This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of theencounter with Dark Animus in Throne of Thunder. It is targeted at anyonewho desires to understand the fight mechanics.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft MoP 5.4.

The encounter against the Dark Animus is the ninth boss encounter inthe Throne of Thunder. This is a very unconventional fight, during which youwill face the Dark Animus, as well as a large number of adds.

The fight puts a strain on tanks, healers, and DPS players, but it isperhaps most straining for the raid leader.

1. General Information↑top

2. Loot↑top

In addition to the items listed below, Dark Animus drops the tokens thatyou will need for buying your Tier 15 Chest parts.

2.1. Armor

Item Name	Armor	Slot	Main Stats
Hood of the Crimson Wake (LFR, Heroic)	Cloth	Head	Intellect
Anima-Ringed Fingers (LFR, Heroic)	Leather	Hands	Intellect
Worldbinder Leggings (LFR, Heroic)	Leather	Legs	Agility
Crown of the Golden Golem (LFR, Heroic)	Plate	Head	Strength
Matter-Swapped Legplates (LFR, Heroic)	Plate	Legs	Intellect

2.2. Weapons

Item Name	Type	Main Stats
Athame of the Sanguine Ritual (LFR, Heroic)	Dagger	Intellect
Hand of the Dark Animus (LFR, Heroic)	Mace	Agility

2.3. Cloaks, Rings, and Trinkets

Item Name	Type	Main Stats
Constantly Accelerating Cloak (LFR, Heroic)	Cloak	Intellect/Spirit
Gore-Soaked Gear (LFR, Heroic)	Ring	Agility
Cha-Ye's Essence of Brilliance (LFR, Heroic)	Trinket	Crit/Intellect on proc
Delicate Vial of the Sanguinaire (LFR, Heroic)	Trinket	Dodge/Mastery on dodge

3. DPS Requirements↑top

The 10-minute enrage is not relevant, as there is a soft enragemechanic that wipes the raid 216 seconds after the boss, which is not originallyactive, has been activated (more explanation).Therefore, the DPS requirements are as follows (considering that a tank doeshalf the damage of a DPS):

• 10-man with 5 DPS: 68k DPS;
• 10-man with 6 DPS: 57k DPS;
• 25-man with 16 DPS: 76k DPS;
• 25-man with 17 DPS: 72k DPS;
• 25-man with 18 DPS: 67k DPS.

4. Overview of the Fight↑top

During the encounter against the Dark Animus, you will face,in addition to the boss, a large number of adds called golems:Anima Golems, Large Anima Golems, and Massive Anima Golems.Initially only the Anima Golems are active. Killing them in theproximity of larger adds or the Dark Animus will causes these largeradds or the boss to become active. This isdue to the core mechanic of the encounter, Anima.

Anima is the resource that animates the golems and the boss. When thefight begins, the Large Anima Golems, the Massive Anima Golems,and the Dark Animus all have emptyAnima pools and are thus inactive. All the Anima Golems have fullAnima Pools, and are active. Killing an Anima Golem causes the Anima containedwithin it to jump to the nearest golem that can accommodate that Anima(so, the Anima cannot jump into a golem that is already full on Anima).

The Large Anima Golems activate once their Anima pool is full (that istwo Anima Golems' worth of Anima), while the Massive Anima Golems and the DarkAnimus activate as soon as they receive any amount of Anima.

Each of the adds has its own specific abilities, which they use as soon asthey are active. The Dark Animus, however, has several abilities which areunlocked by his Anima level. If he is allowed to reach maximum Anima level(that is to say, if all the golems in the room are killed, thus leadingall the Anima into the Dark Animus), then he will wipe the raid.

Your raid's goal will be to strike a balance between killing enough golemsso that their numbers do not overwhelm you, all the while leaving enough of themalive so that too much Anima does not go into the Dark Animus.

We have prepared the following video preview of the fight against the DarkAnimus, based on the testing from the Public Test Realms. The fight has notchanged much since then, but our understanding of the optimal strategy hasbecome much clearer. Therefore, we advise you to check the video in order toget a visual feel for the fight, but it is best to refer to this guide forspecific tactics. Once we can do the fight on live realms, we will also publish an up-to-date video guide.

