What is the Point of Anima Shortage?

[Progenitor Aquarius]

Yea, there is so little anima to spend. Probably because of the Jailer and whole situation in Maw. Normal raids and LFR, they can drop some too. Clearing them every week is actually nice. At this moment I can't be bothered to do world quests that consist 35 anima.

[Lahis]

3k a week. Oh no.

You can easily get over 800 per day just by doing the usually maximum of 4 Anima wqs in each zone. If doing 12 world quests a day is too much for you then you are beyond casual.

Yes, anima gains are low. But you people complaining as though 3k per week is a lot, you clearly aren't doing anything.

Next week I'll have finished upgrading everything in my sanctum (I'm just waiting on souls) I have had days where I have completely skipped wqs, and other days I where have just ignored the smaller rewarding ones or those that are just slightly more of an annoyance to do. I have never capped on souls.

If you are Anima starved and soul capped at this stage, you have either not been playing, or have been spending anima on cosmetic items, or perhaps even more stupidly: you are healing your table followers.

Doing every anima WQ each day takes what, several hours per day?

Completely pointlessly exhausting grind.

[Lollis]

Doing every anima WQ each day takes what, several hours per day?

Completely pointlessly exhausting grind.

No, it really doesn't.

The only way it takes several hours is if you are literally going on foot everywhere and not mounting up.

[GreenJesus]

3k a week. Oh no.

You can easily get over 800 per day just by doing the usually maximum of 4 Anima wqs in each zone. If doing 12 world quests a day is too much for you then you are beyond casual.

Yes, anima gains are low. But you people complaining as though 3k per week is a lot, you clearly aren't doing anything.

Next week I'll have finished upgrading everything in my sanctum (I'm just waiting on souls) I have had days where I have completely skipped wqs, and other days I where have just ignored the smaller rewarding ones or those that are just slightly more of an annoyance to do. I have never capped on souls.

If you are Anima starved and soul capped at this stage, you have either not been playing, or have been spending anima on cosmetic items, or perhaps even more stupidly: you are healing your table followers.

Do you not raid or do pvp or mythic+? The extra time it would take to do those world quests is a lot. 12 world quests every day is honestly just insane considering most of them have multiple steps now. And besides just upgrading sanctum for the hell of it. Why are you upgrading it? Do you actually care about the benefits from it? Is the 16.5k anima per upgrade worth it? Is adventurers healing 25% faster really worth the 16.5k anima? Is that upgrade really worth doing 236 world quests (assuming 70 anima each)?

If you are really willing to do that grind then you really will eat any shit that blizzard feeds you as long as there is an achievement tied to it.

[ChocoboMog123]

The Queen's Conservatory in the Night Fae covenant is home to some RNG mounts and transmog. If you wanted a chance at some of those, it takes 44,000 anima to get to the max level. There are some world quests that give 35 anima, you'd need 1258 of those to get there... Obviously that's ridiculous, so what's a weekly anima income look like?
Weekly dungeon quests - 350 - 1 hour
Weekly event quests - 500? (cycles) - 1 hour
PvP quests - 500 - 1 hour + 105 for first BG win and 175 for first epic BG win
World boss - 250 - 15

After that I think you're down to farming.
2 mythics an hour is 140/hr.
WQ's are highly variable in both time cost and anima reward and limited availability. Let's say 250-500 anima/hr/day. These can be supplemented with covenant specific quests and activities. Personally, this seems extremely generous.
Table missions give ~100 anima minus cost. They can also eat up a lot of your anima gains

So, if you're efficient and dedicate at least 1-2 hour per day to anima farming, you might expect a daily income of 500/day plus ~1500-2000/week from one-offs. Personally, I've never seen these numbers, but it seems possible. At 5k anima/week, that's 9 weeks just to UNLOCK the ability to RNG transmog and mounts. That's not including all the other anima sinks available.

