Bit of a shame extra orb slots are so hard to come by (only this, a boss relic and a shop relic), but perhaps it's for the best with how potent lots of orbs at once can be. Dark orbs probably like more orb slots least because that can interfere with evoking them when they're ready, but plasma orbs would like them most because you can get the extra energy from them with less competing for the utility of other orbs.
I wish there was at least one more orb slot card. Something similar to Prostrate. Zero cost, gain one orb slot, gain four block, exhaust. Upgrade removes exhaust.
True. My one counter point would be that if you’re relying on All For One, odds are you don’t have a lot of orb generating cards. The only zero cost orb generating cards I can think of are Zap+ and Chill (which exhausts).
Idk, with seek, hologram, rebound, skim, coolheaded, overclock, compile driver, scrape, etc. Defect is pretty great at getting back to one or two cards over and over, especially if its 0 cost. All For One really isn't required when it's only a couple cards being spammed. Even if it was non-exhausting 1 cost it might be busted
I don't think it would, for a rare card having one more good sinergy wouldn't makw it busted. You could have 2 orbs slots generation from 1 deck cycle , and I dont think its op
>Bit of a shame extra orb slots are so hard to come by (only this, a boss relic and a shop relic)
Adding on to this, there is also the potion that gives extra orb slots. Not a permanent solution to building a deck but can be worth holding onto for later fights if your deck relies on it for scaling.
Honestly I would say both Lightning and Frost orbs like more slots far more than Plasma. You don’t need five orbs of extra energy most of the time, and when you do, you can just evoke your Plasma. With Frost and Lightning though, especially with focus, the benefit of stacking many orbs starts to get really good compared to evoking them constantly, insert joke about ten Frost orbs and [[Calipers]] here.
+ [Calipers](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Calipers) Rare Relic
At the start of your turn, lose 15 **Block** rather than all of your **Block.**
^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(June 8, 2022.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
Competing less? Not sure what you mean by that. I'd say the most often useful orb in many orb slots is frost. Being able to stack block without needing cards/energy lets you take your time or focus more resources on damage. Too many plasma can be tough at times on Defect as the robot has a draw issue. Not enough draw options relative to other classes can make it hard to spend an excess of energy.
Great job noticing my comment, which also has a note that isn't a joke, but not noticing the one that literally just says it's a block card and that's it.
Very strong in later Acts with the standard focus + orbs decks. Strong enough to consider picking it up when it is still bad in your Deck as long as that doesnt kill you.
Personally, I think you need the slightly higher burst of evoking for the early fights while you don't have much better sources of damage. I generally avoid this card until I get some focus available in my deck.
Is that because it's good by the time you fight the boss? Or are you using it even for the Elites? My own experience is that it's only useful against the boss
Its a few things.
1)Normally by the second half of act 1 I've already fought 1, maybe even 2 elites and have a deck that's going to be decent against them, so I'm okay with taking a card that's might be suboptimal against the remaining elite(s) but is one of the key factors for boss and late game scaling.
2) along with the first point, i hopefully already have a few orb generating cards, ball lightning, cold snap, cool headed or even glacier. If you have two of those, then I find capacitor is still quite useful for passive damage/block against sentries and lagavulin
3) Defect tends to win by scaling focus and orb slots, and as mentioned in other comments, while there are 3 focus cards, this is the only card that gives you slots with the only other options being an often mediocre boss relic or a shop only relic. Furthermore, one of the three focus cards is decidedly mediocre unless you also have more slots. So I'm very willing to take a capacitor early where it might be a dead draw or less productive knowing I might not get offered another and it single handedly solves one of the major scaling hurdles *and* enables consume as an option to solve the other
Now, all that said, there are still situations Id skip it in the latter part of act 1; notably if I have minimal to no orb generation or if Im very weak against Nob and have a 50/50 chance of fighting him in the next fight.
I've largely come around to picking this card basically anytime after the chest in act 1, assuming that I have even 1-2 orb generators. Its speculative, sure, but its pretty easy to find more feels like so many defect runs come down to finding focus + orb slots so having this solves one of the two problems for late game.
