Optimizing Secondary Fortifier with Heat Inherit on Protea and Ember

 

Understanding the Key Components

Secondary Fortifier Mechanics

Secondary Fortifier is a powerful arcane that enhances your secondary weapon's effectiveness against Overguard, a special health buffer that grants enemies immunity to most crowd control effects. At max rank (5), it provides an 8x damage multiplier against Overguard and steals 1 point of Overguard per 100 damage dealt 4. This arcane is particularly valuable in high-level content where enemies have substantial Overguard protection.

Heat Inherit Mechanics

Heat Inherit refers to a status effect interaction where subsequent heat procs "inherit" the heat damage and faction damage modifiers from the initial heat application. This means if you use a weapon with max heat damage mods to apply the first heat proc, all subsequent heat procs (even from other sources) will benefit from those initial modifiers while using their own base damage and critical multipliers 5.

Synergy with Protea

Blaze Artillery Enhancement

Protea's Blaze Artillery ability can significantly benefit from Heat Inherit when combined with Secondary Fortifier:

1. Priming Sequence: Use a heat-modded secondary weapon (like the Epitaph) with Secondary Fortifier to apply initial heat procs to enemies. This sets up the Heat Inherit chain 5.

2. Artillery Damage Boost: When Blaze Artillery then applies heat procs, they'll inherit the enhanced heat damage modifiers from your primer weapon, dramatically increasing their damage output 5.

3. Overguard Penetration: Secondary Fortifier ensures your primer weapon can effectively strip enemy Overguard, removing their crowd control immunity so Blaze Artillery can properly target them.

Recommended Build Components:

• Secondary Weapon: Epitaph with high heat damage (e.g., Scorch, Thermite Rounds) and faction damage mods 8

• Protea Modding: Focus on ability strength and duration to maximize Blaze Artillery's damage and uptime

• Arcane: Secondary Fortifier on your primer weapon 4

Synergy with Ember

Ability Interactions

Ember's entire kit revolves around heat damage, making her exceptionally powerful with Heat Inherit strategies:

1. Fireball/Fire Blast/Inferno: All these abilities can benefit from Heat Inherit when you've first primed enemies with a heat-modded secondary 5.

2. Overguard Management: Secondary Fortifier helps Ember deal with Overguarded enemies that would otherwise resist her crowd control effects.

3. Damage Scaling: The combination allows Ember's abilities to scale much better into high-level content where heat damage alone might struggle.

Recommended Tactics:

1. Priming Phase: Use your Secondary Fortifier-equipped heat primer to apply initial heat procs and damage Overguard 48.

2. Ability Spam: Follow up with Inferno or other heat-based abilities that will now deal significantly more damage due to Heat Inherit 5.

3. Sustained Damage: Use your heat-primed secondary to maintain heat stacks and continue stripping Overguard from new enemies.

Optimal Weapon Setup

Epitaph as Heat Inherit Primer

The Epitaph (especially its Prime version) makes an excellent choice for this strategy due to:

• High critical chance (50% on Prime) for big heat procs 8

• Good status chance (14% on Prime) for reliable heat application 8

• Charged shot mechanic that delivers damage in one powerful hit

Recommended Mod Configuration:

• Essential Mods: Hornet Strike, Scorch, Thermite Rounds, Primed Heated Charge

• Faction Damage: Primed Expel mods for additional multiplicative damage

• Utility: Lethal Torrent for fire rate, Galvanized Diffusion for multishot

• Arcane: Secondary Fortifier 4

Advanced Tactics and Considerations

Overguard Cap Management

Note that Secondary Fortifier has an Overguard cap of 15,000 at all ranks 4. This means:

• You won't accumulate infinite Overguard from damaging enemies

• Existing Overguard above 15k will be overwritten 4

Heat Inherit Propagation

The interaction works beyond just weapons - abilities that deal heat damage will also benefit from the initial heat proc's modifiers 5. This includes:

• Protea's Blaze Artillery

• Ember's entire kit

• Gauss's Thermal Sunder (heat cast)

• And many others 5

Team Play Potential

This strategy works exceptionally well in squad play where:

1. One player focuses on priming enemies with heat and Secondary Fortifier

2. Other players can then use heat-based abilities that benefit from the inherited modifiers

3. The team can quickly eliminate Overguarded priority targets

Potential Limitations

1. Mirage's Hall of Mirrors: This ability prevents Secondary Fortifier from activating while active 4

2. Overguard Theft Mechanics: Some abilities like Hildryn's Aegis Storm can steal Overguard at ability end 4

3. Heat Application Priority: The first heat proc must come from your properly modded weapon for the inherit to work

By combining Secondary Fortifier with Heat Inherit strategies on Protea or Ember, you create a powerful synergy that excels at both stripping enemy Overguard and dealing massive heat-based damage, making it extremely effective in high-level Warframe content.