Compare that to the Argent Tournament. The Argent Tournament in WotLK offered a ton of mounts, tabards, tradeable pets, and more. You could farm up to 14 seals/day and it took just 30 minutes to an hour at most. After 90 days on just one character, you had most of everything you wanted. You made incremental progress over the course of 1 patch, not a full expansion, and saw the results of your work and dedication. It was side content in a raid tier patch and felt far more rewarding.

WoW is a Skinner box and Shadowlands as a whole is like a Skinner box without the rewards. At the rate most people play, they'll start really feeling their rewards sometime into next expansion. Maybe it's just numbers that missed the mark, maybe it's a deliberate choice because they plan to buff rates down the line, maybe it's too keep content slowed down because of COVID - but the Skinner box does NOT work when the rat doesn't feel like he's getting his reward for pressing the button. Seeing anima trickle in at 35 at a time just isn't something the human brain can fit into a reward structure that costs tens of thousands. It's like saving $0.35 a day for a $440 ticket to a clothing store, many (most?) people don't even care about $0.35.

[Azerate]

Doing every anima WQ each day takes what, several hours per day?

Completely pointlessly exhausting grind.

No, just the anima WQs daily takes like 30 minutes.

If you add in the anima conductor events and maybe a couple rares it's like 1-1,5 hour a day tops.

3k a week. Oh no.

You can easily get over 800 per day just by doing the usually maximum of 4 Anima wqs in each zone. If doing 12 world quests a day is too much for you then you are beyond casual.

Yes, anima gains are low. But you people complaining as though 3k per week is a lot, you clearly aren't doing anything.

Next week I'll have finished upgrading everything in my sanctum (I'm just waiting on souls) I have had days where I have completely skipped wqs, and other days I where have just ignored the smaller rewarding ones or those that are just slightly more of an annoyance to do. I have never capped on souls.

If you are Anima starved and soul capped at this stage, you have either not been playing, or have been spending anima on cosmetic items, or perhaps even more stupidly: you are healing your table followers.

Yeah, I am getting somewhere between 5k and 7k per week, depending on which weekly quests are up, and whether I bother to kill more rares or do more daily BGs. 5k is the absolute least you will get by just doing WQs and the main weekly event (if applicable) + the raid obviously.

[ashblond]

Im curious to know how many people didn't upgrade their sanctum besides the portal to oribos. The costs to upgrade then are frickin ridiculous for what the benefits are. And who's actually going to go out and grind for a recolor of a set that you get for free for just finishing the campaign? Plus, if you switch covenants, that armor set you grinded for is restricted. Like.. tf?

What do you mean? When you switch covenant, don't the armor sets and weapon models automatically switch to the new covenant's counterparts?

- - - Updated - - -

After how Artifact Power and Azerite initially worked, you are confused about how Anima works initially?

Hint: The lore reason is there to justify the drag to keep you subscribe for longer, not the other way around.

I didn't give a shit about artifact or azerite power, they only increase character power. AP gain increases over time.

I had 12 alts in BFA and they all unlocked all azerite traits and essences easilly, and I never farmed AP with any of them.

But anima is for transmog and mounts, the real endgame of wow.

[ChocoboMog123]

No, just the anima WQs daily takes like 30 minutes.

If you add in the anima conductor events and maybe a couple rares it's like 1-1,5 hour a day tops.



Yeah, I am getting somewhere between 5k and 7k per week, depending on which weekly quests are up, and whether I bother to kill more rares or do more daily BGs. 5k is the absolute least you will get by just doing WQs and the main weekly event (if applicable) + the raid obviously.

Please time yourself because either you live in a hyperbolic time chamber or your time estimates are way off base. Travel time alone probably takes 30 minutes and several of the world quests can easily take 15 minutes (and some are still worth that time). 2 hours for all the anima WQs is probably average.

[Kathranis]

IMO the anima acquisition rate is definitely too low. It's low to the point where the cosmetic unlocks and whatnot don't really feel achievable. Especially when multiplied across alts.

