How to find the Tranquility Bulb in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

Tranquility Bulbs are the key to finding the invaluable Shaded Waterweed Bast in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, but locating Tranquility Bulbs themselves can prove troublesome.

If you are interested in crafting the best gear possible in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, finding Tranquility Bulbs is an absolute necessity—we’ll cover why later on in the article. For now, read on to learn how to find Tranquility Bulbs and get Exquisite Shaded Waterweed Bast.

Tranquility Bulb location in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

Tranquility Bulbs are only located within the Upper Plains, the wind-swept second region chronologically and the home to the Zeswa Clan. The Hunter’s Guide page will tell you that Tranquility Bulbs are most commonly found within the Pillar Canyon Biome, which is basically just the Weeping Gorge in the northeast section of the Upper Plains. While it is technically true that Tranquility Bulbs are most common in this Biome, the Pillar Canyon Biome will not lead you to finding Exquisite Shaded Waterweed Bast, and that material is almost certainly the reason you’re looking for Tranquility Bulbs in the first place. This rare Shaded Waterweed Bast in only found within Tranquility Bulbs that are underneath floating mountains—and there are no floating mountains in the Pillar Canyon Biome.

To find rare Shaded Waterweed Bast, you first need to find floating mountains within the Upper Plains. Conveniently, there is actually only one area in this region that has them—the Weeping Steps within Step’s Cradle, which is directly west of The Celebration Valley. If you enable Show Biomes on your map, you will see that this area is actually Windswept Grasslands and not Pillar Canyon, but that doesn’t matter. It may be true that Tranquility Bulbs are most common in the Pillar Canyon Biome, but that doesn’t mean that’s the only place they are found. The Hunter’s Guide won’t tell you it, but if you want rare Tranquility Bulbs, you must go to the Weeping Steps.

How to harvest Exquisite Shaded Waterweed Bast from Tranquility Bulbs in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

The most important thing for harvesting Exquisite Shaded Waterweed Bast from Tranquility Bulbs is being in the right area. You need to search in the Weeping Steps, not the Pillar Canyone Biome! Once you are within the Weeping Steps, you want to stay on ground level and search directly beneath floating mountains, as this is where the Exquisite Shaded Waterweeds will spawn. Due to the hollow cylindrical shape of Tranquility Bulbs, you do need to be inside of one before you can check the quality of the Shaded Waterweed within, which means you need to do a little bit more guesswork than you normally do when it comes to material harvesting in this game.

To get inside of a Tranquility Bulb, you need to find the portion of its rim that has some purple shrubbery descending towards the ground. Get a sprinting start, and make sure you hold down the jump input for maximum height. The timing can be tricky, but this is the best way to get inside of Tranquility Bulbs and reach Shaded Waterweed. Alternatively, you can dismount from your Ikran above a Tranquility Bulb to drop directly into it, but I’ve found that this method is less reliable. You should only need a couple of tries to get the timing down on jumping into Tranquility Bulbs from ground level.

Tips for harvesting Shaded Waterweed

Exquisite Shaded Waterweed Bast is one of the materials needed to complete the Apex Skill quest from the Maker tree, which will make all your crafted weapons and gear more powerful. If you ask me, this is the single best Apex Skill in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. While the Waterweed for the quest only needs to be Exquisite and doesn’t technically require you to meet both harvesting bonuses, the one you gather will ultimately be used to craft a Longbow, so you do want to make sure you meet those bonuses.

• To get the Pristine bonus, pull the Shaded Waterweed towards the right of the harvesting circle.
• To get the Conditional bonus, harvest Shaded Waterweed in Dry conditions (the water inside of the Tranquility Bulb doesn’t count against this bonus).

If you’ve scoured the ground underneath all of the floating mountains in the Weeping Steps and still can’t find an Exquisite Shaded Waterweed, you probably need to lower global pollution levels more by taking out RDA facilities. Improving Air Quality on Pandora increases the likelihood of Exquisite materials spawning in place of Superior ones.