defect sux?

[rav]

is it just me or does he suck hard?

im ascension 10 and 11 with the other chars but with him i cant even beat ascension 1 ( well i can probably if i try often enough but thats not the point )

And awakened is pretty much a guaranted loss with almost all of his builds

any tips?

[Requiem31]

Got very lucky and got handed a bottled creative ai with momified hand and bird urn all in act 1.
Some energy and block management later and I blazed through the rest of the game.

[Lors]

You can do some really busted builds with him, maanged to make a lighting cycle power deck and by the final boss I was doing 100-200 damage per turn assuming I only played like 1 power (and I had the free power generator which managed to create another free power generator power and then it was just like massive 200 damage cycling every turn)

[My Little Omi]

That's a10 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1406196980

Was doing power-heavy deck, and got this one. Used 2 echo forms, 2 defragments, and just block-block-block-block, wait for dark orbs to power up, dual cast. Easiest fight in my life, and entire run was just a school trip - got echo form in the first shop, the rest of the game went quickly.

[Maevin]

I just beat it with defect - frost build

https://imgur.com/a/9yLQgVd

In the link you'll see my deck list

Then screenshot of the boss battle

Mid-battle to show that he can't get pass my free 30-40 FREE blocks per turn

End of the battle

And my score

This is a regular run btw, no Ascension. Oh and against the Awakened too (it's not hopeless).

I hope it gives you some insight, if you have any questions on why I picked specific cards, let me know.

[doktor biznis propagule]

beat the time lord in my 6th run as him. he's interesting because he has a lot more deck variations than other characters.

[Tynendir]

I freaking love the Defect. Currently on Ascension Mode 10 and climbing. I feel like he relies a bit too much on good relics in Act 1 (like Ice Cream for Energy deck with the X 7 Armor card or Mummified hand for an insane Power deck) if you want to go for safish atypical builds. Otherwise you go full claw deck with 0 cost cards.

[The Fool]

I've had a fine time with him - just got to Ascension 15. My favorite build is a Compile Driver/Chaos build that constantly creates and evokes orbs. Not as reliable to make as 0 cost build (there's several cards that really help the build come together, obviously compile driver and chaos, but also defrag and especially capacitor give you some passive boosts that really help), but is very fun and dynamic when it works. Doesn't need relics except for more energy, but even that can be worked around with proper energy manipulation - the new charge battery is great if you don't get an energy relic.

[Mystic]

power build is unstoppable imo, especially with stacking effects of some of them

[Ron Mexico]

I played a claw/lightning build. Four upgraded claws and the power card that makes lightning hit everyone. Shredded through everyone, even the double donut boss at the end.

[My Name is Mud]

Defect is real strong.

Ironclad is still the weakest character by a laughably wide margin.

[Khaesho]

Looks like a lot of good idea here, but I thought I'd throw my two cents into the hat. I found two builds, one of which is a reliable easy win, the other is massively powerful if you can get it popping.

Build 1: power spam. Find Electric Discharge (channel lightning when you play a power) and combo it with adaptive AI (Get a random power every turn.) It's a bit fiddly, but if you can find 1 copy of defragment and some way to increase orb slots, you can net some serious damage. If you find Mummified Hand or ???? (That one relic that heals you when you play a power) It's a powerful nuke build.

Build 2: Free card spam. Find Claw. Claw will win for you. Claw is a 0 cost attack that does like... 3 damage? But every time you play a claw, all claws in your deck increase in damage for the rest of that fight. Combo with the other 0 cost attacks (one applies vulnerable, one applies weak) grab a Scrape or two (Draw 4 cards, discard all non-0 cost.)

Above all though, your win condition is the rare card All in. It's a 2 cost attack that returns all 0 cost cards from your discard to your hand. Then, you also want Hologram+ (gain 5 block, return a card from discard to hand.) You can use holograms to pull extra claws or scrapes, But your ideal scenario is to use All in, unload, then next turn draw a hologram, so you can pull All In and play it again. One time when i got that deck really popping, I did 50 damage turn 1, 150 dmg turn 2, and 400 damage turn 3.

[lordatog]

You really can't go wrong just stacking powers. I'm starting to think that unless you manage to assemble the Claw/Scrape/zero cost deck (which seems pretty rare), the optimal Defect deck contains almost no attacks, and the ones it does have are finishers. You spend four or five turns becoming omnipotent, then obliterate your foes. One advantage to this is that the common relic Art of War becomes an energy relic with only the minor drawback of not working on the first turn.

[K.K]

I'm Asc14 with Defect. 15 with everyone else.

Yes. The Defect is kinda trash now. Not sure what they are doing with him or why. Most characters have a build that "usually works". For example~ the first two chars get X-attacks (Whirlwind and Skewer). And these 2 work well with energy-relics/cards and pen-nip (and even necronomicon). Defect has no guaranteed wins. That's because he is TOO SLOW.
A few patches ago, Electrodynamics was very powerful. And Going full elec was your best choice. This would go well with a power-build.
They also removed the Axe-card (0 cost) card that can evoke orbs? It's like they want the Defect to suck.
I haven't really made a build work somewhat reliably now...
Power is too slow. 0 Cost with all-for-one might work, if you get enough energy with holograms, to get all-for-one back...
I did have builds like that, but the problem is, you got too many factors that need to just work out. Getting all-for-one. Getting enough decent 0 cost-cards. Maybe getting some strenght...
Oh and... when I DO get this build it is often not enough to overpower timelord. Removing axe weakened it to much.
And even though Claws increase in damage, you never get enough of those. I have over 500 hours in this game. When I tell you the defect sucks... trust me... the Defect sucks.

Someone here said Chaos with Evokes is pretty good. I guess that's true. Static discharge is also quite decent and somewhat fast. But that all sounds way more boring than what we had before.

Originally posted by Death From Above:

Defect is real strong.

Ironclad is still the weakest character by a laughably wide margin.

Ironclad has 2 of the strongest builds going. Skill-corruption with dead branch. And everything strenght-related with pen-nib and/or necronomicon.

[Lors]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/921430705748515757/FBC3E984124A586308DC6D7455FD7FC9D98E6663/

Defect power build is pretty broken especially with the right relics, I was orginally going for the 0 cost build but then in act 3 because of my relics just switched to a power build without any issue, maybe it's just my luck with Defect but Defect has had my easiest runs and I usually have no problem unless I get some really bad "?" mark luck in Act 2, Defect seems pretty op and broken to me while the others (especially ironclad, ironclad is good in act 1 which obviously is the easiest and then after that it seems like he's just trash) are just average, but again maybe I just got bad luck on my 15-20 runs each with those characters and have gotten lucky in my 5 runs with this character but that seems less propable

[K E N N I]

It seems to me that the Defect is the strongest character. I got him to ascension 14 in the beta with few losses (now back to the main branch and ascension 1 lol). Others have pointed out many different builds, and the best thing is that all of them are viable! The Defect is highly versatile, but there is one aspect that differentiates him from the other two: he is reliant on upgrading cards. There are several cards that gain much more than any Ironcald or Silent card on upgrade, such as: Buffer, Static Discharge, Darkness, Chaos. You should keep an eye out for such cards, upgrade them asap and you'll win with most deck archetypes.