5. Class-specific Advice↑top

On our forums, we are maintaining threads with class-specific advice for each of thefights of Throne of Thunder. So, make sure to check them out, and if you have things toshare, do not hesitate to contribute!

Class	Forum Threads
Death Knight	Blood Frost/Unholy
Druid	Balance Feral Guardian Restoration
Hunter	All specs
Mage	All specs
Monk	Brewmaster Mistweaver Windwalker
Paladin	Holy Protection Retribution
Priest	Discipline Holy Shadow
Rogue	All specs
Shaman	Elemental Enhancement Restoration
Warlock	All specs
Warrior	Arms/Fury Protection

6. Abilities↑top

We will first explain how Anima works, before looking at the abilities ofthe golems, and those of the Dark Animus.

6.1. Anima

Anima is a resource that is integral to the mechanics of the encounter.All types of golems, and the Dark Animus, have Anima pools of differentsizes. When one golem is killed, its Anima automatically jumpsto the nearest golem who has room in its Anima pool to accommodate the newAnima.

At all times, there will be a fixed amount of 100 Anima, shared betweenthe boss and the golems.

6.2. Golems

6.2.1. Anima Golems

There are 25 Anima Golems present in the fight. Each Anima Golem has anAnima pool of 4, and they all start out with full Anima.

Anima Golems melee their main aggro target, and they have a single ability,called Acceleration Link. When an Anima Golem is within close proximityof another Anima Golem (i.e. practically right on top of each other),they both receive this buff, which increases theirdamage and attack speed by 250%, and their movement speed by 30%. If the AnimaGolems are separated, the buff wears off immediately.

In 10-man, 13 of the 25 Anima Golems are disabled, to account for the lowernumber of raid members present. The disabled Anima Golems (criticallydamaged, as they are called in-game) do not attack and cannot bekilled, but they too start out with 4 Anima, which the Dark Animuswill start draining when he becomes active.

6.2.2. Large Anima Golems

There are 8 Large Anima Golems present in the fight. Each Large AnimaGolem has an Anima pool of 8, and they all start out with 0 Anima (thus beinginactive). When a Large Anima Golem receives 8 Anima (so, for example, bykilling two Anima Golems close to it), it becomes active, and it uses itsonly ability, Crimson Wake. Crimson Wake is a very damaging void zonethat lasts for 30 seconds, and fixates on a random raid member, followingthem.

Just as with the Anima Golems, 3 of the Large Anima Golems aredisabled in 10-man. This means that even when Anima goes into them, they willnot activate. Anima from disabled Anima Golems will be drained by theDark Animus when he activates.

6.2.3. Massive Anima Golems

There are 2 Massive Anima Golems present in the fight. Each MassiveAnima Golem has an Anima pool of 36, and they all start out with 0 Anima (thusbeing inactive). When a Massive Anima Golem receives any amount of Anima (so,as little as 4 Anima, from the death of an Anima Golem), it becomesactive.

Massive Anima Golems have two abilities.

• Matter Swap is a dispellable debuff that the golem places on itscurrent target, lasting 12 seconds. When the debuff wears off or is dispelled,the affected player has their position swapped with that of the raid memberwho is farthest away from them at the time. Moreover, Arcane damage equal tothe affected player's maximum health is split between the two players, with theportion of damage that the other player takes increasing the longer the debuffremains on the affected player.
• Explosive Slam is an ability that the Massive Anima Golems regularlyuse. The golem strikes the ground in front of it, dealing damage to allplayers within 12 yards, and causing them to take increased damage fromfuture Explosive Slams.

Unlike with the previous adds, both Massive Anima Golems are functionalin 10-man.

6.3. Dark Animus

When the fight starts, the Dark Animus is inactive. He has an Anima Poolof 100, and he starts out with 0 Anima. When the Dark Animus receives anyamount of Anima (as little as 4), he activates.

The Dark Animus has several abilities. Some are used by default, regardlessof how much Anima he has, and other abilities are unlocked as the Dark Animusgains more Anima.