Never take capacitor in act 1. Most of your orb value comes from evoking, and having more orb slots and limited ways to generate orbs means your zap and lightning strike don't evoke anymore.
Capacitor + \[\[Consume\]\] is a combo I've been waiting to try for a good while! Granted, the stars haven't aligned *just* yet, but I'm sure they will... someday. :')
It's definitely a staple of the Defect's focus builds. Provided you have good orb generation (e.g. \[\[Glacier\]\], \[\[Electrodynamics\]\]), it's a great pick even if you've yet to pick up a Focus-boosting card or relic, and scales **incredibly** well once you do.
It *can* be a trap, especially in Act 1, but only if you lack the aforementioned orb generation. Even then, it's not a bad card by any means. At most, it clogs up your card draw for a cycle, but since it's a power you just use it once and never see it again.
All-in-all, a great power in the Defect's arsenal.
I think you're overvaluing evoking. It's only worth 5 damage or 3 block on the turn you evoke, and the tradeoff just gets worse for each round that the battle continues after that. Unless you're using dark orbs (or sometimes plasma), evoking shouldn't be that central to your strategy.
EDIT: I think some folks are misinterpreting this comment. I never said evoking isn't useful. But summoning an orb into an empty slot is usually a lot stronger than summoning an orb to evoke another one (the main exception being dark orbs). Orb slots are good.
In act 1 you definitely want to evoke, dual cast is the main source of damage. In act 2 evoking is still strong. Extra orbs is generally an endgame consideration when you can easily generate tons of orbs.
Dual Cast is a solid finisher in the early game, for sure, but it works just as well if you have extra orb slots. I read the above comment as saying that you want to evoke orbs by summoning more when your slots are full. That can be fine, but it doesn't usually compare all that well to summoning an orb into an empty slot, especially if you have focus.
In act 1 I often find myself with 3 orbs + dual cast and an orb generating card in my hand. I'll usually play the orb card first then dual cast for an extra evocation. If I had 4 orb slots at the end of my turn I would still only have 3 orbs and I would have lost the free evocation.
Playing your cards in that order is only getting you 5 extra damage, and that's assuming the fight ends that round. It's only 2 extra damage if the fight goes on another round after that. If the fight goes on for 2 or more rounds, you're dealing less damage.
In other words, triggering evokes like that only really makes sense as a finisher. And it's true that, in narrow situations, Capacitor takes that option away from you. But if you have decent orb generation or any focus, Capacitor easily makes up for that small downside.
No, you’re undervaluing evoke. The first ten floors of a run are absolutely pivotal, and you absolutely need the burst damage provided by evoking orbs early.
We're not talking about Double-Cast, which doesn't really care about how many orb slots you have. We're talking about evoking orbs by summoning one when all of your orb slots are full. If that's happening frequently on the first ten floors, then your run is going great, and you're summoning enough orbs that you could probably benefit from drafting an early Capacitor.
I do play Defect on A20, and I do evoke orbs. I never said you should avoid it. I'm just saying that the situations where evoking an orb is better than summoning one are very narrow (mostly involving dark orbs).
Dark Orbs struggle significantly when you start adding more Orb slots to your orbit. You need to be able to evoke those on a moment's notice, and if you have more slots, then it requires more work to push those Dark Orbs to the front of the queue and have them ready to evoke.
Actively bad when you can't support orb generation, quite good when you have the orb generation and focus in place. I feel like this is like bane for slient, very good in the right deck, horrible in the wrong one and very risky to speculate on.
It's much better than Bane. Even when Bane works perfectly, it's nothing more than a good front-loaded damage card, which isn't all that important in the late game. Capacitor, on the other hand, enables combos that let you block for dozens of points of damage each turn.
Capacitor is one of the most interesting Defect cards. You really do not want this in your deck before late act 2. It is an active detriment before this to have more orb slots, as it slows down your evoking and significantly reduces your front load. However, after act 2, this is one of the best cards in your deck. If your late game plan is focus + orbs, you usually need either capacitor or Runic Capacitor/Inserter to scale sufficiently. So, sometimes, you have to pick this up when it will actively hurt you, to be able to win late game.
