'Plasma & Focus Down' archetype for Defect

Archetype summary

Use your orb slots for energy, and lose Focus in exchange for power.

When to pivot to 'Plasma & Focus Down' archetype

When you get a Hyperbeam from Neow's starting bonus, or find an early Fusion or Reprogram and you're feeling brave.

Star items

attack

Hyperbeam

B-

Deal 26 damage to ALL enemies.
Lose 3 Focus.

skill

Reprogram

D-

Lose 1 Focus.
Gain 1 Strength.
Gain 1 Dexterity.

skill

Fusion

B-

Channel 1 Plasma.

skill

Reinforced Body

B+

Gain 7 Block X times.

attack

Barrage

B-

Deal 4 damage for each Channeled Orb.

skill

Hologram

B+

Gain 3 Block.
Return a card from your discard pile to your hand.
Exhaust.

This build flies in the face of what most Defect builds are trying to do, ignoring most Orb scaling and effects in exchange for classic Attack damage and Block defence that are more common in the other characters. Hyperbeam is very powerful in Act 1, allowing you to smash combats and Elites early and scale with relics and upgrades. It drops off by Act 3 but is still respectable damage for its cost.

Reprogram has a lot of potential and easily fits into this archetype, but can scale quite slowly. Having a couple of copies helps your scaling immensely, and Hologram is a great pick in this deck since it scales with Dexterity and allows you to play your Reprograms even more frequently.

Plasma orbs are excellent here since they are unaffected by Focus, always providing a flat 1 energy (or 2 when Evoked).

Barrage and Reinforced Body both scale well with Reprogram so fit nicely in this build.

Support items

skill

Steam Barrier

B+

Gain 6 Block.
Decrease this card's Block by 1 this combat.

attack

All For One

Deal 10 damage.
Put all Cost 0 cards from your discard pile into your hand.

attack

FTL

Deal 5 damage.
If you have played less than 3 cards this turn, draw 1 card.

skill

Skim

C+

Draw 3 cards.

attack

Beam Cell

B-

Deal 3 damage and apply 1 Vulnerable.

attack

Sweeping Beam

Deal 6 damage to ALL enemies.
Draw 1 card.

attack

Meteor Strike

F+

Deal 24 damage.
Channel 3 Plasma.

power

Loop

B-

At the start of your turn, use the passive ability of your next Orb.

skill

Skim

C+

Draw 3 cards.

skill

Overclock

C+

Draw 2 cards.
Add a Burn into your discard pile.

attack

Sweeping Beam

Deal 6 damage to ALL enemies.
Draw 1 card.

skill

Fission

B-

Remove all of your Orbs.
Gain and draw 1 card for each Orb removed.
Exhaust.

power

Echo Form

A+

The first card you play each turn is played twice.
Ethereal.

Vajra

common

At the start of each combat, gain 1 Strength.

A+

Nuclear Battery

boss

At the start of each combat, Channel 1 Plasma.

B+

Normally Strength and Dexterity relics would be underwhelming on Defect, but here they shine.

Zero cost cards are generally strong, since Strength and Dexterity benefit them just as much as any other card. If you find a bunch, All For One is a great pick up too.

Recursion grants 2 energy with Fusion, and when upgraded can be pulled with All For One. Loop is good for triggering your Plasma orb for even more energy. Meteor Strike does grant Plasma orbs but requires so much energy that it can be inconsistent if you're trying to get started using it; consider it instead as a follow up if you already have energy generation.

This deck can eventually leave you with a lot of energy per turn, so make sure you have draw options like Sweeping Beam, Skim and Overclock.

'Plasma & Focus Down' archetype weaknesses

This build can be very difficult to pull off, since it invalidates half of the Defect's card pool and relies on one or two hard-to-find cards. Avoid all orbs except Plasma. Even Chaos is a gamble and rarely worth taking, though if you are desperate for Plasma orbs you can roll the dice. Generating Focus in an attempt to offset the downside is a fool's errand - to properly min/max this build, you should ignore anything that grants Focus, since once you go lower than -3 Focus it's virtually the same as having -99 Focus.

It's worth removing Zap from your deck in this build, even over a Strike or Defend, especially since those cards will be stronger than usual due to your Strength and Dexterity.

Core Surge and Artifact in general synergises very poorly, since it just prevents the Focus Down which you don't care about.

White Noise and Creative AI perform badly in this deck, since over half of the Defect's powers support Orbs in some way which is not beneficial to you.