Percentage of runs?

[onomastikon]

I really love this game.
I have about 300 hours in and I still fail about 75% of the time. What puzzles me is that it is almost always for the same reasons: The luck of the draw. It is rare that I feel I made poor judgement in a battle, or in pathing, or in selecting cards.
For instance, I've noticed when looking at my stats that when playing as the defect, my favorite (just for fun), almost all of my winning decks have at least one Storm, Self Repair, or some other halfway decent Power card, and then a few other power cards. There are runs where I simply never get offered anything but Heat Sink, Loop, Static Discharge, or Capacitator. And I find it hard to build a deck that scales well without Powers. I almost always fail when my deck has a preponderance of Attacks, no matter what combination, since I find it hard to scale strength as Defect and applying Vulnerability as defect seems less reliable. I've managed to succeed with a lot of luck using Skills, but it's rarer for me.
So I suppose what I am asking is: Is LUCK (just finding the right combination of cards and relics to create decent synergy) a larger part of the game than skill?

[mldb88]

I’d say no. It also depends on what ascension level you’re on, but it sounds more like you’re pidgeon holing yourself into one strategy and then blaming “luck” when you don’t get what you need, at least based on what you’re describing. If you’re not getting a lot of powers then go for orb cycling strata or discard toolboxing, defect has a lot more going for him than just a few good powers.

I think it’s more that you’ve avoided so many other cards you don’t recognize some of the non-power synergies when they do come up. Defect is probably the one that I’m least knowledgeable about sadly, but even on A1-3 I’ve stomped with various archetypes (orb cycling with biased precog, static discharge with weaken effects and such, turtle strat with dark, rainbow with orb types matter cards, the list goes on)

[LHGreen]

Capacitor is very helpful when you can't find focus to scale the orbs. And Static Discharge is great for multi-hit enemies, like the heart. Loop has some uses, although they're a bit more limited. But it's helpful for dark and fusion orbs. Sounds like part of your problem is that you undervalue some cards, or that you don't fully understand how properly utilize certain cards.

But no, it's more about skill than luck, although both are factors. Most of the cards tend to be pretty fluid, easily adapted to many different strategies, so it's not like CCGs where you always have to find "exactly the right card" and nothing else does what that card does. There are cards like that, yes, but it's more like they're the exception, not the rule. And there's a lot of freedom to mix and match. Take Static Discharge, for example. It's the only card Defect has that retaliates against damage (although it's certainly not the only method of damage retaliation available to Defect), but it also potentially generates ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of lightning orbs, and there's several cards which do that, in several different ways, and any of them will do.

Another thing I'm noticing is that you referred to a "preponderance" of attacks. Almost like you're building the deck to only incorporate a very small handful of strategies, or like you're only building up one or two synergies and ignoring others. Unless you're going for an infinite combo deck, that's generally a bad idea. You want your deck to be balanced, not min-maxed.

[onomastikon]

Thanks. Much appreciated.
First, at ascensions below 5 I don't have any problem with any class no matter what. It's at A10 plus that I'm having this "problem".
I don't know too many other synergies. I can't seem to make many with attacks. That's my problem!

[mldb88]

Originally posted by onomastikon:

Thanks. Much appreciated.
First, at ascensions below 5 I don't have any problem with any class no matter what. It's at A10 plus that I'm having this "problem".
I don't know too many other synergies. I can't seem to make many with attacks. That's my problem!

Defect defenitely relies least on attacks out of the classes, though he does have some decent ones. This definitely makes act 1 a bit more of a struggle thanks to things like nob, but the orb damage and relying on some key potions can help get you over that act 1 hump into where the deck really starts to come together more. He definitely does have enough attacks to get him through (lightning ball, the frost equivalent, sunder, scrape, rebound, melter, etc)

[onomastikon]

Thank you.
Yes -- but honestly, my problems are almost never in Act 1. I almost always manage to weasle through Act 1 even on A15. (That's my current A-level on Defect. I'm around 10 with the others.) Obviously I am not good at this game; I enjoy it, but I realize I have "pigeonholed" myself (had to look that word up -- it seems to be an American idiom) in the 300 or so hours I have played into not being able to recognize enough strategies. I don't know what helps against that.
Here is my question, that I will try to focus onto the Defect: Yes, the Defect has some "decent" attacks, as you say, for sure. But my problem is not Act 1, it's the final boss(es). And those "decent attacks" don't scale without some sort of deck synergy. None of those cards do me any good without synergy against Time Eater or the Donut Twins let alone the Heart. While I can see how Ironclad can make some synergies around Attacks with Strength tricks and clever debuff usage, I don't see how to do that with Defect.
Hence my question with "preponderance". Maybe that's a bad choice of words. Yes I need a decent balance, but ... I can consistently beat the final boss(es) on A10++ with almost ONLY powers (it almost doesnt matter which, I can carry Act 2-3 as long as one of them is Self Repair) -- and hence there "preponderance" is meant literally, I really don't use anything other than powers with a very rare bit of skills -- and with the "right" powers it feels almost easy. So not only can I not build synergies with Attacks with the Defect -- any hints as to how are much appreciated -- but I don't even need or seek balance, as long as I have powers.