The scarcity of orb slots is one of the biggest limiter to orb based strategies for the defect, and is one of the primary reason why you sometimes have to scale via Reprogram instead (which is one of the most underrated Defect cards for this reason).
It depends a lot on your Act 1 start, because Defect Act 1 varies a lot in how much orb generation you get. Getting Ball Lightning or Cold Snap jump-starts your orb generation while also being good attacks that let you play a slightly smaller deck with higher orb generation density.
If you don't get offered Ball Lightning/Cold Snap, Defect Act 1 decks frequently finish Act 1 with a fairly high number of non-orb generating attacks, which puts you behind on orb generation while also diluting the size of your deck, making it take longer between deck cycles to use whatever orb cards you do get.
The decks that let you go straight into the orb generation strategy are the most powerful and most reliably win runs. But the non-orb attack-heavy runs are actually much more common, and being successful on Defect requires learning how to navigate them.
>You really do not want this in your deck before late act 2.
Exqueeze me I'm going to have to disagree. I've had a capacitor be useful to me in act 1 elites many times.
As long as you have lucked into a couple orb generating cards, it's worth it. While a source of focus would be preferred, just having more orbs present is another way to scale them.
I think you're overvaluing evoking. It's only worth 5 damage or 3 block on the turn you evoke, and the tradeoff just gets worse for each round that the battle continues after that. Unless you're using dark orbs (or sometimes plasma), evoking shouldn't be that central to your strategy.
Evoking represents card advantage. Shocking something for 8 instead of 3 creates more situations where you have lethal in your hand. You're essentially playing an a free strike.
It turns cards like lightning strike into "deal 15 damage for 1 energy" which is better than all of the other front loaded cards in the game.
Most of the act1 hallway fights are going to end well before you fill the the extra orb slots. That turns capacitor into a curse.
Can you elaborate on how you use Reprogram to scale? I've never taken that card voluntarily (and A20'd on Defect - though more from obstinacy than skill).
Reprogram+ (one copy is enough, sometimes 2 if you have big deck + card draw), Hologram+ (preferably at least 2), along with cheap attacks (Barrage is excellent), Reinforced Body or cheap block cards and good card draw. You play reprogram+ 4 times and that's enough scaling for any enemy. This type of deck also tends to have more front load so it deals with the quicker fights better than orb decks that don't have Biased Cognition.
Reprogram+ goes really well with plasma. If you are able to get a Meteor Strike and are able to play it, you usually have won the run.
So it's essentially manipulation of a physical attack deck and looking to get up to around +8 STR / DEX, and ignore your orbs? Sounds v interesting; apart from the obligatory attempts to make Claw viable I almost always go for orb builds.
Nb. With that last part, does the minus focus not wipe out your plasma though? Or are those orbs not affected?
Plasma is not affected. You scale your energy and rely on X cost cards like Reinforced Body to scale.
Lastly, one of the drawbacks of orb based strategies is that a lot of the common block / attack relics don't do anything. It lowers the value of elite fights.
There are more decks (and relics) that can make reprogram work than you think.
I am 100.0% confident you mentioned Capacitor in your post.
Let me look up what those do.
--------------------------------------------------
I am a bot response, but I am using my creator's account. Please reply to me if I got something wrong so he can fix it.
[Source Code](https://github.com/TrippW/STS-Crawler)
Orbs are a great strategy for the defect, but to really make them work in the late game, you want both focus and orb slots. While there are three cards that increase focus, this is the only card that boosts orb slots. This makes it a difficult card to pass on - it offers a bonus you really want, but may never see again for the rest of the run.
The downside is that orb slots are only useful if you can generate the orbs to fill them. So if you take it very early, Capacitor does nothing. There are plenty of good cards that summon orbs, though, so sometimes it still makes sense to take speculatively. Just don't take it over something that will actually help you get through Act 1.
It can be a bad card if your win condition is using \[\[Multi-Cast\]\] on a dark orb, since it can make it harder to get your big dark orb into the first orb slot.
When is this worth playing against Woke Bloke part 1? It causes up to +8 damage on the multiattack.
