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Under the Weather

Complete a Froststone Vault Primal Storm of every element.

  • Air
  • Earth
  • Fire
  • Water

Complete a Froststone Vault Primal Storm of each of the four elements.

What the achievement asks

Complete a Froststone Vault Primal Storm of each of the four elements. Fifteen points, account-wide.

This is the piece of the Forbidden Reach branch that runs on a clock rather than on effort. Only about a third of players have it, and almost every one of them spent a day waiting rather than a day working.

Where it happens

The storm spawns outside the Froststone Vault, on the surface, at roughly 60.2 38.6. When one is active it appears as an icon on your zone map as soon as you are anywhere near, so you do not have to fly to the spot to check: opening the map from anywhere on the island is enough.

What actually happens when it starts

A boss elemental spawns with a shield that makes it immune. Around it stand four or five smaller elementals of the same element.

Kill the small ones first. The shield drops when they are dead, and only then can you touch the boss. Credit comes from the boss going down, so leaving after clearing the adds gives you nothing.

The whole thing is over in two or three minutes, sometimes in under one when a crowd is present. Being five minutes late means missing it entirely and waiting for the next window. Be standing there before the hour, not walking there on it.

The four

ElementWhat you are waiting for
AirAn air storm, chosen at random by the game
EarthAn earth storm, chosen at random by the game
FireA fire storm, chosen at random by the game
WaterA water storm, chosen at random by the game

The element is picked at random each time. There is no rotation to learn and no way to tell which one is coming until it has spawned, so a run of three earth storms before your first water is normal and does not mean anything is broken. One player reports five air storms in a row while hunting a single earth.

The hour it spawns depends on your region

Storms appear on the hour, roughly every two hours, and which hours depends on where you play.

RegionReported pattern
EuropeEven hours: 8, 10, 12, 14 and so on, server time
AmericasOdd hours: 9, 11, 13, 15 and so on, server time

Treat that as a strong hint rather than a law. The pattern has shifted more than once across patches, sometimes flipping around the weekly quest reset, and a handful of players have seen a storm appear off-schedule when their town endeavour sent extra people into the zone. If nothing turns up at the hour you expect, check the opposite parity before concluding the event is broken for you.

How to make the wait cost you nothing

The waiting is the real cost here, so spend it on the same island rather than parked at the coordinate. The rares of Champion of the Forbidden Reach, the treasures of Forbidden Spoils and the Zskera Vault runs behind Door Buster all sit within a minute's flight of the vault, and every one of them is needed for the same branch.

Keep your map open between tasks. The storm icon appears the moment it spawns, and from anywhere on the Forbidden Reach you can reach 60.2 38.6 well inside the event's short life.

Four elements at one storm every two hours is, in the best case, an eight-hour day. Most people get it across two or three sessions. Start it early in your Forbidden Reach work rather than saving it for last, because it is the one part of the branch you cannot hurry.

Where it fits

One of eleven under You Know How to Reach Me, which grants the title The Forbidden and is a piece of A World Awoken.