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Protea is one ofWarframe’sstrongest titular characters, wielding the power of technological machinations to empower her allies and obliterate her foes. Powerful weapon emplacements, resource dispensers, and shield generators may be deployed at a moment’s notice to turn the tide in Protea’s favor.
While Protea might be somewhat tricky to farm for, she is an absolute powerhouse in the hands of a good player. She has infinite damage scaling, an easy way to Shield Gate, and can wield Archguns like primary weapons thanks to Dispensary. Use the tools in her toolkit correctly, and Protea will make you an unstoppable force in Steel Path and beyond.
How To Craft Protea
Protea’s components drop from theGranum Void, a difficult side objective that can be accessed in any Corpus Ship tileset. The game type becomes available upon completing “The Deadlock Protocol” quest, which is also where Protea’s main crafting blueprint drops from. Interact with any of the gilded hand statues aboard the ship to start the activity.
Before you can enter the Granum Void, you will first need aGranum Crown.This is a currency type that drops fromTreasurerenemies aboard the Corpus Ship tileset. The level of the mission determines the tier of Granum Crown they drop, corresponding with the difficulty of the Granum Void run itself.
0-15
16-30
30+
Protea Systems
Each part has an 11.11% drop chance, so it will take quite a few runs to obtain her entire set. Alternatively, you may also purchase Protea pre-built for 325 Platinum from the in-game market.
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How To Craft Protea Prime
Protea Prime is available through certainVoid Relicsthat can be earned through mission rewards, Relic Packs,and player trading. These items can be cracked open in Fissure missions that appear on the Star Chart. Protea Prime’s parts only drop from specific Relics, and they aren’t a guaranteed drop, but you can influence the drop rate by improving the Relic with Reactant.
Farming Relics
The fastest way to get Void Relics is by purchasing Relic Packs from Syndicate factions, including the six main Syndicates and Teshin’s Steel Path shop.
As for farming Relics, we recommend farming the missions shown in the table below.
Always drops Lith Relics or Aya
50% chance of earning Meso Relics
50% chance of earning Neo Relics
Passive
Passive:Every fourth ability cast is granted +100% Ability Strength.
There’s not much to explain here.Every fourth ability cast will gain an additive 100% Ability Strength, similar to Molt Augmented and Focus passives. Once the fourth ability is cast, you’ll need to cast four more abilities to receive the bonus again; the fourth cast doesn’t count towards your next boosted ability cast.
It’s also worth noting thatsubsumed powers also benefit from your passive.This is especially useful if you use abilities that rely heavily on Strength,such as Hildryn’s Pillageor Sevagoth’s Gloom.
Grenade Fan
Grenade Fan:Throw a fan of grenades. Tap to create a slashing, staggering swirl of shrapnel. Hold to create shield satellites that behave as shield generators, protecting her, her allies, and companions. When shields break, a satellite is destroyed to double your minimum Shield Gate invincibility time.
Damage:500 Slash per second
Regeneration:50 Shields per second
Affects grenade duration
Affects grenade radii
Affects Energy drain
Affects damage and shield properties
Protea throws out a fan of grenades that can do one of two things, depending on how you cast the ability:
Shrapnel Vortexdetonates the grenades on impact, creating a swarm of projectiles that deal Slash damage to targets within. Enemies inside receive 500 Slash damage per second with a small chance of receiving a Slash proc. The damage can be buffed with Ability Strength, and the effective radius is affected by Ability Range. Scale the range of this ability, and you can lockdown entire tiles in Normal Path content.
Shield Satellitesconvert the grenades into pickups that increase your shield capacity for you and your companion. More importantly, you will constantly regenerate 50 shields per second while the grenade is attached to you, affected by Ability Strength. This can also generate Overshields, giving most Warframes a massive boost to their survivability.
Should your shields break, the Shield Satellite will be consumed to double your Shield Gate duration. For example, while Primed Redirection is installed, your Shield Gate duration is 2.5 seconds. If your shield breaks, your grenade will be consumed and grant 5 seconds of Shield Gate invulnerability. Needless to say, this is an absurdly powerful defensive mechanic when used correctly.
Blaze Artillery
Blaze Artillery:Deploys an artillery unit to blast plasma charges at enemies it faces. Each enemy hit increases the power of subsequent plasma attacks.
Per Hit:500 Heat with a guaranteed proc
Scaling:+100% additive damage per hit
Affects turret duration
Affects turret targeting distance
Affects initial Heat damage
The game tries its hardest not to call this ability a turret, but that’s exactly what it is.Protea creates a stationary turret that will fire at anything within a 130-degree cone.It lasts an incredibly short duration and attacks at a set interval (three times per second), buteach enemy it hits will increase its damage by 100% until the turret expires.you’re able to’t scale this bonus with Ability Strength, but you can increase its Ability Duration to ramp up to a higher multiplier.