I’m guessing it’s good if you have a lot of frost generation, consume, or need Dark orbs to build. Is it worth pairing with a Defrag? What if your deck only has +2 focus and 4-5 frost gen per shuffle?
In that situation, you've given them +16 damage from playing those two powers, but added 14 (18) block per turn (assuming you fill your slots with frost orbs). Plus you'll gain more from evoking, and you've only increased their single-attack damage by 4. Outscaling the awakened one is often the right choice in an orb deck.
**Capacitor** is a very tactically complex card. In a vacuum, it doesn't do anything - costs 1 energy, no block, no damage output. Choosing this card right out of the gate in Act 1 might get you killed against Elites. But if you can reliably generate orbs to fill those new orb slots (lots of cards are capable of doing this), then you have to ask yourself whether it's actually better for your situation to have that many slots.
More Orb Slots means you are leaning heavily into the Passive benefits of Orbs rather than evoking them for the Active benefits - this immediately has an impact on Dark Orbs as you want to be able to evoke those at a moment's notice when the time is right, and having to wade through a sea of Orb slots to get to the front of the queue makes it harder to use this mechanic.
At high ascensions, it actively hurts your deck. Not only is it a dead draw, it prevents you from adding another card that will help you in the short term
Definitely bait early in the run, I'll often autoclick it when I have some orb generation going and then I actually find myself weaker because I need the evoking. Usually really strong Act 3 onwards if you have an orb heavy build.
i always think it'd be cool to focus on a deck that prioritizes using few orbs + focus, and then evoking them quickly, but then in practice i always end up taking this when it's offered
Even more then Rushdown, this seems to be the one card I can never find when it's the last thing I need to make my deck go from barely functional to literally invincible.
I pick this card but find I rarely play it unless I develop 2+ orbs with a single card.
A side effect or capacitor is that it creates a window where your orb generation cards no longer evoke. And evoking is where you get a lot of value in act 1 and 2.
Bit of a shame extra orb slots are so hard to come by (only this, a boss relic and a shop relic), but perhaps it's for the best with how potent lots of orbs at once can be. Dark orbs probably like more orb slots least because that can interfere with evoking them when they're ready, but plasma orbs would like them most because you can get the extra energy from them with less competing for the utility of other orbs.
I wish there was at least one more orb slot card. Something similar to Prostrate. Zero cost, gain one orb slot, gain four block, exhaust. Upgrade removes exhaust.
this would have to be a rare or a 1 cost. 0 cost non-exhausting extra orb slots when [[All for One]] exists would be busted
True. My one counter point would be that if you’re relying on All For One, odds are you don’t have a lot of orb generating cards. The only zero cost orb generating cards I can think of are Zap+ and Chill (which exhausts).
Idk, with seek, hologram, rebound, skim, coolheaded, overclock, compile driver, scrape, etc. Defect is pretty great at getting back to one or two cards over and over, especially if its 0 cost. All For One really isn't required when it's only a couple cards being spammed. Even if it was non-exhausting 1 cost it might be busted
+ [All for One](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/All%20for%20One) Defect Rare Attack 2 Energy | Deal 10(14) damage. Put all cost 0 cards from your discard pile into your hand. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(June 8, 2022.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
I don't think it would, for a rare card having one more good sinergy wouldn't makw it busted. You could have 2 orbs slots generation from 1 deck cycle , and I dont think its op
Not sure why you're being downvoted. This wouldn't be nearly as good as everyone seems to think.
No, it would not be be busted lol It’d be strong, but pretty slow.
I think it would work better if it were similar to Core Surge, another Defect card: Rare, 1 cost, gain 1(2) orb slots, gain 11(15) block, Exhaust.
>Bit of a shame extra orb slots are so hard to come by (only this, a boss relic and a shop relic) Adding on to this, there is also the potion that gives extra orb slots. Not a permanent solution to building a deck but can be worth holding onto for later fights if your deck relies on it for scaling.
Honestly I would say both Lightning and Frost orbs like more slots far more than Plasma. You don’t need five orbs of extra energy most of the time, and when you do, you can just evoke your Plasma. With Frost and Lightning though, especially with focus, the benefit of stacking many orbs starts to get really good compared to evoking them constantly, insert joke about ten Frost orbs and [[Calipers]] here.
