How much Anima can you earn in a week? We did the math

The Covenant Sanctum asks each character that darkens its doorstep to earn 1,000 Anima every week — but that’s just the minimum players should be pulling. There are many items, upgrades, and adventures that require Anima, and that minimum is not going to cut it if you really want all those Covenant perks. So, just how much Anima can you acquire each week?

That answer is impossible to put a hard number on for a number of reasons. The rewards from World Quests fluctuate. Different characters will be at different levels of Redeemed Souls. Rares and treasures will vary. Instead, we’re going to look at estimates, then we’ll  take a look at how much Anima is needed for everything, and approximately how long it will take to earn enough.

Ultimately, it will probably feel like the Anima drought in the Shadowlands is truly felt.

Guaranteed Anima sources

Back in February, there was an increase in the amount of Anima that came from raiding and Mythic+ dungeons. In Castle Nathria, a full clear of Normal+, will reward 1,190 Anima. Running a random dungeon or a Mythic up to +6 rewards 35 Anima, +7 to +9 rewards 70 Anima, and running +10 or higher rewards 105 Anima. Assuming you ran 11 Mythic+ dungeons to have the most loot in your Great Vault, but not at the higher end, you would earn 385 Anima.  There are two weekly quests in Oribos to run dungeons. They each reward 500 reputation with the Covenant of your choice, and 175 Anima. That is 350 Anima a week.

Rares and treasures always reward Anima. How much they award varies, and you cannot always find them. Sometimes they will drop 10 Anima, sometimes they’ll drop 70. For the sake of averaging out, let’s say that daily you do a treasure and a rare from the Anima Conductor — also working on collecting the weird Grateful Offerings currency — and average 105 Anima per day from this.

There is a World Quest that occasionally pops up in Maldraxxus called Amateur Night. Like the world boss, or other elite quests, it often rewards 250 Anima — or it can reward reputation, gold, gear, or a conduit. However, there is a daily quest that pairs with it that can be unlocked, called Bet On Yourself. This quest can be done daily, whether or not the World Quest is available. That daily will award 105 Anima, for a guaranteed 735 per week.

You can also earn Anima from PVP. And when you’re not busy raiding, Mythic+ running, and doing all the World Quests, you’re also PVPing, right? PVPing at least once a day to get your first win from a regular Battleground rewards 105 Anima. Do that every day, that’s 735 per week, just from PVP.

Variable — but lucrative — Anima sources

The weekly world boss that rewards ilevel 207 gear usually rewards 250 Anima — sometimes it’s reputation, or gold, or other stuff you don’t care about. But three out of four times it appears to be Anima.

World Quests offer Anima regularly. Every day there will be several up that reward Anima, and all between the amounts of 35 and 140. You will have Callings that send you to a zone to do 3 or 4 World Quests. Sometimes, not usually, you can do all of them with Anima reward daily quests. Then the question becomes — Are you going to head off to other zones and farm Anima World Quests there, too? Let’s say that 210 is about how much you average out of a zone when doing World Quests. You could triple or quadruple that number in a day if you attempt to do, to quote Gul’dan, “everything!”

There are elite quests to consider as well. These are usually up for three days, and a Calling will usually send you out there. These are quests like Destroy the Dominant in Revendreth, or the previously noted Amateur Night. Sometimes they reward 250 Anima, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes there are several of these types of quests in a week, sometimes there are very few. These could wind up rewarding 1,000 Anima in a week, or none. For the sake of averages, let’s say 500 Anima in a week comes from these types of quests.

The weekly quest to return 20 lost souls from the Maw now rewards 500 Anima, but only if the character already has the maximum number of Redeemed Souls in the Sanctum Reservoir. If the total souls is below 100, then it still rewards 20 souls instead.

