Dark Animus

Dark Animus is the ninth boss encounter in the Throne of Thunder, and the last in the Halls of Flesh-Shaping portion.

Background
The Dark Animus was crafted by Archritualist Kelada, by the command of the Thunder King, as the perfect vessel to harness the great power of the anima. The construct is considered magnificent, sentient, and most importantly... deadly.

Adventure Guide
''During his reign, Lei Shen labored to build a mechanical servant that would defend his citadel without fear. When his first attempt failed, rage took hold of the Thunder King. He poured this negative emotion into his next, and most successful, creation: the Dark Animus. To this day, the ornate construct observes its duty, empowered by the mysterious substance at the heart of all mogu flesh-shaping experiments.''

Encounter Design
''The mechanics of the Dark Animus encounter aren't quite like any boss fight we've done before. It centers around a fixed quantity of the mysterious swirling liquid, known as Anima, that is at the heart of the mogu experiments in this wing. The vital fluid animates golems, escaping and moving on to larger and larger constructs as the initial vessels are destroyed, until it eventually amasses enough volume to empower the Dark Animus itself, largest of all the golems. The encounter has a certain puzzle-solving element to it, and players will need to carefully manage how they shift around this finite quantity of Anima or the fight will quickly get out of hand.''

10 man
On 10 man difficulty, to compensate for fewer players, 13 out of 25 Anima Golems will be Critically Damaged, and 3 out of 8 Large Anima Golems will be Critically Damaged. Neither of the two Massive Anima Golems, nor Dark Animus, will be Critically Damaged.

On the pull, all of the Anima Golems will have 4/4 Anima and will activate. The general idea is to move this Anima to as few adds as possible before activating the Dark Animus, then defeating it before it reaches 100 Anima (at which point Full Power will wipe the raid).

Dealing with Crimson Wake from the Large Anima Golems is a massive distraction for the raid, so the raid should avoid activating the Large Anima Golems. However, the three Large Anima Golems that are Critically Damaged will not activate, and can be used as Anima batteries.

When the 12 non-damaged Anima Golems activate at the start of the fight, have the tanks pick up two each. All other raid members will pick up one. With the exception of the tanks, care must be taken to keep the Anima Golems apart from each other, as non-tanks will not be able to handle the damage increase from Acceleration Link (though tanks will have little difficulty with this).

The two tanks will pick a Critically Damaged Large Anima Golem, drag their adds over there, and have DPS kill them there. Two other pre-assigned raid members will take their adds to the third Critically Damaged Large Anima Golem (separately, because of Acceleration Link), and have DPS kill them there. DPS must take special care not to prematurely kill Anima Golems, otherwise Anima will likely jump to a non-desirable Golem.

If this part of the fight is executed correctly, there will be six Anima Golems remaining with 4/4 Anima (as well as the 13 Critically Damaged Anima Golems with 4/4 Anima), and all three Critically Damaged Large Anima Golems will have 8/8 Anima (these Golems will do nothing despite having Anima).

For the next step, one of the remaining Anima Golems should be taken over to one of the two Massive Anima Golems, and killed there; this will activate this Massive Anima Golem. One tank needs to pick up the Massive Anima Golem, and tank it in the center of the room. DPS must ignore this add; it must remain alive until the end of the encounter. The second tank will pick up one Anima Golem at a time, and bring it to the activated Massive Anima Golem; DPS will kill it when it is positioned. Healers will need to keep an eye out for Matter Swap on the Massive Anima Golem tank, and dispel it when there are 5 seconds remaining on the debuff (no more, no less). Explosive Slam can be easily moved away from; however, if the tank takes an Explosive Slam, a tank swap is required.

If this part of the fight is executed correctly, all Anima Golems that are not Critically Damaged will be dead. The 13 Critically Damaged Anima Golems should still have 4/4 Anima, the Critically Damaged Large Anima Golem should still have 8/8 Anima, and one of the two Massive Anima Golems should have 24/36 Anima (the second Massive Anima Golem should have 0/36 Anima).