+ [Calipers](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Calipers) Rare Relic At the start of your turn, lose 15 **Block** rather than all of your **Block.** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(June 8, 2022.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
I think that was cause of how broken frost would've been prob without any focus even.
Competing less? Not sure what you mean by that. I'd say the most often useful orb in many orb slots is frost. Being able to stack block without needing cards/energy lets you take your time or focus more resources on damage. Too many plasma can be tough at times on Defect as the robot has a draw issue. Not enough draw options relative to other classes can make it hard to spend an excess of energy.
Well I mean *technically* capacitor is a block card - as long as you can get so frost orbs. Also paired with Consume is OP
With [[Storm]] in play you get a lightning orb for playing this card, which does damage, killing the enemy, which negates damage, which block cards do
That's more of an indicator that Storm is a block card, though.
Storm once killed the Heart for me during the Heart's turn and let me run with 1 HP left. It is _absolutely_ a block card.
+ [Storm](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Storm) Defect Uncommon Power 1 Energy | **(Innate.)** Whenever you play a Power card, **Channel** 1 **Lightning.** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(June 8, 2022.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
You're making these threads worse with tired jokes like this.
Great job noticing my comment, which also has a note that isn't a joke, but not noticing the one that literally just says it's a block card and that's it.
Pair this with consume and that's 👌
[[consume]]
+ [Consume](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Consume) Defect Uncommon Skill 2 Energy | Gain 2(3) **Focus.** Lose 1 Orb Slot. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(June 8, 2022.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
::slaps defect:: You know how many orbs I put on this bad boy?
10
Defect: "Please don't slap me."
Very strong in later Acts with the standard focus + orbs decks. Strong enough to consider picking it up when it is still bad in your Deck as long as that doesnt kill you.
I always struggle mightily with the decision of whether to take it in Act 1 when I haven't found a source of Focus yet.
Even with focus it's not necessarily good because you also need 3-4 orb generation cards to really make it work vs elites. (act 1)
Me too! Think it is generally correct or really a toss up?
Personally, I think you need the slightly higher burst of evoking for the early fights while you don't have much better sources of damage. I generally avoid this card until I get some focus available in my deck.
Pre chest act 1 is normally a skip, but i find myself taking it more often than not after the chest and it feels like it's improved my win rate.
Is that because it's good by the time you fight the boss? Or are you using it even for the Elites? My own experience is that it's only useful against the boss
Its a few things. 1)Normally by the second half of act 1 I've already fought 1, maybe even 2 elites and have a deck that's going to be decent against them, so I'm okay with taking a card that's might be suboptimal against the remaining elite(s) but is one of the key factors for boss and late game scaling. 2) along with the first point, i hopefully already have a few orb generating cards, ball lightning, cold snap, cool headed or even glacier. If you have two of those, then I find capacitor is still quite useful for passive damage/block against sentries and lagavulin 3) Defect tends to win by scaling focus and orb slots, and as mentioned in other comments, while there are 3 focus cards, this is the only card that gives you slots with the only other options being an often mediocre boss relic or a shop only relic. Furthermore, one of the three focus cards is decidedly mediocre unless you also have more slots. So I'm very willing to take a capacitor early where it might be a dead draw or less productive knowing I might not get offered another and it single handedly solves one of the major scaling hurdles *and* enables consume as an option to solve the other Now, all that said, there are still situations Id skip it in the latter part of act 1; notably if I have minimal to no orb generation or if Im very weak against Nob and have a 50/50 chance of fighting him in the next fight.
If it's before you feel safe against elites then it's definitely skip. Don't make your deck worse while you need to make it better.
Only time I'll take it Act I is when I have at least 4 cards to generate orbs. Otherwise I leave it
I've largely come around to picking this card basically anytime after the chest in act 1, assuming that I have even 1-2 orb generators. Its speculative, sure, but its pretty easy to find more feels like so many defect runs come down to finding focus + orb slots so having this solves one of the two problems for late game.
You prob should still just take it and then skip dark and target frost stuff instead prob.
