Slay the Spire 10 Tips for Playing the Defect

Slay the Spire: 10 Tips for Playing the Defect

While less intuitive than the Silent or the Ironclad, the Defect has complex, unique options that reward skilled and intentional play.

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The Defect is one of the “starting three” classes in indie deck-building roguelite hybrid Slay the Spire, along with the Ironclad and the Silent (with the Watcher being added later as part of a free update). The Defect is generally considered less intuitive than the Silent or the Ironclad, who have fairly clear options and routines available to them that allow a player to build in similar ways throughout runs involving those characters.

The Defect, on the other hand, has significantly more options than their peers, lending to a wide set of possibly successful deck and relic combinations that could lead to a successful run. Since there are so many options available to the Defect, it’s important to keep in mind some general guidelines that would allow a player to fully understand the character.

10 Keeping The Deck Simple

With characters such as the Silent, amassing a large deck of many cards could potentially lead to fantastical combinations. Especially since with the Silent (and to a lesser extent the Ironclad), running a high energy deck is inherently optimal in most circumstances.

With the Defect’s combination of set-piece gameplay with low-energy cost cards, keeping a smaller variety of cards on hand might be a good idea. Say, hypothetically, focusing your deck around one elemental orb, or low-cost cards, or even powers.

9 Understanding The Defect’s Options

On a general level, the Defect’s deck-building focuses around four primary options with dual-option hybrids possible (anymore would dilute the deck and make setups rather difficult). These options include: High card count energy builds, low card count orb builds, high card count low cost builds, and any card count power builds.

Powers serve primarily to enhance the Defect’s options in each category, allowing the player to refine their build even further. Say a player is running an orb build: There are at least six different powers that could enhance this build depending on the element of focus. An important note to recall is that channeling one orb past the Defect’s limit will evoke the far-right orb, and fill in the left most slot.

8 Making the Most of Orbs

Orbs are a unique mechanic to the Defect’s character, allowing them to invoke several effects at either the end of their turn or upon evoking said orb. Orbs function by invoking a “passive” effect after the Defect plays their hand (as an example, lightning orbs strike a random enemy for three damage).

Orbs also have an “active” effect, invoked by evoking the orb through the use of a card (the lightning orb would be consumed, and deals 8 damage to a random enemy). Proper use of orbs is crucial to success in orb-focused builds, and orbs can easily fit into any Defect deck.

7 Discovering Orb Synergies (Relics, Powers)

Each character in Slay the Spire has a starting relic, and the Defect begins with their signature Cracked Core. The Cracked Core channels one lightning orb at the start of Defect’s combats, and can later be replaced by the Frozen Core.

Prioritizing these types of relics (and powers that can enhance their power further, like Electrodynamics or Consume) allow the Defect for combinations that would previously be impossible. As an example, utilizing the Insertor relic with the Electrodynamics and Glacier cards allows the player to run a defense-heavy setup while still dealing massive damage to all enemies.

6 Experimentation (Like a Proper AI)

A large part of understanding how to play the Defect comes from consistent experimentation, and testing of what options works for an individual as a player. For some players, proper use of orbs might fit well with their strategy, and for others, low-cost cards might seem the most attractive.

The best strategy to understand which option works the best for the individual would be to try them all out, and see how they function in real combat situations. By gathering said data, beginner Slay the Spire players can start to understand the character and begin to build decks that address any prior bugs.

5 A Solid Understanding Of Base Mechanics

Slay the Spire, at its simplest, revolves around using energy to deal damage and reduce an enemy’s health, and using energy to maintaining one’s own health. Related to these concepts are buffs, debuffs, healing, and blocking.

Ensuring that the player has an option for all of these situations is imperative to success as any character, not just the Defect. For example, if a multi-enemy encounter is troubling, Electrodynamics could assist greatly. For enemies with high block, try out Melter. For running low on health, make use of blocking moves like Stack or Genetic Algorithm, and implement Self-Repair for guaranteed healing.

4 Utilize The Defect’s Free Cards (Good Material Management)

In card games, having and managing material (energy, cards in hand) can be a particularly challenging endeavor. Luckily, the Defect doesn’t run into this problem nearly as often as, say, the Ironclad.

The Defect has access to a variety of cards that either cost zero and inflict a fantastic debuff, or allow them to draw more cards. FTL is a perfect example, allowing the player to deal a quick 5 damage and draw a card at the start of their turn. The amount of the Defect’s cards that cost zero is fairly substantial, and combining these cards with other material-oriented ones like Skim, Reboot, and Seek allow the player to regularly find the cards they need.

3 Remove The Standard Strikes And Defends

This advice may come as a shock to some newer players, but simply put, the Defect’s standard options do nothing for the character in later stages of the game. Say hypothetically that the Defect is running an orb-heavy build with only three energy available, and is fighting the Taskmaster elite enemy crew.

On a turn where the Defect’s hand is only standard strikes and defends, the Defect will be totally unable to accomplish any orb setup, and is guaranteed to take at least a few points of damage (and some nasty debuffs). Replacing these cards with Defect-specific versions (like Glacier, or Compile Driver) is far more intuitive to the deck’s play style. Removing these cards either at the start of the run or during random events is imperative to success.

2 Make the Most of Buffs and Debuffs

The Defect is a character that has many powers available – that is, single-use cards that (usually) buff the character in some way for the rest of a combat. As a result, running a deck that focuses on making the Defect as powerful as possible while making the enemies as weak as possible is highly intuitive.

Go For the Eyes is a solid example of a card that could fit into any deck, for example. A zero cost card that weakens the enemy if they intend to attack has the potential to save the player’s life, essentially for free. Combining cards like this with relics that enhance these buffs or debuffs (Bag of Marbles, Paper Krane, Champion’s Belt, and even Vajra) can lead to the Defect taking much less damage without needing to focus on blocking.

1 Leave It Up to RNGesus

For fans of gambling, the Defect has a number of options available to them that allow for decks that focus entirely on probability. Chaos is a card that channels one or two random orbs (depending on upgrade status), and the Snecko Eye is a relic that causes all cards to cost a random amount of energy.

Combining these cards with usually high-cost cards like Meteor, Sunder, or Echo Form can amount to a deck that is entirely random. If long-term strategy isn’t the most appealing (in which case the Silent or Ironclad are much better choices), the player always has the option to surrender to good old randomness.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/slay-spire-tips-playing-defect/

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