Warframe: Protea Prime build (mod setups, Helminth options, Archon Shards, and more)

With a well-optimized Protrea Prime build, no enemies on Steel Path can stand a chance against your fire-breathing sentries. With the unveiling of this latest Primed Warframe, many new and returning players are wondering what build to run in 2024 - and this guide is here to help you out.

In this comprehensive Protea Prime build guide, we will go over an easy 2-Forma setup that you can modify according to your goals, and some Helminth and Archon Shard options to bolster it.

Warframe Protea Prime build for end-game (2-Forma)

Protea Prime build with 2 Formas (Image via Digital Extremes)

Protea Prime is so powerful that she needs little investment to pop off in the Steel Path. Generally, the most important stat in any Protea Prime build is Ability Duration, which significantly improves all your abilities. You also need a good amount of Ability Strength for a good baseline point for your damage abilities.

By comparison, Ability Range will be fine as long as it is over 75%, as most of your abilities will have more than enough range for the average Warframe tileset. Ability Efficiency, similarly, can be treated as a dump stat since your energy economy will be abundant with Equilibrium and Dispensary.

If you haven't picked up this Warframe yet, here's how to get all of Protea Prime's Relics.

Mods used:

Aura Slot: Corrosive Projection/Brief Respite
Exilus Slot: Primed Sure Footed (usually this will mean one more Forma on the Exilus slot)
Primed Continuity
Augur Message
Stretch
Primed Flow
Archon Vitality (the additional passive effect increases Blaze Artillery damage by quite a bit)
Narrow Minded
Blind Rage
Equilibrium

Here are some alternative mods you can use for this build:

Rolling Guard: Generally, casting Shield Satellite once in a while is enough for survivability, irrespective of the level of enemies you're going up against. However, Rolling Guard can give you another layer of protection if you need it. Replace Augur Message with it if you are following this build exactly.
Temporal Erosion: Temporal Erosion will require you to keep the regular fourth ability, which most likely means no Helminth ability. For this tradeoff, you get a rather potent armor-strip tool that works even on bosses and Acolytes.
Streamline: Although Protea can do just fine with negative Efficiency, you will not have enough energy to cast Dispensary when you load into a mission with this Protea Prime build. There are two ways to mitigate this: you can either use Streamline instead of Augur Message, or you can use the Zenurik Focus School with the Inner Might Node.

Helminth options for Protea Prime

Protea is a self-sufficient Warframe, and this build will perform just fine without any Helminth-added ability. That being said, you can completely ditch Temporal Anchor and still make complete use of your other three abilities.

The following are some Helminth options for Protea:

Roar: Roar boosts the damage of Blaze Artillery, and the buff stacks multiplicatively with base damage boosts from Ability Strength. Roar is also a universal faction damage multiplier, meaning Heat DoTs from Blaze Artilltery will double-dip into the buff.
Larva, Ensnare, or Coil Horizon: Blaze Artillery gains more damage by shooting through multiple enemies. A group-up tool can therefore boost its damage even further. However, instead of a Helminth ability, this can also be achieved with Cordon from the Nautilus Sentinel, which works even better.
Armor-stripping abilities such as Terrify or Tharros Strike are not needed for the most part. You can fully armor-strip enemies with the Temporal Erosion augment mod, which is a better fit for Protea's playstyle.

Arcanes

Any Protea Prime build benefits greatly from extra Ability Duration. Protea will usually have her shields topped up thanks to Shield Satellites, which makes Molt Efficiency a perfect fit for the first choice of Arcane.

For the other Arcane slot, you can either use a Molt Augmented for more Ability Strength, or Arcane Energize for an even more lax energy economy.

Companions and Equipment

You essentially need two things to make Protea better than she already is: a primer weapon and a group-up tool. Both can be achieved by simply using a Nautilus with the Cordon precept. Equip it with the Manifold Bond mod and then give it a Verglas modded for Viral and Radiation damage.

Natutilus build with Cordon and Manifold Bond (Image via Digital Extremes)

This will group up enemies semi-regularly, and prime them up with some Viral stacks to take your Blaze Artillery damage to the next level.

If you are using Coil Horizon or Ensnare as a Helminth ability on your Protea Prime build, you can use a Panzer Vulpaphyla or a primer Epitaph build to get your Viral stacks.