The third playable character in Slay the Spire is called the Defect. Lore-wise, the Defect is an automaton that gained sentience and is trying to escape the Spire. This character has a unique mechanic – it uses Orbs to deal damage, block, and gain energy. If you are new to Slay the Spire, check out our STS beginner guide for basic rundown of key mechanics in the game.
In the Slay the Spire community, a lot of players consider the Defect to be the most difficult character to pilot. After all, the Orb mechanics aren’t that straightforward, and the character could seem underwhelming at first. However, with enough skill, this automaton can really snowball into an unstoppable force. Let’s see how it’s done.
Slay the Spire Defect Builds Overview
We’ve learnt about the best builds of the attack-focused Ironclad, as well as the skill-based Silent. This time, we’re going to analyze the power-driven Defect. The Defect has multiple viable archetypes, including Focus, Power, and the infamous Claw build. I’d also add that the Defect has a lot more hybrids than the other characters, since you’ll be mixing a lot of “archetypes” together, but we’ll talk about that later.
Before we get into the details, we have to remember – you can’t force a build in this game. The goal of Slay the Spire is to craft the best deck based on the cards and relics the game gives you. That being said, once you’ve committed to a build, there are some things to look out for – we’ll show you what they are.
Focus Build
Starting off with the basic Focus build; this type of deck focuses (no pun intended) on increasing the stats of your Orbs. We’ll soon discover that you don’t HAVE to use Orbs in a Defect build, but in general – they offer incredible value to the character and most decks will utilize Orbs in one way or another. A focus build simply makes your Orbs better, no matter if you’re leaning on Lightning, Frost, Dark Orbs, or a combination of them.
Key Cards
There are three cards that increase your Focus: Biased Cognition, Defragment, and Consume. Since two of them are powers, there are some similarities with the Power build we’ll get to in a moment. To stay on topic, these cards are great enablers for a Focus build.
Biased Cognition in particular offers a great reward, but at a cost of losing Focus overtime. In short fights, you could play it early to take the enemy down fast. However, in longer fights (especially against bosses), you need to find a way to mitigate the Focus loss, for example by playing Core Surge first.
Not much to say about Defragment – it’s a good boost with no downside but doesn’t scale well. Consume, on the other, offers great scaling (it’s a skill so it can be played multiple times per fight) at the cost of Orb slots. Consume is difficult to play unless you have a way to generate Orbs, either through Capacitor or Runic Capacitor/Inserter, both of which are relics that increase your Orb slots.
Synergistic Relics
Talking about relics, only one directly raises your Focus – Data Disk. Others offer additional benefits in a Focus build, like Gold-Plated Cables that triggers your Orb twice, Emotion Chip that triggers them whenever you lose HP, and the aforementioned Runic Capacitor/Inserter that increase Orb slots. Clockwork Souvenir is also a great get for a Focus build, since it gives you 1 Artifact, allowing you to bypass Focus loss from Biased Cognition.
Power Build
Moving on, let’s talk about the Power build. As you might have guessed, this archetype focuses on playing A LOT of Powers.
Key Cards
Personally, I construct my Power-focused decks like this: “Is this card a power? If so – I’ll add it” (except for Hello World). Now that doesn’t sound like good advice, so here are some Powers that you should watch out for. Number one is probably Storm, it gives you Lightning Orbs every time you play a Power so it offers some scaling, it’s not the best Power of all time but the damage adds up.
More impactful ones are Creative AI, Echo Form, Buffer, and Heat Sinks. Creative AI is not a must for this deck, but it really does offer sustain in the long-term. Skills to watch out for are Force Field which will quickly cost zero, and Amplify that allows you to double the great powers you have.
The strategy of this deck is – play as many powers as you can every turn. Just spam them until you’re all out. Let your Orbs finish the job on the enemies in the meantime.
Synergistic Relics
This build is somewhat relic dependent. You don’t HAVE to have them, but they can make fights trivial. These are Mummified Hand and Bird-Faced Urn.
Mummified Hand really means Game Over for the enemies. When you play a Power, it makes another card in your hand cost zero energy. Then you play another Power, and suddenly – you can play your entire hand for free.
Bird-Faced Urn heals you every time you play a Power card, which offers great sustain in the long-term. Especially since a deck like this sometimes requires a few turns of setup where enemies can hit you. It’s not as game-changing as Mummified Hand (especially with a Self Repair in the deck) but it helps A LOT.