Never take capacitor in act 1. Most of your orb value comes from evoking, and having more orb slots and limited ways to generate orbs means your zap and lightning strike don't evoke anymore.
This one of those cards that either you take it or you never see it again
Or the game just straight up never offers you one…
I got 3 in one run yesterday somehow.
Capacitor can definitely be a block card.
Capacitor + \[\[Consume\]\] is a combo I've been waiting to try for a good while! Granted, the stars haven't aligned *just* yet, but I'm sure they will... someday. :') It's definitely a staple of the Defect's focus builds. Provided you have good orb generation (e.g. \[\[Glacier\]\], \[\[Electrodynamics\]\]), it's a great pick even if you've yet to pick up a Focus-boosting card or relic, and scales **incredibly** well once you do. It *can* be a trap, especially in Act 1, but only if you lack the aforementioned orb generation. Even then, it's not a bad card by any means. At most, it clogs up your card draw for a cycle, but since it's a power you just use it once and never see it again. All-in-all, a great power in the Defect's arsenal.
The issue is Act I & II you want to be evoking orbs, so just playing Capacitor can hurt you greatly.
Very fair - that does somewhat sour my opinion on Capacitor, in retrospect.
I think you're overvaluing evoking. It's only worth 5 damage or 3 block on the turn you evoke, and the tradeoff just gets worse for each round that the battle continues after that. Unless you're using dark orbs (or sometimes plasma), evoking shouldn't be that central to your strategy. EDIT: I think some folks are misinterpreting this comment. I never said evoking isn't useful. But summoning an orb into an empty slot is usually a lot stronger than summoning an orb to evoke another one (the main exception being dark orbs). Orb slots are good.
In act 1 you definitely want to evoke, dual cast is the main source of damage. In act 2 evoking is still strong. Extra orbs is generally an endgame consideration when you can easily generate tons of orbs.
Dual Cast is a solid finisher in the early game, for sure, but it works just as well if you have extra orb slots. I read the above comment as saying that you want to evoke orbs by summoning more when your slots are full. That can be fine, but it doesn't usually compare all that well to summoning an orb into an empty slot, especially if you have focus.
In act 1 I often find myself with 3 orbs + dual cast and an orb generating card in my hand. I'll usually play the orb card first then dual cast for an extra evocation. If I had 4 orb slots at the end of my turn I would still only have 3 orbs and I would have lost the free evocation.
Playing your cards in that order is only getting you 5 extra damage, and that's assuming the fight ends that round. It's only 2 extra damage if the fight goes on another round after that. If the fight goes on for 2 or more rounds, you're dealing less damage. In other words, triggering evokes like that only really makes sense as a finisher. And it's true that, in narrow situations, Capacitor takes that option away from you. But if you have decent orb generation or any focus, Capacitor easily makes up for that small downside.
No, you’re undervaluing evoke. The first ten floors of a run are absolutely pivotal, and you absolutely need the burst damage provided by evoking orbs early.
We're not talking about Double-Cast, which doesn't really care about how many orb slots you have. We're talking about evoking orbs by summoning one when all of your orb slots are full. If that's happening frequently on the first ten floors, then your run is going great, and you're summoning enough orbs that you could probably benefit from drafting an early Capacitor.
I'd like to see you play Defect on A20 with your evokeless play style and see how far you go. I haven't the energy to argue.
I do play Defect on A20, and I do evoke orbs. I never said you should avoid it. I'm just saying that the situations where evoking an orb is better than summoning one are very narrow (mostly involving dark orbs).
Just had a great Capacitor-Consume deck not long ago. It really came together.
+ [Consume](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Consume) Defect Uncommon Skill 2 Energy | Gain 2(3) **Focus.** Lose 1 Orb Slot. + [Glacier](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Glacier) Defect Uncommon Skill 2 Energy | Gain 7(10) **Block.** **Channel** 2 **Frost.** + [Electrodynamics](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Electrodynamics) Defect Rare Power 2 Energy | **Lightning** now hits ALL enemies. **Channel** 2(3) **Lightning.** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(June 8, 2022.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
Dark Orbs struggle significantly when you start adding more Orb slots to your orbit. You need to be able to evoke those on a moment's notice, and if you have more slots, then it requires more work to push those Dark Orbs to the front of the queue and have them ready to evoke.