And then there’s the Command Table. There are players who will earn 750 Anima towards their 1,000 for the weekly quest just from the Adventures. These can reward anywhere from 30 to 70 Anima for each Adventure. While the total amount earned counts towards the weekly quest, they each have a cost, between 10 and 14 Anima, depending how many Troops were used. Let’s assume 500 Anima earned, an average of 50 Anima per Adventure, but four Troops used on every Adventure. That would mean a net gain of roughly 360 Anima from the Command Table every week.

What do we need all this Anima for?

First, there are all those Covenant upgrades. All three tiers of the Command Table together costs 15,500 Anima, and the Transport Network and the Anima Conductor each cost 16,000 Anima. The Covenant-specific feature — such as the Ember Court or Stitchyard — costs a whopping 43,000 Anima. That is a lot of Anima right there. But that’s not the end of the precious Anima demanded by your Covenant.

There’s a Renown Quartermaster who sells cosmetic armor, mounts, a legendary memory for the Runesmith, a new hearthstone, and a Covenant-only pet. Buying all of these items costs a total of 58,000 Anima. Also, a lot of Grateful Offerings. And we’re not done yet!

Each Covenant has a vendor specific to them that sells items for Anima. In the Ember Court, Temel only sells a cosmetic back and one mount, totaling 6,750 Anima. Venthyr get off easy. The Stitchyard has eight pets for 1,000 Anima each and four mounts at 5,000 Anima each for enterprising young Necrolords. However, five of those pets show up on a Kyrian vendor for Pet Charms instead, and the same four mounts can be earned in Ardenweald’s Queen’s Conservatory, through RNG rather than Anima, so there are work arounds to this particular Anima cost. Not too bad yet.

The four mounts that can be found in the Queen’s Conservatory or Stitchyard can be purchased in Kyrian Path of Ascension for 2,500 each, but they also have an extra mount not found anywhere else. Path of Ascension has a lot of weapon transmog, the total cost of which is 14,750 Anima.

Here is where it really gets crazy. The mushroom network in Ardenweald, Marasmius, also sells items. There are two soulshapes for 1,500 Anima each, two back transmogs for 3,500 Anima each, two mounts for 5,000 Anima each, and a pack of weapon transmogs for 30,000 Anima. I’m not entirely sure who that is for — who has that kind of Anima to spend on a single purchase, and who would notice how flashy it is?

Total Anima per week versus how much anima is needed

To completely upgrade all the features of a Covenant costs 90,500 Anima. To buy all the cosmetics from the Renown Quartermaster costs 58,000 Anima. The additional cosmetics vary — sure, those four mounts are free in Ardenweald, but that Covenant has extra costs. Half as much for the mounts in Kyrian compared to Necrolords, but extra armor to purchase, and I couldn’t find them in Venthyr, unless they can be rewarded from the Ember Court. Let’s take Kyrian’s 27,250 Anima, as a lot came from there, and was the lower of the costs of the Covenants. That would mean the total Anima needed is 175,750.

From the static and estimated variable sources above, I came up with the following amounts of weekly Anima:

• 1,190 from Castle Nathria
• 385 from Mythic+ dungeons
• 350 from dungeon quests
• 735 from rares and treasure
• 735 from the Bet on Yourself quest
• 735 from PVP
• 250 from the weekly World Boss
• 1,470 from World Quests — could have more if do all zones
• 500 from Elite Quests
• 500 from the Returning Lost Souls quest (assuming you’re capped on Souls)
• 360 from the Command Table

That means there is a weekly potential of — 7,210 Anima.

Subtract out anything you don’t do — like PVP — to get your rough personal total.

If the total Anima needed to get everything is 175,750, divided by the weekly 7,210, it would take just over 24 weeks to reach that goal. There are some one-time only Anima rewards not listed, and probably sources I missed, but at the same time, are you really doing everything every week? On the other side of the effort scale, if you’re only earning enough Anima to complete the 1,000 Anima per week quest, it would take 176 weeks to purchase everything.

You may want to adjust your personal weekly goals accordingly.