• Siphon Anima is an ability that the Dark Animus uses from the momentthat he activates. Every 6 seconds, he drains 1 Anima from any golems in theroom that have Anima (including disabled golems in 10-man, if they have receivedAnima). When Siphon Anima drains all the Anima from a golem, it dies.
• Touch of the Animus is an ability that the Dark Animus uses from themoment that he activates. He places a debuff on a random raid member, whichdeals a moderate amount of Fire damage every 4 seconds for the rest of thefight.
• Anima Ring is an ability that unlocks when the Dark Animus has 10Anima. He creates a ring of spheres around his current target, which closes inon the target. Coming in contact with a sphere consumes it, applying a stackof a debuff that increases damage taken from melee attacks by 50% for 15seconds.
• Anima Font is an ability that unlocks when the Dark Animus has 25Anima. Each time he casts this, the Dark Animus causes one of the playersdebuffed by Touch of the Animus to also deal damage to allies in a small areaaround them.
• Interrupting Jolt is an ability that unlocks when the Dark Animus has75 Anima. It deals a large amount of raid-wide Nature damage, and itinterrupts the spellcasting of any players (also silencing them for 8.5 seconds)who are in the middle of a cast at the time.
• Full Power is an ability that unlocks when the Dark Animus has100 Anima. The boss channels this spell for the remainder of the fight, and itdeals extremely high damage to random raid members every second, wiping yourraid very quickly.

7. Strategy↑top

The strategy for defeating this encounter is centered around the idea thatyou must not allow the Dark Animus to reach 100 Anima. We will lay out the beststrategy below, before going into detail in subsequent sections.

1. At the pull, assign tanks, plate DPS players and any other players whocan survive melee attacks to tank the Anima Golems so that they remainsomewhat spread apart.
2. Kill the Anima Golems in such a way that their Anima jumps to theMassive Anima Golems (or one of the Massive Anima Golems in 10-man).Have your tanks ready to pick up the Massive AnimaGolems when they activate.
   • Tank the Massive Anima Golems in the center of the room.
3. Kill the Anima Golems to activate the Massive Anima Golems and theDark Animus. See the next section to know exactlyhow you should proceed.
4. Use DPS cooldowns and burn down the Dark Animus while tanking the twoMassive Anima Golems, and dealing with the various abilities used againstyou.
   • Dispel Matter Swap after 4 or 5 seconds and make sure both targets aretopped off. The reason why you want to wait a few seconds is for the damage to beproperly shared between the two players. Dispelling too early would cause the tankto take most of the damage, while dispelling too late would cause the player to takemost of the damage (which would be very high since that damage is based on the tank'smaximum health).
   • Avoid being hit by Explosive Slam (the affected area on the ground isclearly indicated).
   • Make sure the tank affected by Anima Ring runs out of the ring. Thiswill consume a sphere and the tank will be debuffed to take increased damagefrom melee attacks. This prompts a tank switch.
   • Make sure players affected by Anima Font stay away from other raidmembers, so as not to deal damage to them.
   • Make sure not to cast any spells when Interrupting Jolt is beingcast.

As you can see, we advise you to completely ignore the Large Anima Golems.

7.1. Your Goal

To counter the way in which Siphon Anima works, your goal is to activatethe Dark Animus only when there are a few golems left in the room.

Indeed, the more Golems are active when the boss casts this ability, themore Anima he will siphon from them. So, if you kill the first Anima Golemnext to the Dark Animus, and activate him early, he will then siphon 1 Animafrom all the other Anima Golems, which means that within 20 seconds or so(4 casts of Siphon Anima), he will have drained all the Anima in the room.

At the same time, however, you have to keep in mind that you cannot simplykill the Massive Anima Golems, even thoughthat would make handling the boss easier. The reason for this is that if theydie, their Anima will go into Large Anima Golems (which you do notwant to activate) or into the Dark Animus (which would cause him toreach 100 Anima faster).

Therefore, your raid's goal is to concentrate all the Anima from the roomin as few golems as possible, and to then kill the Dark Animus before hereaches 100 Anima through Siphon Anima.

7.1.1. Optimal Dark Animus Activation

Before activating the Dark Animus, you want to have a Massive Anima Golemat 36 Anima. This will ensure that it takes the Dark Animus 36 casts of Siphon Anima (or 3 minutes and 36 seconds) to drain all the Anima from that golem, andreach 100 Anima.