Each shot of Blaze Artillery inflicts guaranteed Heat status. Throw on Archon Vitality to double the number of Heat procs inflicted by your turrets.
Interestingly,the turret has infinite punch through.This means you may theoretically gain over 1,000% damage from a single shot if the turret hits ten or more enemies. This is why many Protea builds replace her fourth ability with a CC power likeLarvaorEnsnare.If you can group the enemies together into a tight ball, the turret will obliterate everything in the game, even level-cap Steel Path enemies.
Making her Blaze Artillery stronger will require you to scaleAbility DurationandRange. Ability Strength should remain positive, but it doesn’t need to be specced into since it doesn’t affect the turret’s damage scaling. If you need more damage, run a status primer like the Epitaph or subsume Roar over your ultimate ability.
Dispensary
Dispensary:Deploys a device that generates 3 pickups after a short delay: an empowered Health Orb, Universal Ammo Pack, and an Energy Orb.
This ability can be subsumed withthe Helminth system, albeit with weaker effects.
25%
Affects device duration and maximum number of pickups generated
Affects the extra pickup chance.
Dispensary is a stationary emplacement thatcreates a powerful Health Orb, Universal Ammo Pack, and Energy Orb in that order.It creates these items every five seconds until your duration expires, so you may create additional items by scaling yourAbility Duration. A maximum of one Dispensary may be active at a time. Creating an additional one will destroy your last Dispensary device.
Additionally, scalingAbility Strength increases the chance of Dispensary creating extra pickups.For example, a 100% extra pickup chance will cause Dispensary to always spawn a second Health Orb, Ammo Pack, and Energy Orb.
Temporal Anchor
Temporal Anchor:Drops a Temporal Anchor which, after a short duration, Protea rewinds to trigger a temporal implosion Implosion damage increases based on damage dealt between anchor drop and rewind. Everything lost or expended in that time is returned. Dying while the Anchor is active rewinds Protea to the anchor, saving her. Protea is knocked down and the anchor vanishes.
25% of your stored damage as Blast
Affects implosion damage.
Temporal Anchor will create a snapshot of your character’s current HP, Shields, Energy, and ammunition.While the ability is active, a portion ofalldamage you deal will be stored in Protea’s suit.Weapons and abilities will build up this meter. Once the timer ends, you will explode and deal that damage in a massive area. Afterward, Protea will be transported back to your initial anchor location, resting your stats to their pre-anchor values.
That sounds complicated on paper, but there are really two uses for this skill:
If you’re a newer player and don’t have endgame mods and gear yet, the former strategy is quite viable. Place down an anchor, expend all of your Energy on Blaze Artillery, shoot your weapon for good measure, then rewind time to get your resources back. For veteran players who don’t need help managing resources, the latter is more important.
Should Protea die while in Temporal Anchor, she will instead become invulnerable and retreat to her pre-anchor location.Your HP and Shields won’t be restored to their initial values, but your ammo and Energy will. You can use this ability as a panic invulnerability button if you’re about to fight a tough boss. You can give yourself more time by scalingAbility Duration.
You can cancel the ability at anytime by holding the ability key. You won’t get your resources back, but you won’t be sent back to your previous location.
Protea Augments
As of Update 35.5, Protea has two augment mods you can use.All of Protea’s Augments may be purchased from the Perrin Sequence or Arbiters of Hexis.Both Syndicates must be at Rank 5 to purchase either augment, and each mod costs 25,000 Standing. Alternatively, you may trade for these mods through Warframe’s player trading system.
Repair Dispensary
Repair Dispensary:Dispensary also creates pickups that heal companions for 20% of their maximum HP and reduce their incapacitation time by 12s.
After Dispensary creates an Energy Orb, it will generate a smaller Health Orb that may only be consumed by companions. When grabbed, your companions will be healed by 20% and, if currently incapacitated, will recover 12 seconds faster.
While the augment isn’t directly affected by mods,Ability Strength can spawn additional companion orbs.Since this is tied to Dispensary itself, this augment does work with the Helminth variant of Dispensary.
Temporal Erosion
Temporal Erosion:While Temporal Anchor is active, each strike of Grenade Fan and Blaze Artillery strips 10% armor from enemies.
While Protea is actively using Temporal Anchor, all instances of damage from Grenade Fan and Blaze Artillery (excluding status procs) will strip 10% of a target’s armor. This armor strip is permanent, additive with other sources, and can be scaled withAbility Strength.We suggest ending Temporal Anchor manually whenever you need to refresh this ability to maintain the augment bonus.
