The Deadlock Protocol seems WAY too difficult (resolved)

[Deepbluediver]

I've been stuck on the final part of The Deadlock Protocol for a while now and it's getting really frustrating; especially every time one of those Treasurer-enemies pops up in a mission and I know I won't get anything for killing them (thanks Wiki!).

I think I unlocked this quest somewhere around Mars, and based on the level and group-size the game thinks you should be able to handle it at about the same time you get to the Jupiter/Europa/Saturn missions, but I've tried the final boss-fight at least 2 dozen times and I've yet to get her to less than 50% health.

Yes I know to use the Xoris, but Protea seems to deal ABSURD amounts of damage, reducing my shield to 0 in 1 hit and then tearing through my health. And it's in a huge, empty arena with no health/energy/ammo pickups, so all I can do is run away and let her heal. It's seems to have this HUGE difficulty spike beyond anything else I've encountered. At least with the assassination missions I can find other people and follow them along.
If anyone has any specific advice, I'd be glad to hear it.


Edit: Cheesy strategy for victory- use your operator (assuming you've finished The War Within quest). The energy-beam-blast or whatever it's called burns through a full bar of health in barely a second, then hop back into your 'frame to throw the Xoris.

[Koopa]

Im struggling with the final part as well, protea does so much damage and its nigh impossible to actually kill her with the fidget spinner

[2GenL]

I found that part the hardest out of most of the quests (took the most repeated attempts anyway).
Make sure Xoris is ranked up and modded before doing the last part, and only attack protea when it's fully charged to make sure you can stop her from using the time reversal trick

[TheSuit]

If you are struggling best option is to use a different frame like Rhino, or a healing frame like Oberon.

Don't forget your meele can block ranged shots if you keep it out infront of you.
It does require some level of knowing what to do but it isn't too hard.

[Deepbluediver]

Originally posted by The | Suit:

It does require some level of knowing what to do but it isn't too hard.

Maybe not for you, but the issue is that it's much harder than everything else around it. If you're used to a game where obstacle is only 6 inches tall, a 5-ft high jump out of nowhere is going to seem that much more difficult. Or maybe like sticking random rail-shooter segments into the middle of an RPG; its breaks the flow in ways that are very annoying.
And as I said, I've tried it 25+ times and still can't get past.

[Zeddy]

She can be tough, but it'll depend a lot on what you bring. For instance, if you have Vauban you can throw flechette orbs and it'll win the fight for you*

*also applicable to the rest of the game

I recommend you leave the quest for later, anyway. You already have the only reward that's of immediate use to you, which is Xoris. You won't be able to farm Protea herself until you're strong enough that this fight and treasurers seem easy.

[Sceles]

The problem is that the game does not properly say which content is suitable for your power progression. Everything is available way too early into the game these days, it's both confusing and frustrating newer players. I'm not sure if DE understands that accessibility isn't always a good thing.

[Katzh]

My Titania did the job if I remember well.

[Astori Heichalot]

Originally posted by Deepbluediver:

, but Protea seems to deal ABSURD amounts of damage,

you can use some frames skills to "minimize" the damage,
like vauban,s tether coil, gara's spectrorage, saryn's molt etc (you can stun her)
just use anything to avoid or distract the damage.

when you are damaging her, just do things normally. and once she reached low health, she casts her 4th skill (which try to rewind time),
while she's on that phase, just throw xoris and explode on her.

if you done it correctly, next phase would start her with 3 health bar instead of 4.
so you need to do it 4 times (4 health bars).

you must fully charged the xoris for each explosion (kill things until you can see 3 orange dots on the crosshair)

hope this helps

[TheSuit]

Originally posted by Deepbluediver:

Originally posted by The | Suit:

It does require some level of knowing what to do but it isn't too hard.

And as I said, I've tried it 25+ times and still can't get past.

But have you tried it with other frames?
Most people keep doing the same thing over with the same frame hoping it will eventually work.

Sometimes you need to think of new strategies even sometimes New Mods.
For example if you are having an issue with survivability - changing your mods so you have more armor + shields + redirection will go a long way.

[Mama Foot]

I attempted this quest mission three times, nailed it on the third go. First tried with Ember Prime, as she is my go-to frame. Did not work. She was being hit too hard for it. Second shot was with Octavia as I also use her more often than not. She didn't quite do what I needed for the mission but was very close. I quit and changed frames.

Third and final shot was with Mesa Prime. and I nailed it in under 15 minutes. Which is a feat for my own gameplay, very rusty. She hit how I needed her to, she moved how I needed her to and I got my bonuses with my weapons as well.