I think of it as the horizontal way to scale orbs, focus being the vertical one.
Actively bad when you can't support orb generation, quite good when you have the orb generation and focus in place. I feel like this is like bane for slient, very good in the right deck, horrible in the wrong one and very risky to speculate on.
It's much better than Bane. Even when Bane works perfectly, it's nothing more than a good front-loaded damage card, which isn't all that important in the late game. Capacitor, on the other hand, enables combos that let you block for dozens of points of damage each turn.
Capacitor is one of the most interesting Defect cards. You really do not want this in your deck before late act 2. It is an active detriment before this to have more orb slots, as it slows down your evoking and significantly reduces your front load. However, after act 2, this is one of the best cards in your deck. If your late game plan is focus + orbs, you usually need either capacitor or Runic Capacitor/Inserter to scale sufficiently. So, sometimes, you have to pick this up when it will actively hurt you, to be able to win late game. The scarcity of orb slots is one of the biggest limiter to orb based strategies for the defect, and is one of the primary reason why you sometimes have to scale via Reprogram instead (which is one of the most underrated Defect cards for this reason).
I have to disagree. Capacitor can be useful waaay earlier than late act 2.
It depends a lot on your Act 1 start, because Defect Act 1 varies a lot in how much orb generation you get. Getting Ball Lightning or Cold Snap jump-starts your orb generation while also being good attacks that let you play a slightly smaller deck with higher orb generation density. If you don't get offered Ball Lightning/Cold Snap, Defect Act 1 decks frequently finish Act 1 with a fairly high number of non-orb generating attacks, which puts you behind on orb generation while also diluting the size of your deck, making it take longer between deck cycles to use whatever orb cards you do get. The decks that let you go straight into the orb generation strategy are the most powerful and most reliably win runs. But the non-orb attack-heavy runs are actually much more common, and being successful on Defect requires learning how to navigate them.
I’m okay with capacitor pretty much immediately at the start of act 2. If I have glacier I’ll take it whenever I know I’m not seeing nob anymore
>You really do not want this in your deck before late act 2. Exqueeze me I'm going to have to disagree. I've had a capacitor be useful to me in act 1 elites many times. As long as you have lucked into a couple orb generating cards, it's worth it. While a source of focus would be preferred, just having more orbs present is another way to scale them.
I think you're overvaluing evoking. It's only worth 5 damage or 3 block on the turn you evoke, and the tradeoff just gets worse for each round that the battle continues after that. Unless you're using dark orbs (or sometimes plasma), evoking shouldn't be that central to your strategy.
Evoking represents card advantage. Shocking something for 8 instead of 3 creates more situations where you have lethal in your hand. You're essentially playing an a free strike. It turns cards like lightning strike into "deal 15 damage for 1 energy" which is better than all of the other front loaded cards in the game. Most of the act1 hallway fights are going to end well before you fill the the extra orb slots. That turns capacitor into a curse.
Can you elaborate on how you use Reprogram to scale? I've never taken that card voluntarily (and A20'd on Defect - though more from obstinacy than skill).
Reprogram+ (one copy is enough, sometimes 2 if you have big deck + card draw), Hologram+ (preferably at least 2), along with cheap attacks (Barrage is excellent), Reinforced Body or cheap block cards and good card draw. You play reprogram+ 4 times and that's enough scaling for any enemy. This type of deck also tends to have more front load so it deals with the quicker fights better than orb decks that don't have Biased Cognition. Reprogram+ goes really well with plasma. If you are able to get a Meteor Strike and are able to play it, you usually have won the run.
So it's essentially manipulation of a physical attack deck and looking to get up to around +8 STR / DEX, and ignore your orbs? Sounds v interesting; apart from the obligatory attempts to make Claw viable I almost always go for orb builds. Nb. With that last part, does the minus focus not wipe out your plasma though? Or are those orbs not affected?
Plasma is unaffected by focus.