If you spec for Ability Range, you’re able to make Shrapnel Vortex overlap with itself. This will strip armor in seconds.
Protea Builds
Protea is a powerhouse right out of the box, but the right build can make her viable for endurance Steel Path contentand Elite Archimedea runs. Thanks to the power of Grenade Fan,Protea is an ideal Warframe for Shield Gating.Be sure that you have a Shield Satellite active at all times, and you’ll be incredibly tough to kill. You can also build Protea to shield tank with (Primed) Redirection if you prefer.
As for Focus Schools, we suggestZenurikorMadurai.Zenurik has excellent Energy sustain and a free 20% Ability Strength through Hardened Wellspring. If you don’t have Energy issues, run Madurai for the free 40% Ability Strength and bonus cast speed.
Archon Shards
Protea ideally wantsCrimson Shards and Emerald Shards.You can increase Protea’s duration with Crimson Shards to greatly boost the DPS of your Blaze Artillery. Emerald Shards can be used to increase your Corrosive status cap to 14. This allows you to fully strip armor with Corrosive weapons or subsumed abilities like Hydroid’s Tempest Barrage.
Our endgame build ideally wants two Emerald Archon Shards, but it is not a hard requirement.
Starter Build (Zero Forma, No Subsume)
You only need a standard Protea for this to work. The extra polarities and Prime variant are not required.
This is a cheap, efficient build that brings out the best in Protea’s kit. We spec forAbility Rangewhile also boosting our other stats slightly. Additionally, we make use ofEquilibriumandFlowto fill our Energy reserves with Dispensary’s empowered HP Orbs. This makes Energy a non-issue if you remember to cast Dispensary on occasion.
StretchandAugur Reachscale our Ability Range, making Grenade Fan a potent skill for damaging foes and supporting your team. It also makes Blaze Artillery far more consistent.Intensifyscales our damage, andContinuitymakes every ability last longer.Streamlinewill make each ability cast a little bit cheaper, andRedirectionwill increase your Shield Gate duration, which is then doubled through Shield Satellite. Use any Aura mod you own.
When you start the mission, cast Dispensary to restore your energy. Hold down Grenade Fan to spawn some Shield Satellites, then pick one up. You’re now good for all Normal Path content. If you start playing Steel Path, use Temporal Anchor to give yourself a safety net, and make liberal use of Blaze Artillery while in narrow corridors.
Blazing Barrage Build (Two Forma, Tempest Barrage Subsume)
Most Protea builds tend to use Nidus' Larva ability to clump targets together for Blazing Pillage. We’ve opted to do something a little different.This build uses Hydroid’s Tempest Barrage to prime targets for Shrapnel Vortex and Blaze Artillery.We start the build by replacing Temporal Anchor with Tempest Barrage. This suppresses an area with water projectiles that detonate on impact, inflicting Corrosive with each hit.
What makes this ability really shine isViral Tempest, an augment mod that gives Tempest Barrage a 100% chance of inflicting Viral status on hit. We can now prime enemies with Corrosive and Viral with a single ability cast. If you runtwo Emerald Archon Shardsto increase your Corrosive status cap, this ability will single handedly strip armor for you. Anything that survives will be obliterated by your other abilities.
Nautilus Synergy
Nautilus can use its Cordon preset to group enemies in a tight ball, similar to Larva. You canuse Manifold Bond to reset its cooldownby killing foes affected by three or more debuffs.
We can easily meet this condition with Tempest Barrage and Blaze Artillery. The former inflicts Corrosive and Viral, while the latter inflicts Heat. This lets Nautilus group enemies for you with zero downtime.
For easy slaying, we’ve opted to spec forAbility Range and Duration.We useOverextended, Stretch, and Augur Reachto substantially increase the radius of Shrapnel Vortex and our Tempest Barrage projectiles—each explosion is larger than the targeting radius. We then usePrimed Continuityto scale our Ability Duration. If you want more uptime on Blaze Artillery, you can use Molt Efficiency and Crimson Shards.
For Energy, we runArcane Energize and Primed Flow.With Dispensary’s guaranteed Energy Orbs, you should have max Energy most of the time. If not, drop Augur Reach for Equilibrium. For damage, we runBlind Ragefor a ton of Ability Strength andArchon Vitality (unranked) to scale our Blaze Artillery’s Heat procs.This effectively doubles the DoT damage of that skill for free.
The Aura and Exilus slots are down to preference. We suggest usingGrowing Powerfor the free Ability Strength andPrimed Sure Footedto make Protea completely immune to knockdown effects. Since we don’t have any survivability mods on our build, we also useArcane Aegisto rapidly regenerate our shields. Paired with Shield Satellite, you will almost always have shields available.