Pro Tip: Watch out for the Awakened One
Similarly to the Shiv/Time Eater problem we encounter as the Silent, the Defect has a boss archenemy of its own – the Awakened One. This boss gains 1 Strength (2 if you’re on Ascension 19+) every time you play a Power card. If you’re on Ascension 20, you have a 66% chance of encountering it.
So if you do get this boss while you’re running a Power build, what do you do? You have two options – avoid playing any non-enabler powers and slowly try to fight without them, or play every power you have and hope you outscale the boss. To be honest, if you have the pivotal relics we mentioned, a great Power build on the Defect could get away with it.
However, in general, you just have to be mindful of which Powers you’re adding to your deck. Unfortunately, this build really does fall off on A20. But I think it’s really fun to play a bunch of Powers per turn, so I’m going to go for it from time to time, anyway.
Claw Build
Last but not least – the CLAW build. Even though it is bit of a meme in the Slay the Spire community, a Claw build is perfectly capable of beating enemies, bosses, elites, and helping you reach the top of the Spire. Here’s what you should do.
Key Cards
Well, first things first, it wouldn’t be a Claw build without Claw. Claw is what offers scaling in this deck, and the more you have of them – the greater the damage. Your goal is to enable these Claws to do most of the damage, so you need plenty of draw to make it work.
Cards to look out for include Hologram and All for One. Both of these are pretty much key in a Claw-focused deck and it doesn’t really work without them IMO. Other than that, keep an eye out for Turbo for extra energy, Machine Learning for draw, Rebound for deck manipulation, and some type of block (Reinforced Body works well here, since it allows you to spend any unused energy).
Although it’s called a Claw build, other zero-cost attacks are a great add, like Go for the Eyes, Beam Cell and FTL. Other attacks to include are Scrape for even more draw, and Streamline that can quickly get to zero-cost so All for One can grab it.
Synergistic Relics
The two relics you’ll be most excited to see in a Claw build are Shuriken and Kunai. Both of them scale your strength and dexterity with the number of attacks you play. Getting them early should really have you considering running this build.
Other relics to keep an eye out for are Nunchaku that gives you energy, Pen Nib that makes every tenth attack you play deal double damage, and Vajra/Girya that increase your strength.
Also, Claw works really well with Anti-Focus. We’ll talk about that shortly.
And remember – Claw is law.
Other Defect Builds
Okay, so as I mentioned, most Defect builds are actually hybrids and the ones worth mentioning here are no different. Let’s dive right in.
Dark Orb Build
A Dark Orb “build” revolves around enabling your Dark Orbs to deal incredible amounts of damage. Obviously, you want to increase your Focus as much as possible, and wait until the perfect moment to evoke the Orb.
Cards that work great for this are Darkness(upgraded), Dualcast, and Multicast. Recursion is also a great get, since it doesn’t actually reset the damage, it just resummons the Orb. Relic-wise, the only one worth mentioning is Symbiotic Virus, which creates a Dark Orb at the beginning of battle, so the setup is quicker.
Pros
- High burst damage
- Strong in long fights
- Great against bosses
Cons
- Limits your ability to use other orbs
- Single-target damage, lacks AOE
- Slow, requires setup
Anti-Focus Build
Another hybrid worth mentioning is the “Anti-Focus” build. You’ll notice that some cards actually REMOVE your Focus, and that’s what this build is about – attacking and blocking, not via Orbs, but via cards. These cards work great in a Claw build, too.
The Hyperbeam card is the obvious mention and it deals great AOE damage. However, maybe the most important card here is Reprogram. Reprogram is a skill, so it can be played multiple times per fight, allowing both your offense and defense to scale out of control.
And just a quick note – Plasma Orbs (that give you energy) aren’t actually affected by Focus (or lack thereof). As a result, in a build like this, you could get a Fusion to solve potential energy problems.
Pros
- Works well with a zero-cost attack build
- Decent, consistent scaling
- Good combination of single-target damage and AOE
Cons
- Card-dependent, especially on finding Reprogram
- Some cards in your deck become dead draws
- You miss out on a lot of benefits of Orb-based relics
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve talked about the best Defect builds in Slay the Spire – what they are, how they work, and what you should watch out for. You can choose to play as many powers as possible and watch the enemies bow down in fear, or claw your way to victory.
Either way, we hope that this article gave you some insight and inspiration for your next Defect win.
Photo Credits: Mega Crit Games
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