1. There should be many cards that synergize with themself like claw, like most of the characters I have personally seen there should be 3 main ways you can go. The gimmick that this character should have is a slow play style that is faster than the Silent but still slower than the Defect. The main starter relic should be somehow there to enphasize playing more cards over time allowing ramp but not just a stall.
2.The starter relic should be something with:Whenever you play a card, increase its Vigor by 1.(Vigor: All cards with this cards name do 1 more.) Other relics should have ways to allow for a fast play style by for example, Each time your cards would gain Vigor they gain 1 extra. You take 1 damage at the start of your turn. A potion could be Bleed Potion: give an enemy 5 bleed. (Bleed: Takes x damage extra from attacks this turn, half of the stacks of bleed are removed after each attack that deals damage. This would also allow a build to be Bleed where vigor would effect the amount of bleed something gives. Just as a few ideas that you could have.
3.You could have something similar to Marisa's Amplify effect where in which if you have extra energy you get a bonus or replaced effect for a card, its a cool idea that was made and it can be used many ways.
4.The Clawfect I personally would see as a beast compared to the defect, so if it is still a machine you can have the events be more glitchy and any new events would be similar to some of the defect only events just instead of it being more clean and consise, it could be more sparatic, higher highs, and lower lows.
5.I have 2 for you, Would you make custom art for the character and the cards? Are you planning on making the character updated consistantly or would it be something that happens every once and a while?

To begin, thanks for the feedback and I would like to apologise for taking some time to reply. Was fairly busy over the weekend and while I read it I did not get a chance to reply.

I do agree with the idea that Clawfect should have multiple ways to play it. Not sure if the number should be fixed 3 but there should certainly be at least 2. Initially I think it should be 3 but due to the way how ascensions work (and how people are likely to play with them in some form) it will likely boil down to one or two styles of play as the ascenion level is increased.

Quick question. Is Vigor and Bleed from another mod that you have played or is it something that you thought of specifically for Clawfect. I like the ideas of having a bleed effect that either a) Increases the damage the player could do to a bleed target (as you stated) or b) having bleed as a stacking debuff with similar to poison or say Slimebounds goop (not the same as goop but an effective where hitting a target that has the debuff causes an effect).

Not sure if I have a proper response for the Maria's mod at this time. I have not played it (and alot of mods though I am looking forward to trying out more character mods) as of yet due a number of external factors that limits my time to play other mods.

When you mention beast I think that is an interesting concept. Like for example if it still looked like Defect but had oversized hands or say bear mittens and a bear head just as a gag. On the same accord when you mentioned beast the idea of say having it form shift would be interesting as well. Say if the Clawfect were to go 'Beast' mode or say have a card called 'Beast Form' that worked like alot of the vanilla 'Form' cards that provide some benefit at a high energy cost. Not saying I am committing to any of these ideas but I like the thought process.

In regards to custom art, I could make the art but a) They would take a considerable amount of time on my end and b) They would not look the greatest. One of the main reason the Clawfect card art is the exact same as the other art is because my experience in image editing tools is fairly limited (as noticable by my Mod picture images). I am an okay artist but a slow one at that so it would probably take me months to draw out the designs and in the end someone else would probably more suited to do this.

For character updates, for Clawfect (this mod) I still take a look at it once a day as its still early in its implementation period. The Clawfect (a proper character mod) if I were to actively work on it beyond helping with gathering requirements, I would aim to keep it balance and up to date as time allows. Writing mods (or coding in general) for sts is a hobby of mine and not a full time job. As such I try to get development time in where I can.

Just wanted to say thanks again for all your thoughts and if you have thoughts/feedback on anything I typed here, let me know. I am certainly more responsive during the week and should have a faster turn around for next time. Wish you the best on your future slaying!

Vigor and Bleed as i wrote them i have never seen before in a mod. I was just giving ideas that sounded cool that would make the game intresting, not broken, not too slow, just something to give the game a little more of a push in a way that i wish the game did in general. For Vigor I used it because it would be similer to potency for the slimebound, but it would be more for decks using the same gimmik as claw, kinda using the name and the original insperation for the character as the bases of its feature and play style.

Understood. Well I like the idea where it is going and I'll add it to the concept main post. I might work on a proof of concept using those effects over the weekend just to see how it plays out. Once again thanks for your thoughts in this regards. Some feedback is better than none and what you have provide is enough to give sort of a base idea to run with.