Defect

"Combat automaton which became self-aware. Ancient technology allows manipulation of Orbs."
The Defect is one of four playable characters in Slay the Spire. Once among the like of Orb Walkers and Bronze Automaton as one of many ancient automatons, it has since gained sentience and seeks its way out of the Spire. It attacks foes with a high-tech arsenal, array of Powers, and elemental evocations.
The Defect has a unique mechanic, the Orbs. Using cards and Relics, The Defect Channels these elemental spheres into a set of Orb slots, activating their passive effects each turn or Evoking them for a one-time burst. The Defect starts with three Orb slots, though cards and relics can add or them. It starts with 75 hp.
The Defect's starting Relic is , which Channels 1 Lightning at the start of each combat.
It was added to the beta build in Weekly Patch 22: Testing the Third Character during the early access. It is released to the public, along with the game and other two characters on January 23rd, 2019.
==Cards==
===Starting Deck===
* 4 
* 4 
* 1 
* 1 
==Gameplay==
===Orbs===
Main article: Orbs
The Defect begins with three Orb slots and considers the rightmost Orb to be the 'next' Orb to Evoke. Channelling an Orb inserts it into the rightmost empty slot. If every slot is full, each Orb will be shifted one slot to the right, popping the right-most Orb out of its slot and Evoking it. The Defect can have a maximum of 10 Orb slots.
, and orbs have a passive effect that activates at the end of the Defect's turn, from right to left, or oldest to newest. The passive effect of activates at the start of the Defect's turn. While these effects are initially weak, The Defect can increase and channel additional copies to sharply increase their potency.
=== Focus ===
Main article: 
 is a stat unique to The Defect that affects Orbs the same way affects Attacks and affects . Increasing increases the magnitude of both the passive and effects of each Orb (except for ). It is possible to reduce Orb effects to 0 by decreasing .
== Relics==
The Defect has fewer class-specific relics than the other classes, having only one class-specific rare relic rather than three (like the Ironclad and Silent) or two (like the Watcher). The Watcher has equally few overall, but instead of being short two Rare relics is short one Rare and one Boss relic.
Starting Relic: 
Common Relic: 
Uncommon Relics: , 
Rare Relics: 
Boss Relics: (replaces ), , 
Shop Relic: 
== Strategy ==
The Defect's game plan almost always involves implementing a long-term plan each battle. By developing Orbs, Powers, and cards with escalating effects, the Defect sets up an insurmountable late-game position and then destroys its enemies with its accumulated advantage. This is a radically different style from the Silent and the Ironclad, who tend to apply bursts of damage to take enemies out opportunistically.
As a consequence, the Defect struggles to win with a deck full of "good stuff". While it does have access to some individually strong cards, they don't present the sheer power that the other characters enjoy without support. However, due to the long-term nature of its best strategies, the Defect must sometimes take such individually strong cards, either to survive the first few acts or to provide frontloaded solutions while it sets up.
Juggling deckbuilding decisions between these two extremes of short-term benefit v.s. long-term power is thus an ongoing struggle during every Defect run, yet a rewarding one once all of the pieces fall into place.
The Defect also has a higher number of chance-based effects, like , , and .
The Defect's strongly synergistic cards encourage some powerful and well-supported archetypes. Identifying and focusing on one is a key aspect of the Defect strategy.
=== Build types ===
Listed below are the standard synergies that Defect decks build towards, which may give you an idea of direction for your own runs. Some important things to keep in mind:
*Most of these builds aren't mutually exclusive. Think of each of the archetypes listed below as an engine that you can incorporate into your deck; depending on the situation, you are more than able to adapt or combine multiple of them.
*It's important to not "force" a particular build from the outset of the game. Build your deck to solve your immediate problems first and foremost, then allow an archetype to come to you organically. The only exception would be if you run into cards or relics in the early-game that are both individually impactful and form the crux of an entire archetype, and such situations are few and far between.
==Unlocks==
The Defect itself is unlocked by completing a run with The Silent.
Unlock Number	Prizes Unlocked
1st 	, ,
2nd 	, ,
3rd 	, ,
4th 	, ,
5th 	, ,
==Gallery==
defect1.jpg|The Defect in-game
defect2.jpg|The Defect appearing in its Steam Background
BiasedCognition.png|The Defect featured prominently in the card art for Biased Cognition
defect4.png|The Defect as it appears in some official artwork for the game
defect5.JPG|The Defect's character select screen
Gallerypiece.JPG|The Defect seen in the Launch Trailer alongside the Ironclad and the Silent
Category:Class