In 10-man, the optimal activation is to bring one Massive Anima Golemto 36 Anima and leave the other Massive Anima Golem inactive. Then,kill an Anima Golem next to the Dark Animus to activate the boss with 4 Anima.

1. After 24 seconds, the Dark Animus will be at 68 Anima (4 from havingbeen activated, 8 drained from the remaining Anima Golems,52 drained from the inactive Anima Golems, and 4 drainedfrom the Massive Anima Golems).
2. After 66 seconds, the Dark Animus will be at 75 Anima and he willgain Interrupting Jolt.
3. After 216 seconds, the Dark Animus will have drained all the Animaand he will wipe the raid.

In 25-man, the optimal way to activate the Dark Animusin 25-man is to bring both Massive Anima Golems to 36 Anima (which requires 18Anima Golems). Then, kill one Anima Golem next to the Dark Animusto activate the boss with 4 Anima.

1. After 24 seconds, the Dark Animus will be at 36 Anima (4 from havingbeen activated, 24 drained from the 6 remaining Anima Golems, and 8 drainedfrom the Massive Anima Golems.
2. After 144 seconds, the Dark Animus will be at 76 Anima and will gain Interrupting Jolt.
3. After 216 seconds, the Dark Animus will have drained all the Animaand he will wipe the raid.

7.1.2. Tip for Gaining a Few Seconds

After the Dark Animus has drained 2 Anima from the Anima Golems, you can killan Anima Golem next to a Massive Anima Golem. This will cause the Massive Anima Golemto go back to 36 Anima, giving you 12 more seconds to kill the boss.

7.2. Ignoring Large Anima Golems

We recommend entirely skipping activating the Large Anima Golems. Thereason for this is that their Crimson Wake ability is extremely damagingand disruptive to your raid (basically requiring several raid members to beconstantly on the move, and everyone else to make sure not to touch thevoid zones).

Doing so requires you to be careful, and to make sure that noAnima Golems die close to the Large Anima Golems than to theMassive Anima Golems or the Dark Animus himself.

7.3. Dealing with the Golems and the Dark Animus

7.3.1. Anima Golems

The first stage of the fight requires your raid to handle theAnima Golems. You should have your tanks each take one of the Anima Golemsthat are located next to the Massive Anima Golems, while the rest of theAnima Golems should be tanked by random raid members. Plate DPS players makegood tanks, but other classes work as well, provided that healers are aware ofthe incoming damage.

Anima Golems must be kept apart, as they otherwise gain Acceleration Link.This buff is also gained if an Anima Golem is kept in the proximity of adisabled (or critically damaged) Anima Golem.

Your goal will be to kill the tanks' Anima Golems first, so that they dieright next to the Massive Anima Golems, activating them. The tanks will pickthese two adds up, and additional Anima Golems should be killed next to theMassive ones in order to pour more Anima into them. When their Anima poolsreach the desired levels, have the remaining Anima Golems killed close to theDark Animus.

It is very important for players who are tanking Anima Golems not to dodamage to them if they do not intend to kill them in that location. The AnimaGolems have very low health, and they die quite easily.

7.3.2. Massive Anima Golems

Your raid members should not bother DPSing the Massive Anima Golems.The goal is to keep these two adds alive until the end of the fight. Dealingwith their abilities is pretty straightforward.

Matter Swap, as we said, should be dispelled after a few seconds. In the eventthat the affected tank is low on health at this time, they should be topped offquickly before being dispelled.

Explosive Slam can be avoided rather easily, since there is an effecton the ground warning you of where the ability will strike for one or twoseconds.

Massive Anima Golems should be tanked in the middle of the room. This way,when a tank is swapped for another player with Matter Swap, the AnimaGolem from that other player will not run across the entire room, buffingother Anima Golems with Acceleration Link.

7.3.3. Dark Animus

As soon as the Dark Animus activates, everyone should switch to himand DPS him. Naturally, if there are any remaining Anima Golems alive,those should be killed next to the Dark Animus first.

Initially, the boss will not use many abilities. Siphon Anima is notreally of concern to anyone, and only has implications for the overallstrategy. Touch of the Animus is a passive source of constant damage thatthe healers will need to become accustomed to, but it is not something peopleshould concern themselves with either.

