All of the ways to earn Anima in Shadowlands

There are multiple reasons why we need to earn Anima in Shadowlands, and it seems like the hunt for it is here to stay. Most of the systems that are related to solo play in the expansion are unlocked by Anima. And even many of the rewards we unlock from increasing our reputation with the various Shadowlands factions, or from earning Renown levels, require varying amounts of Anima to be purchased.

Our Covenant Sanctum has a number of features that are unlocked by Anima, such as the Travel Network, the Anima Conductor, the Adventure Table, and a Covenant-specific special feature: The Path of Ascension for the Kyrian, Abomination Stitching for the Necrolords, the Queen’s Conservatory for the Night Fae, and my personal favorite, the Ember Court for the Venthyr. Taking part in many of those features will require the currency as well: You need to pay Anima in order to reinforce locations in your Conductor, or to send your followers on Adventures, for instance.

And the rewards that can be purchased with Anima include not only mounts, pets, and weapon effects that can be used for transmog, but also valuable gear upgrades for your Covenant armor set — invaluable for leveling players, for alts, and for more casual players who don’t usually journey into group content.

In short, content enough to last for the whole expansion has been front-loaded into the game, possibly because Anima serves as a natural barrier that prevents us from unlocking all of those systems, and acquiring all of those rewards, at once.

What are your sources of Anima?

The new zone introduced in patch 9.1, Korthia, has quickly surpassed every other source of Anima in the game, by a long shot.

• The weekly quest, Shaping Fate, should always be done. It’s a very lucrative quest, netting you two epic-quality Anima tokens in total, in addition to several other rewards (gold, reputation, Stygian Ember, Korthite Crystal, Cataloged Research, etc.).
• A weekly quest in the Maw, called Containing the Helsworn, will become available after you reach Renown 47 and complete the An Army of Bone and Steel story questline. This weekly can net you two epic-quality Anima tokens as well, but that doesn’t seem to be a guaranteed reward.
• Dailies in Korthia have varied rewards. Some of them may offer you no Anima at all, while others may offer you as many as 7 small Anima tokens! So you’ll need to check each daily quest individually, but they can be a very good Anima source.
  • The same is true of the Assault dailies. Some can reward Anima, others won’t. Assaults are on a 3.5 day reset schedule, and there will always be one up at a time.
• Rares and Treasures in the zone are something you’ll likely run across naturally as you do the weekly and dailies, and they can all net you some more Anima.
  • You can also purchase the Vault Anima Tracker item from Duchess Mynx in Korthia. This item allows you to see and loot these hidden caches, which can also be an extra type of Anima-rewarding treasure.

These epic-quality Anima tokens can get even better: you will get increased Anima rewards from Elite World Quests upon reaching Renown level 47.

The Anima you can earn in Korthia is so substantial that it has outshined every other source. But that doesn’t mean that those sources should be ignored! After all, little strokes fell great oaks. So here are the previous sources of Anima, listed in order of relative importance:

• World Quests are the most cost-effective way of earning Anima aside from Korthia. Players who are truly dedicated to gathering it are usually clearing their maps of every Anima-rewarding World Quest they can, every day.
  • Of special note are certain quests that reward Epic quality Anima tokens, which are worth 250 Anima each. These are usually rewards from group quests which require you to tackle a multitude of elite enemies, or a few bosses.
  • Once a week, the World Quest to kill that week’s World Boss will also reward one of these Epic tokens.
• PVP. The first daily PVP win of each category will net you some Anima tokens.
• Rare mobs and treasure chests. These are often pinpointed in your map, and you will probably find them while exploring. These sources offer small bits of Anima, but they respawn frequently, and you can surely find a few every day.
• The weekly Dungeon quests from Oribos. Check out the Brokers on the bottom floor of the inn; they offer you quests that ask you to clear two dungeons every week, rewarding you with a reasonable amount of Anima (and a reputation token for one of the four main Shadowlands factions, to boot).
• Killing Mythic+ and Raid bosses. This has been buffed as a source of Anima, so that killing them also counts a little towards your Anima-hunting goals. It’s not a lot, but getting 175 Anima for killing Sire Denathrius in LFR can be worth the weekly time-investment for many players.
• Adventure Table rewards — though be careful with this. All the missions cost Anima, and if you play with the table too much, you will end up at an Anima deficit. In order for the Adventure Table to be used as an effective way to earn Anima, you may need to ignore missions that don’t reward Anima and invest fully into those that do.

Keep in mind that you will get more Anima Tokens once you upgrade your Covenant features (the Adventure Table, transport network, Anima conductor, and your Convenant-specific feature). When all of those features reach the same tier (1, 2, or 3), you earn an achievement that increases the amount of items you get from all your Anima rewards below the Epic level (the item that nets you 250 Anima). With that in mind, make sure that you upgrade your Covenant features evenly, if possible, in order to take advantage of this bonus.

So there you have it. Use this knowledge to plan out which activities are the most effective to you — perhaps mixing some World Quests with queuing some LFR, grabbing treasure chests on the way, and making sure to kill the World Boss as well? Queuing for the Oribos dungeons, or running those in Mythic+? Whatever is your preferred type of content, there are multiple avenues to earn your precious resource, so choose whichever suits your fancy.

Originally posted 11/16/2020. Updated 7/19/2021.