General Use [Protea] build with highly active playstyle utilizing her entire kit with a focus on Temporal Anchor, with Shield Satellite for shield gating/restore, Shrapnel Vortex for minor crowd control, Blaze Artillery for damage, dispensary for energy restoration and ammo recovery and finally Temporal Anchor for armor strip/grouping/nuking/i-frames.

Temporal Anchor is an often under-estimated ability that actually has multiple useful effects:

1. SCALING NUKE: It stores damage dealt (25% per instance of damage) with NO limit, meaning if you deal enough damage to enemies with a combination of weapons and [Blaze] Artillery, you can potentially hit damage cap and deal this same amount of damage in a 35+m radius (line of sight) upon ending.

2. I-FRAMES AND STATUS CLEANSE: Casting 4 initially gives 3s of i-frames and ending 4 gives free status cleanse (effectively a [Rolling Guard]).

3. GROUPING: Ending 4 creates an implosion effect that ragdolls and groups enemies in a big radius (15m at base), but dependent on line of sight.

4. REWIND: Any energy or ammo spent during the anchor is refunded upon rewind. Note, since dispensary exists, this is actually NOT a very useful thing since you also LOSE any energy/ammo gained via dispensary during the anchor period. This means it is ideal to cast 4 only while at max energy and to cast as much as possible without picking up any orbs before rewinding. This may require you to establish a 'dispensary zone' that is not in the same location as where you plan on using anchor/rewind.

5. EXTRA LIFE: Taking lethal damage during the anchor causes you to lose health to 5% max but regain shields to initial levels.

6. ARMOR STRIP: The [Temporal Erosion] augment allows any damage via 1 or 2 to strip armor. The speed of armor strip can occur quite rapidly if casts of 1 and 2 are stacked, and has very few of the limitations of other armor strip subsumes (i.e. does not need excessive strength like pillage, works on acolytes/demolysts unlike terrify/fireblast, technically has insane range matching the range of [Blaze] artillery which is approximately 70m at 235% range, works basically passively).

Variants
Semi AFK Mecha Roar: https://overframe.gg/build/668069

SPECIAL NOTES:

• Change control settings and Invert Tap/Hold abilities for Protea, so tapping 1 casts Shield Satellite as this will be your main method of resetting your shield gate.
• At 100% efficiency, you need exactly 5 or more leftover mod capacity to spawn with exactly 75 energy, which is exactly enough to cast one dispensary at the beggining of a mission. Alternatively you can use Archon shards that give energy on spawn. This saves you from needing energy pads or zenurik to get going each mission. At 45% efficiency, you will need 14 free mod capacity. This is why my build has excess mod capacity.

PLAYSTYLE

1. Tap 3 to cast Dispensary at beginning of mission and always keep one active near where you are
2. Tap 1 to cast Shield Satellites onto the ground and keep some active at all times. When you approach a Satellite it will attach to you generating shields/overshields and giving you a special double shield gate (currently 5s at 1100 overshield). Whenever shields break and you are not near a shield satellite, tap 1 and quickly pick up a satellite to reset your shield gate.
3. Hold 1 to cast Shrapnel Vortex near chokepoints (e.g hallways/doors) for crowd control, more damage and armor strip from 4
4. Tap 2 to cast [Blaze] Artillery, pointing in the general direction of enemies. Three can be active at any one time and they have very short duration so will need to be recast often. Having grouping can cause the damage of Blaze Artillery to ramp up significantly quicker.
5. Tap 4 to enter Temporal Anchor, gaining i-frames, allowing armor strip with 1 and 2, and building up a damage counter:

• To STRIP with 4: Simply enter 4, and lay down some Shrapnel Vortex and [Blaze] Artilleries which will passively strip as they deal damage while 4 is active. You can just let the full timer of Temporal Anchor expire if you don't want to active nuke or group with it.
• To GROUP with 4: Tap 2 just before entering 4, which will allow [Blaze] artillery to build up some damage without you shooting, then immediately press 4 again to create an implosion. Note enemies will not be grouped if no damage has been dealt to enemies during temporal anchor.
• To NUKE with 4: Ideally while near max energy and shields, Tap 4 to enter Temporal Anchor mode, press 3 to create a 'free' dispensary, cast a few 'free' artillery turrets to deal damage and shoot enemies to build up damage counter, then press 4 again when near a group of enemies to nuke them. You will then rewind back to the initial state with full energy and shields, essentially refunding the cost of any abilities cast during temporal anchor.