At 10 Anima (so, immediately upon activation, basically) the Dark Animuswill start using Anima Ring. Since the tank who is targeted by this willhave to come in contact with at least one sphere to exit the ring, they willtake increased melee damage for 15 seconds. The boss casts Anima Ring roughlyevery 15-17 seconds. Once the tank has had Anima Ring cast on them, theother tank should taunt Dark Animus. The tank affected by Anima Ring, oncethey have left the ring, can then pick up one of the Massive Anima Golemsto ease the damage on the Dark Animus' tank.

When the boss reaches 25 Anima (which should happen quite soon after heactivates), he will start casting Anima Font. This spell essentially"corrupts" a target affected by Touch of the Animus, causing them to now alsodeal damage to players within a small area around them. Any players affectedby Touch of the Animus should make sure to stand away from any other raidmembers from this moment on.

When the boss reaches 75 Anima, he begins casting Interrupting Jolt.This is a source of great raid damage, and it also disrupts healing and DPSbecause everyone must make sure that they are not in the middle of a spellcast when the boss uses this ability.

Finally, the Dark Animus should die before he reaches 100 Anima, asotherwise, you will wipe. Fortunately, he does not have a lot of health.

8. When to Use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp↑top

We recommend using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp after theDark Animus becomes active. At this time, you have to focus your DPS onkilling the boss before he gains 100 Anima, so this is the most pressing timeof the fight from a DPS point of view.

9. Learning the Fight↑top

The most important part of the Dark Animus encounter is understanding thestrategy for the fight, and what needs to be done in order to execute itcorrectly. While this takes place firstly (and mostly) at the raid-leadinglevel, it is still important for everyone in the raid to understand howthings work.

Also very important is the proper spreading of the Anima Golems, sothat they do not gain Acceleration Link. On a related note, players mustlearn not to kill their Anima Golems prematurely - most players will find thateven auto-attacks may be too much damage, and they will need to ceaseeverything.

Finally, the other important directive in the strategy for this fight isnot to activate any Large Anima Golems. Everyone in the raid mustunderstand this, and they must be well aware of the positioning of theirAnima Golems relative to Large Anima Golems.

10. Heroic Mode↑top

The Heroic mode of Dark Animus is extremely similar to the Normal modeversion of the fight, but the strategy ends up being considerably moreelaborate.

10.1. Differences From Normal Mode

All of the hostile NPCs in this encounter have increased health and dealincreased damage, when compared to their Normal mode counterparts. Inaddition to this, there are four mechanical changes, the first of which isvery important.

• Instead of there being a total of 100 Anima present in the encounter,there is 152 Anima present in Heroic mode. The consequence of this is that,at the start of the fight, in addition to all Anima Golems having 4 Animaeach, 52 Anima also goes into Dark Animus himself, activating him from thestart of the fight.
• Dark Animus gains a new ability called Empower Golem. The bossperiodically targets the golem with the least health, healing it by 3% andincreasing all the damage that that golem deals by 24% until the end of thefight. The damage increase stacks.
• Dark Animus does not begin casting Siphon Anima until 2 minutes of thefight have gone by.
• Coming in contact with an Anima Ring sphere also applies a Firedamage DoT to the player, instead of simply increased the damage that theytake from melee attacks.

It is also worth nothing that the inactive golems in 10-man can be killedin Heroic mode.

10.2. Strategy

As in Normal mode, when Dark Animus reaches 100 Anima, he casts FULL POWER and wipes your raid shortly thereafter. This must be avoidedat all costs. Making sure that there as few possible adds for Dark Animus tosiphon Anima from, and of course making sure that he dies before reaching 100Anima are the chief concerns in Heroic mode.

We recommend different strategies for 10 and 25-man, and we discuss eachin its own separate sub-section below. In each case, as you will see, we focusmainly on the overall strategic goals, since the abilities are the same as inNormal mode, and you will handle them in much the same way.

10.2.1. 10-man

As you will see in the following section, the 25-man strategy is a bit moreelaborate than the 10-man one (and you can try to derive some help from thatstrategy if you find that your raid is struggling).

Unlike in Normal mode (and unlike in the 25-man Heroic strategy below), weadvise you to make use of the Large Anima Golems. Your first goal will beto kill 6 Anima Golems (active ones) early on in the fight, making surethat their Anima goes into the three inactive Large Anima Golems.