I understand that they want it to be dragged out as a long term goal, but it's slow to the point of actually discouraging me from wanting to pursue it at all.

It's important for rewards to feel attainable, but at a glance, you need, what? 150-200k anima to unlock everything? And you get on average 70 per WQ? That's kind of ridiculous.

[Evaddon]

I mean you should have 3 of the most USEFUL upgrades already, the 4th thing to build is COMPLETELY, and I do want to reiterate this, COMPLETELY your choice. It offers nothing outside of an additional minigame, cosmetics and other various rewards that do not affect gameplay or any other progression systems for CORE gameplay. Covenants are CORE to the gameplay of Shadowlands, Anima really isn't. Not in the same way Aritfact Power and Azerite was anyway, not even close.

Frankly I don't understand the anima complaints, its really a nonissue I feel like and if it IS your issue I feel like your probably making it that way by going after something that isn't even 50% necessary to acquire at this stage in the game. IF you aren't keeping up with ALT's, If you're trying to keep your ALTs on par with your main, sorry but that just isn't what Blizzard wants you to focus on, they've been really ALT-unfriendly for the last three expansions, throwing a bone here and there to appease people but never going full throttle (...because they can't) because of all the systems that take place at endgame, but that's another discussion!

[ashblond]

IMO the anima acquisition rate is definitely too low. It's low to the point where the cosmetic unlocks and whatnot don't really feel achievable. Especially when multiplied across alts.

I understand that they want it to be dragged out as a long term goal, but it's slow to the point of actually discouraging me from wanting to pursue it at all.

It's important for rewards to feel attainable, but at a glance, you need, what? 150-200k anima to unlock everything? And you get on average 70 per WQ? That's kind of ridiculous.

Exactly, totally agree. Many has been discouraged into quit because of this.

[GreenJesus]

Exactly, totally agree. Many has been discouraged into quit because of this.

"But it only takes 3 hours every day for several months to get recolors of stuff you got for free finishing the campaign! Isnt thay fun?"

[oldgeezer]

Speaking from the casual perspective, I'm relaxed about anima. I've used it to upgrade my covenant gear to 197 on the main and alt, which is my primary form of gearing. I'm not that interested in the re-colors.

In addition, I've opened up the level 1 covenant buildings on the main, cba to do it with the alt. I'm pretty much done with it now.

[Squigglyo]

3k a week. Oh no.

You can easily get over 800 per day just by doing the usually maximum of 4 Anima wqs in each zone. If doing 12 world quests a day is too much for you then you are beyond casual.

wow, so today I learnt that because im too busy progression raiding, running mythic+ and doing rated pvp to do world quests every day, I am now not even casual ranked. Less than casual and dont deserve anything nice.




The issue isnt the availability. the anima is there.
12 World quests every day, would take 30-60 min including travel time. And the gain for each individual quest is tiny.


The grind for each item/upgrade takes a long time. Ive got better things to do than to grind out 1 hour a day, for the next 15 days, just to buy some nice looking cloak.

The issue is that the effort in no way matches the reward. If it was the end of expansion and people had nothing better to do, it could get a pass, but for the first patch, its just bleeding you for time and it sucks.


Casual content shouldnt be the main way to progress in this system. Running high dungeons, killing raid bosses, winning pvp, should all reward more. But they dont.
The ONLY activity that gives anything worthwhile for your time is the first rated win of the day at 250 anima. Everything else is just dripped in and the fact World Quests are the 'best' way to get it just sucks.

[Azerate]

Please time yourself because either you live in a hyperbolic time chamber or your time estimates are way off base. Travel time alone probably takes 30 minutes and several of the world quests can easily take 15 minutes (and some are still worth that time). 2 hours for all the anima WQs is probably average.

Maybe one of these days I'll do that, but I'd have to specifically postpone doing the quests that spawn at different hours just to have all of them available at the same time and exclude the rares/other stuff from the world run which would be massively inefficient.