6. If you feel nauseated by a long rewinding, simply skip this by entering operator just as the rewind starts and chill in void mode or shoot your amp etc. You could also HOLD 4 to cancel the anchor entirely, meaning you don't benefit from any of the built up damage and don't group with the implosion, but you get to keep any energy you gained during the anchor and skip the rewind completely. Note, if you don't move at all while temporal anchor is active, once it ends the rewind will effectively be instantaneous since the rewind duration is based on the distance travelled rather than the time elapsed.

Ability rotation to make use of passive. We want the +100% passive to apply to the cast of 4 so it strips 20% armor per hit (allowing full strip in about 4-5 shots of blaze artillery or roughly 2s with two turrets active).
Short Anchor Grouping combo:

• Tap 4 on 100% strength bonus passive, 2, 2, 2, tap 4 to end and group, tap 4 to start again

Long Anchor Passive Strip combo:

• Tap 4 on 100% strength bonus passive, 2, 2, 2 (or any other abilities as needed), wait for 4 to end itself, immediately press 5 to enter operator void mode and wait a short period until rewinding stops, enter 4 again (should still be on 100% str bonus), 2, 2, 2 repeat

BUILD SPECIFICS

Duration
Duration is important for the length of [Blaze] Artillery. The longer [Blaze] Artillery lasts for, the more its damage ramps up by the end of the duration. Duration is also helpful for shield satellite uptime and total dispensary drops. Primed Continuity with Constitution and 2-3 Crimson duration shards can get the duration to > 200%.

Efficiency
[Protea] is a very cast heavy frame that requires 4 ability casts to make use of her amazing bonus 100% str passive. You will be casting multiple blazing artillery turrets that last a short period of time. Usually 45% efficiency is fine with dispensary, however, Temporal Anchor has a very expensive cost and if you want to use this for frequent grouping or nuking you might want to keep either neutral or even positive efficiency, or make sure to run Arcane Steadfast + [Mystic Bond]. If you subsume OVER Temporal Anchor with an alternative grouping ability then you should be very comfortable running [Blind Rage] and dropping efficiency to 45%.

Range
High range is great for the radius of Grenade Fan Shrapnel Vortex (which affects passive armor strip ultimately), implosion radius and nuke radius of Temporal Anchor and range of [Blaze] Artillery (which is very high at base).

Strength
Strength is used for shield gain, [Blaze] Artillery damage, extra drop chance from Dispensary and damage conversion + armor strip of Temporal Anchor. We don't need ridiculous amounts of strength as all her abilities still work well without strength, and [Protea] even has a passive that provides 100% extra strength to every 4th cast. [Growing Power] + Molt Augmented + passive brings her effective maximum strength to 225%. There are multiple other sources of free strength externally too, such as Madurai/Zenurik, [Grimoire] mods, [Nidus] Specter, Pax Bolt.

Flexible Slots
[Blind Rage]: flexible for more duration e.g. [Constitution], [Nira's Hatred]

Why Rank 0 [Archon Vitality]?
This is personal preference, but if you are shield gating you don't really need health and only need [Archon Vitality] for the extra heat proc effect for [Blaze] Artillery. Note, this is only effectively approximately 30% overall DPS boost to [Blaze] Artillery as the majority of damage is still dealt by the raw hits (unless you use Heat Inherit). If you feel you don't need this, you can swap this out for more strength (e.g. [Umbral Intensify]) or more duration

AVOID Augur mods
Using Augur mods on your setup could potentially overwrite the long shield gate provided by Shield Satellite (currently 5s), since casting 2, 3, 4 during the 5s gate regenerates a tiny amount of shield and subsequently taking damage during that time now gives you a very small gate instead.

Aura

• Growing Power gives additional strength
• [Corrosive Projection] reduces armor by 18% and reduces the strength requirement for armor strip abilities to full strip, including Temporal Erosion.
• [Enemy Radar] lets you track enemies beyond what [Primed Animal Instinct] offers, and is good backup in case your companion is dead

Exilus
Completely flexible and up to you.
Primed sure footed to prevent knockdowns. Handspring could be alternative.