The next step is to kill the remaining Anima Golems so that their Animagoes into the Massive Anima Golems. This is something you should do,in a coordinated manner, around the 90-second mark, so that it is completedbefore the boss begins casting Siphon Anima (at the 2-minute mark), butnot too early, since this also activates the Massive Anima Golems, and you donot want to have them up earlier than they need to be.

This will leave you with 1 Anima Golem (6 were killed at the start, andanother 18 were killed to fill up both Massive Anima Golems), which you cansimply kill so that its Anima goes straight into Dark Animus.

From this point on, the boss will Siphon Anima from the two Massive AnimaGolems, and from the three inactive Large Anima Golems, meaning thateventually he will reach 100 Anima and wipe your raid. You must simply makesure to kill him before that time.

10.2.2. 25-man

When the boss is engaged, Dark Animus will start out with 52 Anima. Yourfirst goal is to must make sure that, around the 1 minute and 30-secondmark (so before Dark Animus begins casting Siphon Anima, 2 minutes intothe fight), both Massive Anima Golems have 36 Anima each. During the first90 seconds of the fight, you can DPS Dark Animus as much as you can (possiblyeven using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp).

Around 90 seconds into the fight, you must kill 18 of the 25Anima Golems, leaving you with another 7 of them alive. You can kill oneof these 7 and have its Anima go directly into Dark Animus, since, as you willsee, this makes no difference later on in the fight and it simply makes thingseasier.

Next, at the 2-minute mark, Dark Animus will cast the first Siphon Anima,which will hit the remaining 6 Anima Golems, and the 2 Massive Anima Golems,thus providing the boss with 8 Anima, putting him at 64 Anima. The secondSiphon Anima (20 seconds later) will put Dark Animus at 72 Anima. At thispoint, you should perform two important tasks.

• Kill two Anima Golems, having their Anima go into the two Massive AnimaGolems (the Anima Golems will each have 2 Anima, and the Massive Anima Golemswill each have 34/36 Anima, meaning that this is possible to do).
• Kill two more Anima Golems, having their Anima go into two other AnimaGolems.

After the third Siphon Anima is cast, Dark Animus will go to 76 Anima (andalso begin casting Interrupting Jolt, which you should handle just as youdo in Normal mode), since he is only draining Anima from 4 targets now(the two Massive Anima Golems, and two Anima Golems).

Finally, after the fourth Siphon Anima is cast, you should kill theremaining two Anima Golems, making sure that their Anima goes into the MassiveAnima Golems. Then, you must simply finish off the boss before he reaches100 Anima.

10.2.3. Massive Anima Golems and Empower Golem

Towards the end of the fight, the Massive Anima Golems will have a fairnumber of Empower Golem stacks, meaning that they will be doingridiculously high damage to their tanks. There is not much you can do aboutthis, and it is just something that you must be prepared for.

11. Concluding Remarks↑top

This concludes our raid guide for the Dark Animus. We hope you havefound it helpful. Please do not hesitate to post any feedback you may have onour forums.

12. Changelog↑top

• 22 Jun. 2013: Added Heroic mode.
• 06 Apr. 2013: Updated frequency of Siphon Anima, which is cast every 6 seconds(the guide was saying every 5 seconds). As a result, the DPS requirements have beenupdated.
• 29 Mar. 2013: Added a mention to clarify what close proximitymeans for Acceleration Link.
• 13 Mar. 2013: Added link to forum threads that containclass-specific advice for the encounter.
• 12 Mar. 2013: Interrupting Jolt also silences players for 8.5 seconds,if they are caught by this ability.
• 12 Mar. 2013: Anima Golems gain Acceleration Link even in proximity ofdisabled Anima Golems.
• 12 Mar. 2013: Added advice for tanking the Massive Anima Golems in the middle(this prevent issues during Matter Swap).
• 12 Mar. 2013: Fixed the number of Anima Golems (it is 13, wewere saying 12) and Large Anima Golems (it is 3, we were saying 4) disabledin 10-man difficulty. Note that this slightly changes the optimal activation in10-man.
• 12 Mar. 2013: Improved explanations for when to dispel Matter Swap.
• 11 Mar. 2013: Improved optimal activation section.