How do you play The Defect in Slay the Spire 2? After a lethal battle towards The Coronary heart, The Defect was pressured to retreat to the scrapyard after sustaining vital harm. It rapidly made mates with one other robotic named Flaw, and collectively they entered the Spire to take out some bugs lurking inside. The pair have been overwhelmed by a poisonous wasp colony, forcing Neow to convey the faulty assemble again to life after the fateful conflict.
The Defect climbs the Spire as soon as once more in hopes of assembly its creator, The Architect, and asking him to restore it as soon as and for all. Sporting a brand new beefy physique and an entire host of playing cards, The Defect returns to the cardboard recreation as one of many returning Slay the Spire 2 characters. Be part of us as we break down the technique you must climb the Spire, in addition to every construct, and a card tier listing to know what you have to be looking for.
The Defect technique
There are three Defect builds to choose from: Orbs, Standing, and Claw. We’re utilizing orbs as a catch-all time period, however typically talking, you are attempting to construct up a number of orbs to bolster you all through fight. Standing is a brand new deck archetype in STS 2, letting you make the most of highly effective playing cards that burden your deck with standing playing cards that you could ultimately make the most of. Lastly, we’ve Claw, a zero-cost assault that has the potential to scale up quickly.
It is reductive to say that there are any strict ‘builds’ for The Defect as you will wish to use a spread of playing cards to get via all of the acts. Whereas Standing and Claw are each archetypes you’ll be able to technically construct in direction of, their effectiveness drops off a cliff on the greater Ascension ranges, so we have opted to disregard these for now.
The Defect has entry to the Orb mechanic, permitting it to generate orbs representing totally different components. The impact of every orb scales with the quantity of Focus you’ve got constructed up, successfully appearing like Power and Dexterity. Orbs have a passive potential that triggers on the finish of every flip, and they are often evoked to generate an enormous impact, destroying the orb within the course of.
Here is what each orb does in Slay the Spire 2:
Lightning
Passive: Deal 3 harm to a random enemy.
Evoke: Deal 8 harm to a random enemy
Frost
Passive: Achieve 2 Block.
Evoke: Achieve 5 Block.
Darkish
Passive: Add 6 harm to this orb’s evoke.
Evoke: Deal x harm to the enemy with the bottom well being.
Plasma
Passive: Achieve 1 vitality.
Evoke: Achieve 2 vitality.
Glass
Passive: On the finish of flip, deal 4 harm to all enemies and cut back this orb’s worth by 1.
Evoke: Deal 8 harm to all enemies.
The Defect’s beginning relic, Cracked Core, generates one lightning orb at the start of a struggle. You may each improve and reduce the variety of orb slots you have got utilizing playing cards, providing you with room to make the most of extra passive or evoke results, relying on what you are attempting to perform. Most decks require a powerful orb basis earlier than leaning into the opposite archetypes.

The Defect Orbs construct
The purpose of an orb-focused deck is to create sufficient orbs that you could primarily depend on the passive results to each block and deal harm for you. You needn’t use playing cards like Capacitor to extend your variety of orb slots, but it surely definitely does assist, particularly in longer fights.
Listed here are some orb playing cards you need to goal to accumulate instantly:
Ball Lightning
Chilly Snap
Lightning Rod
Targeted Strike
Ball Lightning and Chilly Snap generate lightning and frost orbs, respectively, whereas dealing Strike-level harm. Lightning Rod can be a greater model of Defend that additionally generates a lightning orb, a straightforward auto-include in Act 1. Layer this up with Targeted Strike while you’ve obtained a number of orbs operating, and you shouldn’t have any issues sustaining your self all through most Act 1 fights.
Decide up these playing cards to enhance the consistency of your orb deck:
Glacier
Chill
Hailstorm
Hotfix
It is tough to construct in direction of a selected orb, so you need to attempt to preserve a wholesome steadiness between assault and block results. With that mentioned, constructing in direction of a frost-focused deck is the most secure factor you are able to do, as you are not often punished for not having sufficient harm, particularly on the decrease Ascension ranges.
As soon as you’ll be able to persistently play playing cards that generate frost orbs, you are free to construct any deck you want. Enhance the efficiency of your orbs utilizing Hotfix, although bear in mind that this impact solely lasts for a single flip.
Decide up these Orb playing cards to take your deck to a different degree:
Capacitor
Defragment
Synchronize
Voltaic
You may in all probability see a sample with the principle orb playing cards we’re aiming to choose up: we wish to improve the variety of orbs on provide utilizing Capacitor, and as soon as these orbs are lively, we wish to improve our Focus. Defragment is the perfect card to enhance your Focus, although it being a uncommon card means you will not see it as usually as you would like. Equally, Synchronize is solely a greater model of Hotfix that solely will get higher as you progress to the endgame.
While you’re prepared to finish a struggle, Voltaic will almost certainly be your finisher. This card depends on you channeling tens, if not a whole bunch, of lightning orbs all through the course of a struggle. As soon as you’ve got accrued sufficient lightning orbs, play Voltaic and watch the sparks fly as you destroy every part in sight.

The Defect card tier listing
Equally to The Silent, there are lots of Defect playing cards that do not straight synergize with the deck archetypes on provide, however they’re excellent in their very own proper. Playing cards like Hologram and Echo Kind provide unbelievable worth and may virtually all the time be prioritized if you happen to see them.
Here is our Defect card tier listing, rating playing cards from greatest to worst:
Tier
Playing cards
S
Hologram, Chill, Double Power, Synchronize, Glacier, Capacitor, Modded, Supercritical, Genetic Algorithm, Voltaic, Coolant, Defragment, Echo Kind
A
Barrage, Targeted Strike, Hotfix, Cost Battery, Lightning Rod, FTL, Boot Sequence, Darkness, Scavenge, Skim, Hailstorm, Shatter, Ice Lance, Sign Increase, Machine Studying, Spinner, Buffer, Quadcast
B
Ball Lightning, Chilly Snap, Go for the Eyes, Turbo, Null, Refract, Sunder, Glasswork, White Noise, Shadow Protect, Loop, Storm, Subroutine, Thunder, Bulk Up, Adaptive Strike, Buffer, Consuming Shadow, Inventive AI, Biased Cognition
C
Claw, Compile Driver, Momentum Strike, Sweeping Beam, Uproar, Coolheaded, Leap, Tesla Coil, Scrape, Rocket Punch, Synthesis, Overclock, Tempest, Struggle Via, Fusion, Iteration, Smokestack, All for One, Hyperbeam, Meteor Strike, Multi-Solid, Trash to Treasure
D
Beam Cell, Gunk Up, Increase Away, Chaos, Compact, Feral, Helix Drill
And with that, you need to have every part to satisfy The Defect’s maker in Slay the Spire 2. Should you’re sick of orbs and also you wish to attempt one thing totally different, we have got guides on all the opposite characters, together with Regent, Necrobinder, and Ironclad.


