LogFAQs > #972209216

Claw is a horrible card. Strongly advise avoiding it unless you literally cannot find any other attacks or scaling and already have card draw.

General advice of picking up attacks early in act 1 applies as normal. Defect has a unique option in Compile Driver for an attack that scales into extremely strong card draw later in the run. Another strong early option is Sweeping Beam. Beam Cell is generally not worth the card draw unless your deck already has a ton of reasons to want it, but Go for the Eyes can be valuable later in the run. Bullseye is another decent early option. Hyper Beam solves your act 1 and does well in act 2 as a finisher, but has a lot of problems later in the run, so only take it while you still need it. Core Surge is amazing in general.

Most Defect runs will be based around orb mechanics, because this is Defect's strongest scaling. Priorities with orb scaling are generally Focus first, then Orb slots and Loop stacks. Frost orbs are the most important to find because they are very hard to replace. Coolheaded is an amazing way to generate frost, because it also functions as card draw (it's a good upgrade once you have your early damage settled). Glacier is great as well for giving you access to a lot of frost and defensive power for one card pick, but there is a point where you can have too many. Having access to a dark orb (even just one) can save you a lot of trouble by the act 2 boss, if you haven't found tons of focus yet, since it solves the boss fights for you (as long as you have enough attacks to kill minions). If you end up getting plasma going (which relies on either having a way to discount Meteor Strike, generate the energy for it reliably, take Nuclear Battery, or take and upgrade a Fusion, all of which are situational), then you can make a lot of use of Multicast and Reinforced Body, especially if you get Calipers.

Genetic Algorithm is a card that most people very dramatically undervalue. Play it four times or so and it's a good card; play it a dozen times and it's one of the best tools to set up in the game. You can't take it if you're about to die, though.

Apparitions, Bag of Preparation, and Anchor are extremely high value on Defect. Defect's biggest issue is that it needs to set up focus and orbs, and it tends to have very bad turn 1s. Anything that helps your turn 1 is extremely important. Once you have a consistent turn 1, scaling focus up to 6+ with a few orb slots and good card draw should beat anything.

Echo Form is generically incredibly strong and does not take long to pay back its cost and much more, but you do need to be able to play it when you draw it (again, that turn 1 issue). Creative AI is incredibly slow but infinite scaling that can work if your deck is in an OK spot to start out fights but lacks the powers to keep up in very long fights--works best with relics that synergize with powers.