It's all up to giving a few frames a go, and analysing what you need to get what you want done. That's how I see it anyway.

Best of luck! ♥

[Neo]

You aren't supposed to use the Xoris on her. You deplete a third of her health, and then, while fully charged (orange particles on the side) use your charged throw + secondary fire to interrupt her healing back. Do this 3 times, and you win.

[Deepbluediver]

Originally posted by Astori Heichalot:

when you are damaging her, just do things normally

The problem is, when I "just do things normally" I keep getting murdered. I'm not the best shot, I admit it- luckily Warframe lets me run up and beat on stuff ... most of the time.
When I try to melee Protea though, she uses those ginsu-fans of hers and burn through my entire shield-and-health-pool in what feels like 3 quick hits.

Originally posted by The | Suit:

But have you tried it with other frames?

Yes- I don't recall what Frame I was using for my first couple of attempts, but then I swapped to Nidus since I could back off and let all my health regenerate. But then I read up that Protea's melee weapons are especially good against health-based builds so I've done my last few tries with something else. A bunch of people recommended Rhino, which I like, but it's slow and clunky and I was actually having trouble chasing down the treasurer-enemy on the pre-void stage of the fight. Mainly in that he runs around in a room full of continuously-respawning minions that are wailing on you while you are trying to kill him, and if he gets near any of those shield-ospreys they completely restore his defenses.
Now I've switched to Excalibur and I'm doing a little better, but still can't seem to get her to less than 50% HP before I run out of continues.

sometimes you need to think of new strategies even sometimes New Mods.
For example if you are having an issue with survivability - changing your mods so you have more armor + shields + redirection will go a long way.

Yeah I've been trying that- part of the reason I switched away from Nidus is that I have all these shield-buff mods that I was't getting to use.

By the way, I put Magnetic damage on the Xoris to help with the shields, but are there any other damage-types or mod-combinations that would help?

Originally posted by 『SE』 Fate:

Best of luck! ♥

Thanks- I'm taking a little break for now while I work on event-related stuff, but if I manage to beat her I'll try to remember to post back here.

Originally posted by c.ella:

You aren't supposed to use the Xoris on her. You deplete a third of her health, and then, while fully charged (orange particles on the side) use your charged throw + secondary fire to interrupt her healing back. Do this 3 times, and you win.

Deplete her health HOW, exactly? She's in a big, empty arena with no pickups, and a couple of times I've run out of ammo for my primary weapon (I usually die before I manage to completely exhaust my secondary, too). Protea seems to have no problem with throwing an infinite stream of bullets at my face, though.

[fatalaiim]

Originally posted by Zeddy:

She can be tough, but it'll depend a lot on what you bring. For instance, if you have Vauban you can throw flechette orbs and it'll win the fight for you*

*also applicable to the rest of the game

I recommend you leave the quest for later, anyway. You already have the only reward that's of immediate use to you, which is Xoris. You won't be able to farm Protea herself until you're strong enough that this fight and treasurers seem easy.

Treasurers are stupid ez to kill and imo the boss fight is easy with a good build. Just leave the quest for later. I did it when I hit mr14

[Mhblis]

With a proper heavy xoris build this is really easy.

Just charge up real fast then bomb Protea rinse repeat.

If you get real stuck use high damage one shot weapons like a shotgun. That way you can play more defensively with hit and run tactics.

[Deepbluediver]

OK, took a break for a week to farm Phasic cells from the Orphic event, but then I came back to this quest and FINALLY beat it. Not fairly, but using a cheap, cheesy strategy I found buried in another post on a different forum (and after trying it a few more times with Rhino which didn't seem to help at all).

Spoilered because of story implications:
If you use your operator (after completing the War Within quest), the void-beam can burn through a full bar of Protea's health in about a second. Then you transference back into your 'frame and just stay out of melee range until she does her little time-stop thing. Rinse and repeat.

50+ tries and I never got her to less than 50% health. Second attempt with the above strategy and I succeeded. But of course you can't use this strategy when the quest first becomes available.
I read that this quest was added in at some point after the game started, so maybe the developers didn't want to make it to easy for long-time players, but then WHY IN HEAVEN'S NAME does it unlock when you're barely four planets through your tour of the solar-system? I saw comment after comment after comment that this quest was the most miserable part of people's experience, and even a few people who said this was the quest that made them quit the game. This cannot be mistaken for a well-designed challenge.