Next, have the Massive Anima Golem tank bring the Golem over to three of the Critically Damaged Anima Golems in succession, and have them killed. Do NOT choose the Critically Damaged Anima Golem that is closest to Dark Animus (this Golem is specifically for activating Dark Animus, and it should be marked before the fight). If executed correctly, three of the Critically Damaged Anima Golems will be removed from the fight, and the Massive Anima Golem will have 36/36 Anima.

At this point, there is no further benefit to moving Anima between the adds, so have DPS kill the aforementioned Critically Damaged Anima Golem closest to Dark Animus (note: if there is a risk of the Anima not jumping to Dark Animus, then save one of the mobile Anima Golems to activate Dark Animus, and kill an extra Critically Damaged Anima Golem to push the Massive Anima Golem to 36/36 Anima). The Anima from this Golem should jump to Dark Animus and activate him. If the Massive Anima Golem has 36/36 Anima when Dark Anima is activated, the raid will then have 216 seconds to kill Dark Animus before he siphons 100 Anima. This is a burn phase, so pop all DPS cooldowns and nuke him.

Raid members affected by Anima Font must take care not to stand near other raid members. For Anima Ring, it is advised that a DPS or healer breaks the ring to allow the Dark Animus tank to escape without receiving the debuff; if the tank does receive the debuff, the tanks will have to swap the Dark Animus and Massive Anima Golem between them. Ranged and healers must simply stop casting when Interrupting Jolt goes off (healers should do their best to top up the raid in preparation).

When Dark Animus reaches 100 Anima, it will then channel FULL POWER which will very quickly wipe the raid (however, players will not be immediately killed). Raid members should use any damage reduction/immunity effects to try to finish him off.

25 man
As there are no Critically Damaged Golems in 25 player difficulty, the raid will need to activate both Massive Anima Golems, and have Anima Golems killed near them until both reach 36/36 Anima (this will require exactly 9 Anima Golems per Massive Anima Golem; 18 in total). Once this is achieved, one of the 7 remaining Anima Golems should be brought to Dark Animus and killed there to activate it.

Apart from this difference, proceed as per the 10 man version. Large Anima Golems should still not receive any Anima under any circumstance.

Two tanks should still be used—initially one per Massive Anima Golem, thereafter one on Dark Animus and the other handling both Massive Anima Golems. If the damage from two Massive Anima Golems cannot be handled by the tank and healers, consider a third tank.

Heroic
Dark Animus now activates immediately and starts with 52 Anima (for a total of 152 Anima distributed throughout the Golems). However, the raid is given a 2 minute grace period before it begins to cast Siphon Anima.

Dark Animus will also periodically cast Empower Golem (typically hitting Massive Golems), putting an extra strain on tank healing.

All abilities hit much harder, with Interrupting Jolt hitting for a significant percentage of the raid health. Anima Font will be cast as soon as the encounter begins (as Dark Animus begins with 52 Anima) and can one shot players who stand in it.

The Raid should do the same Strategy as Normal mode 90 secs after the encounter begun(since you don't want the massive golems to get empower stacks early) and proceed with it.

An alternative strategy consists of just zerg Dark animus while raid keeps the golems apart and move from anima front without stacking them.But this strategy requieres a huge deal of dps and is hard to perform(since it requieres ppl to still move from anima front and at same time not stack golems,which can be somewhat problematic,specially for 25Man),but is possible for raids Heavy overgearing the encounter.

Solo
Start by popping the orb with a ranged attack, then quickly run behind the boss and stand with the character's back to the wall. If creatures can get behind their target, they will ignore dodge and parry, so prevent this by standing back to the wall.

Pop all cooldowns and spam instants on the boss. High-level characters should be able to dodge and parry the melee swings of the small anima golems, but chracters stop dodging and parrying while casting any spells with a cast time.

In heroic mode, the Dark Animus starts attacking immediately, so focus all attacks on it!

Related Achievements

 * Halls of Flesh-Shaping
 * Heroic: Dark Animus
 * Ritualist Who?
 * Throne of Thunder Guild Run

Objective of

 * Life Blood

Quotes

 * Intro
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell