Warframe Deadlock Protocol: Charge the Xoris and Stop Protea’s Rewind
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Equip the Xoris built during The Deadlock Protocol. Convert Errant Specters into particles, absorb three charges with the weapon, then detonate a charged throw near Protea when she starts reversing time. Ordinary gun damage alone cannot finish a phase if the rewind restores it.
Ordinary Warframes and standard quest rewards; quest and reward spoilers below.
Prepare the weapon before returning to the Void
The quest unlocks at Mastery Rank 4 with the Saturn Junction requirement. Follow the active quest through its Corpus stages. During the Europa Spy section, recover the Handle, Core and Blade from all three vaults, then build the Xoris in the Foundry.
Claim it and put it in your melee slot. Merely building it is not enough if another melee weapon remains equipped. Check the input bindings for a thrown melee attack and Heavy Attack before the boss mission; controller and customized PC bindings can differ.
Practice the two-stage throw
- Hold and release the melee input to throw the Xoris.
- While it is airborne, use Heavy Attack to trigger the detonation.
- Use the thrown explosion against Errant Specters and collect their particle forms with the Xoris.
- Check that the three charge indicators are filled before spending the empowered explosion.
The charge count is not your melee combo counter. Waiting for a charged throw and collecting three Specter charges are also different actions. Watch the charge indicators instead of assuming that holding the attack longer fills them.
Game item artwork © Digital Extremes. Content policy.
Rescue the captives before the Specter phase
During the rescue step, take a fully charged Xoris near the marked captive and detonate the throw to free them. Follow the quest markers and recharge on Specters between rescues instead of wasting empowered explosions far from the intended target.
If the throw hits but the captive remains trapped, check both conditions: three charges were ready, and the explosion occurred close enough. A direct hit from an uncharged ordinary throw is not the same interaction.
Save the empowered explosion for the rewind
Damage Protea with your regular weapons while maintaining the charge cycle. When a health segment is depleted and she begins the time-reversal action, throw the charged Xoris and detonate it near her to interrupt the recovery. Repeat for the remaining phases.
If her health returns, do not spend the next attempt increasing only gun damage. Check the timing of the detonation, its distance from the Specter and the charge indicators. Keep moving and use Specters to rebuild charges rather than standing in front of her while waiting for the glaive to return.
What completing the quest actually unlocks
The quest awards the main Protea Blueprint and leaves you with the Xoris. Protea’s three component blueprints come from the separate Granum Void reward tiers. Keep the Xoris: it remains useful for that follow-up route, including freeing captives to extend the timer.
Sources, images and scope
References checked October 23, 2026: The Deadlock Protocol · Xoris · Official update notes. This is a source-based route, not a claimed playthrough by Craft & Quest. Resource totals shown above are arithmetic from the cited recipes. Modded worlds, platform-specific bugs and later changes may differ.
Item icons, vessel glyphs and Warframe renders identify the objects discussed; they are game artwork, not screenshots of a completed step.