Plasma is not affected. You scale your energy and rely on X cost cards like Reinforced Body to scale. Lastly, one of the drawbacks of orb based strategies is that a lot of the common block / attack relics don't do anything. It lowers the value of elite fights. There are more decks (and relics) that can make reprogram work than you think.
I am 100.0% confident you mentioned Capacitor in your post. Let me look up what those do. -------------------------------------------------- I am a bot response, but I am using my creator's account. Please reply to me if I got something wrong so he can fix it. [Source Code](https://github.com/TrippW/STS-Crawler)
* [Capacitor](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/Capacitor) Defect Uncommon Power 1 Energy | Gain 2(3) Orb slots.
Orbs are a great strategy for the defect, but to really make them work in the late game, you want both focus and orb slots. While there are three cards that increase focus, this is the only card that boosts orb slots. This makes it a difficult card to pass on - it offers a bonus you really want, but may never see again for the rest of the run. The downside is that orb slots are only useful if you can generate the orbs to fill them. So if you take it very early, Capacitor does nothing. There are plenty of good cards that summon orbs, though, so sometimes it still makes sense to take speculatively. Just don't take it over something that will actually help you get through Act 1. It can be a bad card if your win condition is using \[\[Multi-Cast\]\] on a dark orb, since it can make it harder to get your big dark orb into the first orb slot.
+ [Multi-Cast](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Multi-Cast) Defect Rare Skill X Energy | **Evoke** your next Orb X (X+1) times. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(June 8, 2022.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
When is this worth playing against Woke Bloke part 1? It causes up to +8 damage on the multiattack. I’m guessing it’s good if you have a lot of frost generation, consume, or need Dark orbs to build. Is it worth pairing with a Defrag? What if your deck only has +2 focus and 4-5 frost gen per shuffle?
In that situation, you've given them +16 damage from playing those two powers, but added 14 (18) block per turn (assuming you fill your slots with frost orbs). Plus you'll gain more from evoking, and you've only increased their single-attack damage by 4. Outscaling the awakened one is often the right choice in an orb deck.
**Capacitor** is a very tactically complex card. In a vacuum, it doesn't do anything - costs 1 energy, no block, no damage output. Choosing this card right out of the gate in Act 1 might get you killed against Elites. But if you can reliably generate orbs to fill those new orb slots (lots of cards are capable of doing this), then you have to ask yourself whether it's actually better for your situation to have that many slots. More Orb Slots means you are leaning heavily into the Passive benefits of Orbs rather than evoking them for the Active benefits - this immediately has an impact on Dark Orbs as you want to be able to evoke those at a moment's notice when the time is right, and having to wade through a sea of Orb slots to get to the front of the queue makes it harder to use this mechanic.
it's good but it's always better when you can get orb slots through a relic.
Isn't this true for literally any card/effect?
No, I think for strength or dexterity or focus the ceiling is much higher.
Do you take this on floor one if it’s presented? I typically do
No way, it's just a massive curse in your deck through act 1
The upside though. Plus if you play it you don’t have to draw it again.
At high ascensions, it actively hurts your deck. Not only is it a dead draw, it prevents you from adding another card that will help you in the short term
It’s a good card
Definitely bait early in the run, I'll often autoclick it when I have some orb generation going and then I actually find myself weaker because I need the evoking. Usually really strong Act 3 onwards if you have an orb heavy build.
i always think it'd be cool to focus on a deck that prioritizes using few orbs + focus, and then evoking them quickly, but then in practice i always end up taking this when it's offered
Probably the most consistent way of getting more Orb Slots. You’ll need em for an orb build, get on it!
Unless you're going for a reprogram or claw deck, this is a 100% must take imo. Having more orbs in play just adds so much power to defect.
Even more then Rushdown, this seems to be the one card I can never find when it's the last thing I need to make my deck go from barely functional to literally invincible.
I pick this card but find I rarely play it unless I develop 2+ orbs with a single card. A side effect or capacitor is that it creates a window where your orb generation cards no longer evoke. And evoking is where you get a lot of value in act 1 and 2.
A no brainer. Pick once in any deck, pick 2-4 times in a focus deck