[mldb88]

Originally posted by onomastikon:

Thank you.
Yes -- but honestly, my problems are almost never in Act 1. I almost always manage to weasle through Act 1 even on A15. (That's my current A-level on Defect. I'm around 10 with the others.) Obviously I am not good at this game; I enjoy it, but I realize I have "pigeonholed" myself (had to look that word up -- it seems to be an American idiom) in the 300 or so hours I have played into not being able to recognize enough strategies. I don't know what helps against that.
Here is my question, that I will try to focus onto the Defect: Yes, the Defect has some "decent" attacks, as you say, for sure. But my problem is not Act 1, it's the final boss(es). And those "decent attacks" don't scale without some sort of deck synergy. None of those cards do me any good without synergy against Time Eater or the Donut Twins let alone the Heart. While I can see how Ironclad can make some synergies around Attacks with Strength tricks and clever debuff usage, I don't see how to do that with Defect.
Hence my question with "preponderance". Maybe that's a bad choice of words. Yes I need a decent balance, but ... I can consistently beat the final boss(es) on A10++ with almost ONLY powers (it almost doesnt matter which, I can carry Act 2-3 as long as one of them is Self Repair) -- and hence there "preponderance" is meant literally, I really don't use anything other than powers with a very rare bit of skills -- and with the "right" powers it feels almost easy. So not only can I not build synergies with Attacks with the Defect -- any hints as to how are much appreciated -- but I don't even need or seek balance, as long as I have powers.

It sounds like you’re almost expecting or trying to force defect to perform like ironclad making a vulnerable smack down deck with how you’re describing the “preponderance of attacks and vulnerable”, which is kind of missing the point, though I might be reading too much into it. The attack damage itself doesn’t scale well for sure, but most of defects attacks aren’t meant to be used primarily for damage. It’s more the utility you’re looking for (lightning ball to cycle your orbs and get that front orb to evoke, melter to bypass the 20 block or metalicize on deca donu, smelter for the energy boost on kill nuking a cultist to play more cards vs awakened one). The vulnerable card is kind meh, it’s a nice 0 cost that works well for 0 cost matters or niche claw decks, but it’s not a major part of his kit like it is iron clad. It’s more a support card for decks that lean a bit more attack heavy or have some heavy hitters that really benefit from the bonus damage boost. Yes, you can consistently beat the final boss with the just powers, just like I can consistently beat it with spot weakness/inflame limit break pummel decks on ironclad, but you don’t always get that setup, hence the win rate you mentioned in the opening post. Try experimenting with different cards, taking picks you normally wouldn’t and just experiment. That’s the best way to really get a better feel for what works well together.

[onomastikon]

THanks.

Originally posted by mldb88:

It sounds like you’re almost expecting or trying to force defect to perform like ironclad making a vulnerable smack down deck with how you’re describing the “preponderance of attacks and vulnerable”, which is kind of missing the point, though I might be reading too much into it.

No, sorry, perhaps it is my bad formulation skills (English is not my best language). Not at all. Again, like I said: I can't make attack decks work for Defect. I surely try to avoid any preponderance of attacks when I can, and I almost never have any vulrnerable debuffs, because why should I? But without vulnerable or strength (whcih defect doesnt have much of), I don't see how to make attacks scale well later.
So yes: I try to just take things and experiment and see what happens. After 300 hours, I don't have much. I have never won on a hard ascencion (A15+) without decent card-luck.

[Zu]

It seems you're on the right track to "solving" the late game but as a result of this monotony you feel like you're missing out on fun with niche cards.

Rest assured: In a vacuum, various attacks in any character's pool are terrible in act 3, so you rarely want more than a few act 1 leftovers or standout examples of burst damage like glass knife or backloaded damage like sword boomerang with spot weakness.
And as you seemingly noticed, the most commonly reliable way to scale in the late game is indeed powers and the like.

