defect

Status

Beta

“Fill your deck with statuses that benefit you”

Core idea

The Defect has a huge amount of tempo status card generation alongside cards that directly benefit from having statuses. Smokestack turns status creation into area damage, helping clear multi foe fights. Compact can lead to massive turns in the right scenarios. Flak Cannon deals large damage after only a few triggers and also cleans up the statuses in your discard pile, making your subsequent cycles more consistent. Iteration is brilliant in longer fights, making the second cycle less painful. Rocket Punch may not look impressive, but its high damage and effective draw can lead to huge swing turns with consistent generation. Trash to Treasure provides lots of value through random effects, providing some damage and block.

When to commit

When you find a card that benefits from statuses when you already have some

Key cards and relics

Support plan

Status generating cards are generally high tempo and good value, and they only get better when you have pay-off status cards in your deck. Scavenge can help to remove some statuses if you end up with an excess of them. Hologram can be paired with Compact for more consistent Fuel creation, or you can use it to pull a Void into your hand from your discard pile to Exhaust it without suffering the energy loss, or just to re-use a high value card. The Regent has some synergistic Status cards for the Defect, so keep an eye out for them at Ancients and during events.

Support cards and relics

Weaknesses

This build can be inconsistent from the second cycle onwards, leaving you with awkward turns holding useless statuses. Longer fights can be challenging, so consider picking up extra powers for boss fights. The star status cards are hard to pick up without any status generation, so during Act 1 always keep an eye out for some to open the door for this archetype.