Defect

If you asked me who my least favorite character was in Slay the Spire around a month ago, I would have responded "the Defect", without much hesitation. By the time I had achieved ascension 20 on the Ironclad, Silent, and Watcher, I had barely scraped together an ascension 6 win on the Defect. I'm really not sure what about the character threw me so hard, but after playing run after run and slowly climbing ascension, I have slain the spire for the final time, taking the ascension 20 win as Defect. I hope that this post will act as a guide, not just in how to win, but how to enjoy this strange character.

As a note, I will assume a baseline understanding of each of the Defect's mechanics (orbs, focus, etc).

Frost Orbs Focus

I'm going to cut to the chase here — there is a prevailing strategy that underpins most of what the Defect aims to do. Unlike Strength or Dexterity on the Ironclad, Silent or even the Watcher, Focus provides the unique benefit of being broken beyond belief. That is to say, it not only scales both damage and block simultaneously, but this scaling is much higher percentage-wise than Strength or Dexterity. Let's take an example of this from the Ironclad for Strength, and then the Silent for Dexterity.

Strength

It seems to me fair to consider the one-cost powers the "archetypal" Strength, Dexterity, and Focus cards for this analysis. In that way, we can see that Ironclad gains 2 Strength, or 3 upgraded from Inflame, buffing a standard 9-damage attack do 11 or 12. Let's call this a 33% increase.

Dexterity

The same holds for Dexterity and the Silent's block cards. Again, the increase is around 33%. Of course, this doesn't tell the full story, as this 33% increase goes for all of the Silent's block cards, of which she has many, including some zero-cost cards. Regardless, it's a bit pale in comparison to the Defect.

Focus

Defragment is a very good card. Un-upgraded it adds a modest one Focus, which actually already provides a larger increase than either Inflame or Footwork. You see, the main use for Focus is Lightning and Frost orbs, which have a base damage or block of 3 and 2, respectively. Adding one Focus to the equation is a 33% buff for Lightning, or a 50% buff for Frost. When you realize that Defragment's upgrade doubles the Focus to two, it becomes clear why this card gives less Focus than Inflame gives Strength or Footwork gives Dexterity.

Frost Orbs

This brings us to Frost orbs, the other half of the Frost Orbs Focus strategy. Looking at it simply, Frost orbs benefit the most, numerically, from Focus. An upgraded Defragment is a 100% increase to each Frost orb in your capacity. Speaking of capacity, that is another important factor in this equation. Really, Frost Orbs Focus is a balancing act between the number of orbs and the power of each orb.

Using a bit of math here, we can represent your Focus + 2 (for the base block of a Frost orb) and your number of Frost orb triggers as the sides of an integer-valued rectangle. Then, the area of this rectangle is your total block per turn. As you may know, the maximal area for an area with fixed perimeter is a square, so we should aim to make these values as close together as possible.

Let's take an example. Suppose you have three Frost orbs and two Focus. This gives a 2+2 by 3 rectangle for a total of 12 block. You can choose to either add two more frost orbs or two more Focus. In this case, the better option would be to add the Frost orbs, since you have fewer orbs than combined Focus and base Frost block.

Now, this misses the point on what makes Frost orbs so good. The simple fact is, there are very few enemies in the game that can break through 100+ consistent block per turn. On the other hand, there are quite a few enemies, in acts 3 and 4 particularly, who can survive 100+ consistent damage per turn (the equivalent Lightning orb strategy). The Corrupted Heart in particular finds Lightning orbs a pathetic strategy, at least without a way to block outside of your orbs.

So go ahead, draft those frost Orbs. Cold Snap is a great floor 1 pick, Coolheaded has an amazing upgrade, and Glacier is an auto-pick for me, up until at least two or three copies.

How to Win

You've drafted a Cold Snap, Defragment, Coolheaded, Glacier, and a Capacitor. Great work! I doubt you'll have any trouble with regular act 1 enemies, or most other threats for the foreseeable future. However, you might have started to notice a problem. Sure, 24 block per turn is fantastic, but you're about to fight Lagavulin and you're not quite sure whether you'll be able to do damage after a few debuff cycles. Don't worry, it can't damage you, you'll be fine. But your concern is very real, and here's where we get to the fun part of Frost Orbs Focus.

Frost Orbs Focus is a framework, not a strategy.

An engine, you might say. When you no longer have to worry about blocking, you have a lot more flexibility with your deck. The great part? You really don't need all too much to win.