Arcanes
Molt Efficiency - free duration
Arcane Steadfast - helps with energy economy on cast heavy playstyles
Molt Augmented - free strength

Archon Shards
1 or 2 Tauforged Amber Cast speed - important for speeding temporal anchor activation animation and shield satellite recast.
3 or 4 Tauforged Crimson Duration shards - scales the [Blaze] Artillery duration

HELMINTH

Dispensary and Temporal Anchor are both potential subsume slots. If you run external energy eg (Arcane Steadfast + [Equilibrium] + [Synth Deconstruct] or [Grimoire]) with about 100% efficiency, you should be able to sustain energy without Dispensary. Alternatively if you don't enjoy using Temporal Anchor at all then you can just subsume over 4.

Buff

• Roar: boosts blaze artillery damage and double dips resulting heat status damage.
• Nourish: boosts energy gained, meaning you can replace 3, and adds free viral to weapons, which is a nice option if you plan on using weapons alot

Grouping
Greatly increases the damage ramp up of [Blaze] Artillery since each shot can hit multiple enemies at once, while also providing a form of crowd control. While Temporal Anchor does provide innate grouping that is of higher range than all the subsumable options, the casting process can be quite awkward to use.

• Larva: Larva is the most ideal grouping because it groups fast and tight allowing for more punchthrough hits per shot of artillery.
• Coil Horizon: Spammable and higher range but requires two button presses
• Airburst: Spammable but lower range than Coil Horizon
• Ensnare: Recastable on different enemies but provides slowest and sparsest grouping
• Pull: Spammable but only groups in frontal cone

Armor strip
Greatly improves the scaling of Blaze Artillery, meaning you can run long endurance and even levelcap using Blaze Artillery if you full-strip armor, assuming you don't run an alternative tool for armor strip such as [Latron] incarnon or Unairu. [Temporal Erosion] now gives Temporal Anchor inbuilt armor strip. If you don't enjoy using Temporal Anchor, then you can subsume a helminth option instead over it:

• Terrify - needs 167 str (or 137 with corrosive projection) for full strip in one cast, doesnt strip acolytes/demolysts
• Pillage - needs 400 str (or 328 with corrosive projection), works well since Protea has a bonus 100% strength to help you hit the threshold easier.
• Tharros Strike - needs 200 str (or 164 with corrosive projection), but has very short range so is not ideal since Blaze Artillery has insane range
• Tempest Barrage - creates a persistent zone that procs corrosive status which strips armor, and viral tempest augment also helps prime viral status simultaneously. This could be a nice option for a stationary/camping map.

Crowd Control
Improves Protea's survivability by preventing enemies from shooting you

• Gloom - slows enemies up to 95%, affects acolytes and demolysts but not overguard
• Breach Surge - stuns enemies then causes damaging sparks, doesn't affect acolytes or overguard
• Resonator - turns off aggressive AI but doesn't affect overguard or acolytes

FOCUS SCHOOL

Vazarin - gives protective sling for 5s i-frames (without cooldown) and void snare gives free low range grouping without a subsume.
Madurai - gives 50% bonus cast speed and 40% bonus power strength

ARSENAL

Heat Inherit Primer
Heat Inherit refers to using a primer to create an initial heat proc, which then allows subsequent heat procs to benefit from heat mods and faction mods on the primer.
An AOE Heat Inherit primer can increase [Blaze] Artillery DPS but only if you manage to shoot them with your primer first before a turret hits them with a heat proc.
Prob Cernos can both group and prime: https://overframe.gg/build/489561/
Epitaph: https://overframe.gg/build/376162/epitaph/heat-inherit-primer-epitaph/
Bubonico: https://overframe.gg/build/345432/bubonico/heat-inherit-primer-shotgun/

DPS Weapons
Latron Incarnon can also AOE prime viral and full strip, best used with grouping: https://overframe.gg/build/463858/latron-prime/latron-incarnon-viral-heat-armor-strip-primer/
Kuva Tonkor - Protea deluxe skin is one of the nicest skins in the game and comes with an amazing matching Tonkor skin: https://overframe.gg/build/451007/

Companions
Nautilus - passive grouping which is excellent for Blaze Artillery: https://overframe.gg/build/540870/
Diriga - passive viral priming for increasing damage and proccing synth deconstruct to make more health orbs for Equilibrium: https://overframe.gg/build/541464/