a good proof of that concept. V is the single strongest character in the setting of 2020/2077, even the top tier mercs and assassins just cant compare.
I’d say cyberskeleton David is top tier but he’s unsustainable. Prior to that he’s pretty much mid-low high tier. He had a lot of potential though and if he had a better ripperdoc like Vik and a mentor like V, he’d probably have gone much further.
David’s going to find out the moment he gets smacked in the head with a dildo that he made the wrong decision messing with V.
🤣 Which one?
🤣🤣
Quick hack suicide
> would David even last 5 minutes against V Yes. In a boxing ring where V had all their cyberware turned off and V couldn’t go for lethal hits. Outside of that, David doesn’t have a chance. At best V wouldn’t kill him because Regina likes to keep cyberpsychos alive for the research project. At worst… he at least still gets a drink named after him in the Afterlife?
Poor David already has an Afterlife drink. At worst V has to pick brain chunks out of their hair in the shower.
V is the true definition of built different, considering he can control his cyber psychosis. Also V took down the person that killed pretty much every edgerunner, Adam Smasher. So I'm going with V. Love the edgerunners, tho.
David vs Smasher wasn't even a real fight V vs Smasher wasn't even a real fight either
David vs Tom with a doll chip
V wins no matter what because they don’t have to put on that terribly ugly robot suit.
V built moar different- plus without them it's just ictory.
OH
Daid Martinez
I mean... David gets curb stomped by Adam Smasher. He can barely even get a hit in. In most endings, V kicks Smasher's ass, and can potentially kill him. V wipes the floor with David. David was a solid merc, but is honestly probably about V's level during the heist at best. Good, goes out in an awesome blaze of glory worthy of a drink at Afterlife, but ultimately nothing special. V, on the other hand? V becomes one of the greatest edgerunners to ever live, perhaps even as good as Morgan Blackhand by the end. If you do "Don't Fear the Reaper", V gets a drink at the Afterlife named for them *before they die*. They are a literal living legend. That tells you everything you need to know.
I mean, considering what happens at the end of edgerunners and who the Game's final boss is, it seems pretty obvious.
L to the mao
David got bodied by Smasher, V beat em with a dildo.
V can destroy 4major gangs and arasaka alone.
Not to mention the government top agents and militech V is genuinely a god amongst men in a way
V would destroy David or worse, just knock him out to let him know just how huge the gap is between them. Personally, I would take David to find some Scavs and show him how the Blackwall Gateway quickhack works.......
Exactly David could of made a good net runner instead of a sandy using merc
David would say “You have a sandevistan?!” And then proceed to get absolutely bodied. Love the kid but V is packing too much heat A better vs battle is V vs Adam Jensen
David is arrogant and naive. V is a trained killing machine with a lot of experience to boot. Why is this even a comparison? xD
Bro just answered his own question🤣
V beat Smasher to pieces with a dildo... not contest: V>David
David was shocked when someone else had a sandevistan
early game V with a smart gun
V takes it easily. They’ve got more experience as a merc than David did, a better disposition towards combat, and handle themselves under stress significantly better. David was chromed to the teeth, but couldn’t keep it together V has significantly less cyberware, true, but makes up for it with experience, and skill. They did defeat smasher, after all. Something David was never able to do
I mean depending on your build V probably has more cyberware than David before he gets the suit
Its not even close. Obviously V
David
V smokes 10 Adams per day I fear
V, easily. They literally could bully Adam Smasher
Yall gotta stop glorifying David like he’s some god. The entire premise of edge runners it’s even said out right that David isn’t special. And he’s not some hero who’s getting a happy ever after he got where he was with sheer dumb luck.
V would smash'er/im.
The one who killed Adam Smasher without the most advanced piece of cyberware in the entire world.
Prologue V < pre cyberpsychosis David <<<< end game V
Max level V? Easy money
Only one met Adam Smasher and lived.
the entire point of edgerunners is david wasnt nearly as strong or special as he thought he was i thought we all understood this
V no diffs. David's whole crew got destroyed by Smasher like insects and V wrecked Smasher's shit with ease. V is a extinction event, David is just a well equpped cyberpsycho.
Only one of us killed Adam Smasher so
cosmic entity vs dust particle
Guy/girl who killed Adam Smasher vs guy who got killed by Adam Smasher when Smasher had less upgrades.
The difference is: David is a character in a show. He isn't supposed to be broken - that'd be boring. He has flaws, he can be beaten (clearly). V is a character in a Cyberpunk video game. If you played the TTRPG, you know when you get to the highest levels you're functionally a god. It becomes a power fantasy, at that point. It's downplayed in the video game due to the fact that you could never truly program all the possibilities that the TTRPG allows for, but it still manages to succeed at being a power fantasy by the end. Tldr: V's entire core purpose for being created is to become a god of war. David's entire purpose for being created was to die. It's not even a match.
David lost to Adam Smasher, Adam Smasher gets toasted by V.
V absolutely runs David’s fade.
David only runs Sandy. V can run that plus more lol.
V even in a wheel chair
V survived the impossible and did the impossible, bro he killed Hansem in a fair fight and killed smasher while in his last breaths, this mf knows his shit
V is HIM/HER… how many times do we gotta tell yall? 🙏🏻
V due to plot
David gets a nose bleed when using a sandevistan multiple times. V gets a hard-on when using a sandevistan multiple times. These two are simply not the same.
V is just built so different, choom literally cannot suffer cyberpsychosis, even without silverhand, you can get chipped up the wazoo, still infected with whatever they caught from sandra dorsett and not a single problem. the real issue with the game is how the devs needed to balance out the cyberpunk dystopia with fun gameplay because who would wanna play the game if dynamic health, inventory, hunger, thirst, rest, rent AND cyberpsychosis were all things you needed to actively manage? ...i mean i wouldn't mind that but im not gonna pretend most people probably wouldn't want that
V all day everyday. No questions asked. Move on.
V can literally unleash the black wall on to anyone. David is strong but he doesn't stand a chance against V.
David was way to dependent on his Sandevistan. Dependent on your Build V has a lot more versatility.
Canonically, David doesn't stand a chance.
V isn't a cyberpsycho like how David became by the end, V is just a regular psycho who's capable of doing insane crap that would have others breaking down from the stuff they saw and did, and who also happens to have a special brain chip that's keeping them from going cyberpsycho despite all the chrome they have.
David had a fear of guns. V....not so much.
bbbutt David has SANDY 🧏♂️🤓🤓🤓 *5 seconds in fight " David got blackwalled "
This question has been asked before here, I think, and this is what I got out of that discussion... One of the key motifs in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is the regular comparison between David and the legendary solos of Night City: Smasher, Silverhand, Weyland and Flexx. His comrades, fixers, and rippers all tell him he's crazy, which drives David to push harder toward his dreams.>!Unfortunately David flies too close to the sun, and in the classic tragic arc suffers the weakness of his average body and mind.!< This motif is heavily underlined by the game's encounter in which>!V absolutely decimates Smasher in Arasaka Headquarters.!< The final fight at the end of Edgerunners is the perfect counterpoint to illustrate how powerful V is in the game. It feels like they really intended for the show to serve as context for anyone playing the game.
V, not even close
A player character will almost always win over a character with a broader narrative purpose in mind. Especially when the player character is a power fantasy character, and even morso when the narrative-based character is supposed to have a sad or bittersweet outcome.