Attacks

As it turns out, you don't actually have to overthink winning all too much. The act 3 bosses have effective hit points around 500-600 depending on how you count them. That's only 50-60 attacks, if they each do 10 damage, and less the better they are. On any other character, that's a lot more difficult, since you have to spend your energy blocking. On the Defect, however, you can pick up a few copies of Streamline, Rebound, maybe the zero-cost debuff attacks, and you're set. Even better, Barrage can deal an immense 60 damage if you're capped on orb slots.

The Dark Orb

Dark orbs are a mechanic that don't scale well off of Focus, or at least not as well as the other orb types (Plasma excluded). However, they notably scale very well with time, a resource which Frost Orb Focus players have plenty of to spare. With a Dark orb in your front slot, a copy of Loop in play, and a few minutes, you can rack up hundreds of damage on a single Dark orb. Notably, this strategy will work on everything but the Corrupted Heart.

To defeat the heart, you will need to draft a copy of Recursion, and scale the orb fast enough that the Heart doesn't kill you first. For this, I recommend two copies of Loop+, as well as multiple cards that let you go through orbs quickly (such as Recursion+, Glacier, or Rainbow+).

Lightning Orbs

Much like the "just attack" strategy, it's very easy to just mix in a few Lightning orbs into your rotation. You start with the ability to cast Lightning orbs in Zap, which upgrades to be zero-cost, and Ball Lightning is a fantastic damage common to get you through the early-game, so you might end up drafting one anyway.

For this strategy, you want to keep your orbs in a constant rotation. As such, it's important to carry one or more copies of Glacier, as well as Coolheaded+ for cheap Frost orbs and card draw.

Blizzard

I wish I could tell you to forget all my previous advice and just run Blizzard. And I'm not exactly not doing that. Blizzard is an absurdly strong card in act 3 and beyond, dishing out upwards of 50 damage to each enemy for a single energy. That said, it takes forever to get online, and it will not serve you well in the hallway fights of the Spire. As such, this is a great pick later in a run, and can single-handedly carry your damage output, but it will not do much of anything before act 2.

Specific Combos

With the general strategy in place, you can probably start winning runs just by drafting Focus and Frost orb cards. I want to use this space to work in some specific combos that make this strategy pop.

Core Surge + Biased Cognition

Okay, I'll admit it, this isn't exactly a Frost Orbs Focus-specific combo. But it is arguably one of the strongest combos in the game, granting you 4 Focus, or 5 upgraded. As a rule, you should draft these cards whenever you see them. Orange Pellets is also a fantastic option with Biased Cognition, and in general.

All For One + Hologram + Madness

It feels weird to include this weird combo on this weird list of weird combos, but I won multiple runs on my climb to ascension 20 off the back of this infinite. Basically, you need to hit All for One off of your boss reward or get lucky in an Elite fight, and then hit the Winding Halls event. Take the two copies of madness, and upgrade your Hologram. From here, you just need to get All for One and Hologram alone in a hand with Madness, and make both permanently zero-cost. This sets up an infinite damage + infinite block scenario.

You might wonder why I've included this in a post that's ostensibly about Frost Orb Focus and Frost Orb Focus only, but the simple fact of the matter is, it's easier to set this up when you have 100+ block every turn, or even 20 block every turn.

Echo Form

Easily the strongest "form" card, Echo Form essentially doubles everything good about your deck. Each Defragment gives 4 Focus. Each Glacier gives 4 Frost orbs. Each Capacitor basically fills your available space in one go. The only card you need to be wary about with Echo Form is Biased Cognition.

Capacitor + Consume

The often-overlooked way to accrue a large amount of Focus is Consuming your orb slots. While this isn't great, since you want orb slots, you can add more with Capacitor, Runic Capacitor, or especially the Defect-exclusive Inserter boss relic. I used this to great effect in my ascension 17 victory.

Having Fun

Unfortunately, repeating the same strategy over and over gets old quick. I learned that the hard way when I abused Rushdown to high hell all the way up to ascension 20 on Watcher. I'm not telling you to force Frost Orb Focus every run, or reset until you get a Biased Cognition from your Neow bonus. What I am telling you is that you will win more runs if you put an emphasis on taking Focus cards when you can, respecting the value of Frost orbs and consistent block, and playing carefully and methodically.

The fun comes from your own personal playstyle. I really love zero-cost attacks, so I often use Frost Orbs Focus to cover the lack of defense in a zero-cost attacks deck. You might love power spam, and Frost Orbs focus works great for that, so long as you don't go too hard on the Storms. The point of Frost Orbs Focus is to take away some of the stress and difficulty of the Defect, to leave room for fun behind a wall of 100 block.

And the last rule of Frost Orbs Focus is: never hold yourself to Frost Orbs Focus. After all, I got my first ascension 20 Defect Heart win using a pure Claw build >:)