The twin strike+ that one-shot gremlins now barely takes down half a repto dagger.
How do you make it better? Inflame, red skull, unironically strike dummy.
The bane you paired with fumes in act 1 is now in a bigger deck and often a strike.
How do you make it better? Funnel, bottled cloud, compensate with card draw.

Defect is no different.
- Ball lightning is top tier in act 1 but falls off without ways to boost orbs.
- Barrage is ok early but really wants more slots, vajra, shuriken, flex pot with pellets.
- Beam cell is fine at clearing artifacts but low priority even in "shiv" runs.

Extra paragraph for claw is law. That's the meme. You don't build a "claw deck". Like with beam cell, if you find a relic that rewards you for playing attacks (kunai, shuriken, fan, ink, pen, boot for crying out loud), you value those 0-cost attacks more highly.
Perhaps you find 2 echo forms and no orb support, so you do rely on scaling claws and turtling with reinforced body, but this is one of those niche situations I alluded to.
If anything, it's more common that you find 2 reprograms early so you commit to smol deck orbless defect against your better judgment for the sake of variety. The few attacks you pair it with barely matter in this case.

- Cold snap same as ball lightning but more important later cuz it blocks.
- Compile driver gets better the more energy you produce.
- Go for the eyes gets better the more tools you have that manipulate your deck, i.e. equilibrium, pyramid, hologram, the aforementioned compile driver, or 👇
- Rebound. Although, again, the way every character usually scales in the late game is by getting powers in play and collecting combat relics, so rebound can get in the way.
- Streamline same as gfteyes but really mostly emergency damage for act 1.
- Sweeping beam same as compile driver. Might be forced to take another if you're worried about reptomancer, but it's nothing special in the grand scheme of things.
- Blizzard is a trap. Unless you run a snowball factory and are desperate because donu deca would outscale you, blizzard is usually too slow or unnecessary.
- Bullseye sorta like beam cell. Obviously gets a lot better with dualcast dark orbs.
- Doom n gloom is awkward. Sometimes you take it early cuz it's fine and later you find necronomicon so it gets better, or maybe you need a way to cheese champ, or maybe you have a few loops and gold cables yet no darkness.
- FTL is standalone good but does get punished by time eater. Again tho, shiv relics.
- Melter. For all intents and purposes, pick it on the first few floors where you want damage. It hard-counters a few fights so you're never sad to have one but - as with most attacks - you're fine having one copy or none.
- Rip and tear. See above except it's really just for act 1.
- Scrape is sad. It discards your hologram, all for one, reprogram...Buut if you don't have those and rely on 2 shiv relics instead, then~
- Sunder. Melter with different matchups. Does get a lot better with echo form.
- All for one. The actual reason why "0-cost decks" have potential. Time it well and you get so much mileage out of shiv relics. Does funny things with snecko eye.
- Core surge. Laugh at act 2 debuffs. Pair it with biased cog. Possibly bottle it to spite the heart but I wouldn't recommend it unless at least one relic draws cards turn 1.
- Hyperbeam. Immolate but worse later, even with pellets. Handle with care.
- Meteor Strike. Hello snecko eye. Feel free to break this card by using recycle to fabricate some infinite or perform magic tricks with nuclear battery and recursion. You'll likely die trying too hard to make it work but at least you'll look cool. (Or you might just be holding 2 liquid memories and have so much draw that you'd be really strong in 2 fights.)
- Thunder strike. Kills giant head if your storms ran out. Can do gross damage in specific circumstances like discharge torii vs heart or necro dummy with a fear potion.

So, for the most part it's not clear-cut "Take inflame to make attacks better." since orb scaling is largely stronger than reprogram, but there are other ways to make your leftover damage commons from act 1 worth playing later.
Just remember that value over time is the backbone that eventually wins runs.

Sure, sometimes it's as simple as data disk electrodynamics to make ball lightning better, but I kept the list simple on purpose cuz otherwise I'd never stop theorycrafting.

Like, usually you don't think about hyperbeam, but what if you have a bottled echo form, apparitions from act 2, the odd beam cell+, and holograms?
Suddenly you can cheese the dreaded reptomancer by stacking apparitions and spamming hyperbeams with reckless abandon before intangible runs out.
This won't beat the act 3 boss, but it'll net you another relic that might help. Should also obliterate double orb walkers, the act 1 boss event, 3 jaw worms, transient, darklings.

