The Defect just seems to have so many branches of ways to play, between focusing on one of his 4 orbs, focusing on attacks, focusing on powers, focusing on blocking. I can't get halfway to the second boss without getting creamed, as I usually am having to resort to healing at every campfire and end up with a deck of fairly useless cards. The Defect: Easily my hardest character to play. If you guys have any suggestions for high level play, please let me know. A lot of it is about pacing yourself, and improving your next turn when you can afford it. I think I understand fully how the Silent is supposed to be played, using combos, discard effects, and high block values appropriately. Also, 2 Adrenalines and an upgraded Backstab didn't hurt either. This one was my first (and only) clear, once I started doing the random events to collect relics/gold for curses, then using discard effects on the curses to reduce how powerful they were. Not sure where the synergies in the builds are, though, as I feel he's a lot less specialized than the other two. Iron Tide was a favorite of mine, as the low damage with block did great with maintaining lethality while getting some defense. I generally resorted to using that one power that gave him Strength every turn, then just mowing people away with attack spams.
Was a little hard early on as I was learning the ropes, but I feel comfortable with him.
The Defiant: Once I figured out the value of blocking, the game got a bit easier. Gaining inspiration from a recent thread, I decided to ask about Slay the Spire for some specific tips and suggestions to kill that stupid tower.