As for travel time, if you always fly from Oribos it takes significantly less time to travel than if you were to fly from one zone's FP to another. I'm using SW cloaks and sanctum portal to go to Oribos whenever I change zones. Makes it much quicker

Also, I know WQs are longer in general, but no way any of them actually takes 15 minutes...maybe besides the mirror labyrinth one in Revendreth which I dont do cause it's too long.

[ashblond]

3k a week. Oh no.

You can easily get over 800 per day just by doing the usually maximum of 4 Anima wqs in each zone. If doing 12 world quests a day is too much for you then you are beyond casual.

Yes, anima gains are low. But you people complaining as though 3k per week is a lot, you clearly aren't doing anything.

Doing 12 world quests per day? LOL

I don't know anyone who is insane enough to do that.

[Quaade]

I have 5 level 60s doing weekly 1K anima quest and Oribos dungeon quests every week, also anima missions whenever possible.

I use anima upgrading some covenant sets, transmog appearance and feature upgrade. So far, I haven’t bought any mounts/pets and only managed to upgrade 1-2 rank 2 buildings on 2 chars. None of my chars unlocked any rank 3 buildings or mounts.

The Anima drought is too much at this point. For people who says anima is only for transmog and optional, or we have 2 years to upgrade our covenant, etc., please don’t be tard.

Covenant is THE core feature of SL. What is the point of spending so much time and effort designing a core feature that players don’t have anima to use? Or players can only fully experience when SL is over???

This severe lack of anima design makes no sense. And no wonder many have quit before even unlocking any covenant feature or upgrade.

Narrative reasons. Ion forgot that while narrative reasons are king in single-player games once you're on your 5th repeat players give no fucks about narrative reasons, so in an MMO you have to prioritize gameplay over the narrative.

[tomten]

We're probably meant to feel the drought and care about it. Frankly, I don't.

Where you in the bugged covenants that gave 1k anima daily quest for months before they fixed it? Cuz, not everyone had it that easy....

[Fatali]

If doing 12 world quests a day is too much for you then you are beyond casual.

I don't know literally anyone who actually does 12 world quests daily, most don't even do that much in a week. If that makes me and other people progressing in Mythic Castle casual players, then so be it. But I digress, judging whether people are casuals or not based on how many completely useless world quests they run in a day is stupid.

[Lollis]

Please time yourself because either you live in a hyperbolic time chamber or your time estimates are way off base. Travel time alone probably takes 30 minutes and several of the world quests can easily take 15 minutes (and some are still worth that time). 2 hours for all the anima WQs is probably average.

I only had 5 anima wqs up today. 3 In Ardenweald, one in Maldraxxus and one in Revendreth. I also did the marasmius daily that gave anima (they don't always give any).

It took me 20 minutes total and I got 664 anima.

I don't know literally anyone who actually does 12 world quests daily, most don't even do that much in a week. If that makes me and other people progressing in Mythic Castle casual players, then so be it. But I digress, judging whether people are casuals or not based on how many completely useless world quests they run in a day is stupid.

"Completely useless world quests" That you don't do because they are "completely useless" and then complain that you don't have anima for anything?

12 world quests every day is honestly just insane considering most of them have multiple steps now.

And if either you or Fatali were to have actually read my original post, you'd see that I wrote the "usually MAXIMUM of 12" most of the time it is less. I just did my 5 (+ 1 marasmius) Anima WQs for over 600 anima in 20 minutes.

Ardenweald took probably 8 minutes at the most. Even if we give a stupid value of 5 minutes PER wq (if it is taking you this long, then you need gear) it's going to take you at most 20 minutes to do the 4 "worth doing wqs" in each zone (which is basically never the case). And guess what? Since you took so fucking long somehow, your HS is off CD when you finish a zone so you get to go directly to Oribos and skip that part of the travel.