Incidental bonus lesson: So you see, just because something isn't great on the final floor doesn't mean it hasn't helped you elsewhere.

This hyperbeam madness might happen once in your 300 hours of playtime but it's spectacular when it does. So, you can always try to carefully evaluate cards based on what you have and what might be ahead, but for the most part you'll be ok if you remember occasional points of concern, like buying an explosive pot for gremlin leader because you wisely grabbed a contingency sweeping beam but it needs more help this run.

[Khor]

Originally posted by Zu:

Defect

When the intended target isn`t the Heart, Claw is actually a good law

Also, you forgot the best cards
Blaster and Allocate! ..oh wait

[Happiness Officer]

Originally posted by Zu:

Rest assured: In a vacuum, various attacks in any character's pool are terrible in act 3, so you rarely want more than a few act 1 leftovers or standout examples of burst damage like glass knife or backloaded damage like sword boomerang with spot weakness.

snip snip snip

Incidental bonus lesson: So you see, just because something isn't great on the final floor doesn't mean it hasn't helped you elsewhere.

These are 2 excellent points for the game in general. Thank you!

[LHGreen]

Originally posted by Khor:

Originally posted by Zu:

Defect

When the intended target isn`t the Heart, Claw is actually a good law :conwayshrug:

Also, you forgot the best cards
Blaster and Allocate! ..oh wait

Lol, damn, I just checked out some of that deprecated content (as well as talk of a few things that aren't listed on the wiki) and Defect had some awesome ♥♥♥♥! Some of it should get retooled and come back, and rest of it never should have been removed in the first place.

Also, that Runic Dodecahedron would have made a great boss relic.

[Zu]

Originally posted by Khor:

Originally posted by Zu:

Defect

When the intended target isn`t the Heart, Claw is actually a good law

Fine. Within reason.

Originally posted by LHGreen:

Runic Dodecahedron would have made a great boss relic.

Lmao no. It was dumb. Either a dud or insane win-more. I could see a rework so we can scrap ectoplasm cuz nobody likes it anymore.

[Khor]

Originally posted by LHGreen:

Originally posted by Khor:

When the intended target isn`t the Heart, Claw is actually a good law

Also, you forgot the best cards
Blaster and Allocate! ..oh wait

Lol, damn, I just checked out some of that deprecated content (as well as talk of a few things that aren't listed on the wiki) and Defect had some awesome ♥♥♥♥! Some of it should get retooled and come back, and rest of it never should have been removed in the first place.

Also, that Runic Dodecahedron would have made a great boss relic.

Beta Defect felt pretty much like playing a different game
He was Orb-focused and much less energy dependant

And for some reason, that was n1 complaint
Megacrit decided to butcher most of the original mechanics and call it a day.

Originally posted by Zu:

Fine. Within reason.

Per the case of Jorbs vs Claw, 2019, Reddit
You can take a Claw in the first few floors as your "bad" card to survive
then you probably always add some Holograms
at that point, if you find another Claw in a reasonable time, cheers! you`re a claw deck!

[LHGreen]

Originally posted by Zu:

Either a dud or insane win-more.

Exactly! The hallmark of a great boss relic!

Originally posted by Zu:

I could see a rework so we can scrap ectoplasm cuz nobody likes it anymore. :lh_lich:

Well, yeah. The best time to take it is just before Act 3, which is when you get a whole bunch of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥-of-money events, plus you may have to fight 2 bosses and/or restock at a merchant during the final act. It just doesn't make as much sense as it probably used to when it was introduced. But I think you still take it occasionally, don't you?

As for a rework, yeah, I could imagine something like having it give energy at 95% or more or 5% or less health. One of the two crit rolls, that kinda makes sense....

(quickly googles "dodecahedron")

...Or at least it would, if it was 20-sided instead of 12-sided. Eh, just rename it "Icosahedron".

Originally posted by Khor:

And for some reason, that was n1 complaint :conwayshrug:
Megacrit decided to butcher most of the original mechanics and call it a day.

Huh. So that's why Defect feels kind of weird and discordant to play, sometimes?

Originally posted by Khor:

Per the case of Jorbs vs Claw, 2019, Reddit

Lol, ah, yes, that case was a landmark decision that legalized abortion... ...of any plans to make a claw deck, even midway through a run. Still frowned upon in the third trimester, though.

[Khor]

Originally posted by LHGreen:

Huh. So that's why Defect feels kind of weird and discordant to play, sometimes?
:

Something like that
Maybe the whole Focus thingie ended up being too janky to properly balance, who knows