Farming the Mad King's Labyrinth

Overview

The Mad King's Labyrinth is an event within the Mad King's Realm, which happens every October and is hosted in Lion's Arch. This event is exceedingly popular due to its very high profit potential, though reaching those profits can be a difficult task if not prepared. The purpose of this guide is to provide advice and builds for farming in the Lab to maximize gold gains.

A Note On Player Health

While long farm sessions in the Labyrinth are common and seen as commendable, please always remember to prioritize your personal health.

• Take breaks often. You should get up and stretch at least once an hour or once every 30 minutes, even if its only for a minute or so. Ideally, get up and walk around for 5-10 minutes every hour or two - Your leg muscles are responsible for a lot of your bloodflow!
• Stay hydrated! Drinking water and other non-sugary beverages during the Labyrinth can ensure you stay healthy! Also, it can increase your profit/hr by making you more focused.
• Wrist Stretches. For most folks, doing a few minor wrist stretches once an hour can drastically improve the bloodflow in your hands and help ward off an RSI.
• Avoid Burnout. We all love our long farm sessions, but burnout is a very real thing and if you feel like you aren't having fun, it may be time to find a different activity for a bit.
• Bring Friends. The Lab is crazy boring without friends, and boredom is bad for you! Bring along some friends to chat with, or try to make some friends while farming!

Quick Tips

• Follow the Zerg; the Commander will lead you where you need to go.
• Do not open any doors without being told to. This can hurt everyone’s profits.
• Use LFG to find groups!
• Do not engage with trolls.
• Low-ish DPS is preferred in the Labyrinth. More on this below.
• Bring buffs. See the consumables section below.
• Please do not use mounts to rush ahead of the zerg and avoid using their Engage skills.
• Revive players before they die.

Recommended Settings

• Check "AoE Loot on Interact", "Autoloot: Autopickup" and "Autoloot: Quick interact" (requires Advanced Logistics mastery) - without that you will spend too much time picking up the loot
• Uncheck "Promote Skil Target" so game won't "stick" to one target
• Uncheck "Stop Autoattacking on Target Change" so you won't stop attacking when changing the target
• Check "Autotargetting" so the game will choose target you are facing while attacking
• Check "Allow Skill Retargetting" so your skills won't be canceled when changing the target
• Turn off Auto-Attack to prevent dealing too much damage to one mob
• Bind a key to "Autorun" (it makes life easier during hours-long farm)
• Consider turning on Action Camera

Lab Route

To help yourself and your squad, be familiar with the route. It’s very simple, see below:

https://i.imgur.com/dqoyiwX.gifv

Recommended Buffs & Consumables

For the Labyrinth, players are going to want to max out their Magic Find. The best way to do this is to use a combination of Food, Utilities, Boosters, and other buffs in order to get Magic Find as high as possible.

Food

Since the goal of Lab is to make money, running food that boosts profit/hr is preferred over other options.

• is the second, more specialized option. These will provide the maximum magic find boost from Food possible at 40%. For Labyrinth in particular this food is Optimal.
• is an excellent choice in general.

Utilities

Much like Food, we only have a few options here. In this case, however, they're all basically the same.

• is better by a very slight margin due to its buff, Feline Fury.
• and are roughly the same. Take your pick!

Boosters

Boosters are Black Lion items that come from leveling up, map completion, the black lion trading company, and a few other sources. If you have these, you'll probably want to use them:

• Candy Corn Gobbler - Can provide you with some of the buffs listed below for a very low price!
• Item Booster
• Birthday Booster / Celebration Booster
• Black Lion Booster
• Magic Find Booster

Other Buffs

• Magic Find Enrichment (Requires an Ascended Amulet)
• New Year's Gift
• Guild Item Research
• Spirit Banner
• Guild Gold & Magic Find Banner

Recommended Builds

Below is at least one build per class that will function in the Lab. Note that some builds perform at much higher levels than others and a build’s ability to tag mobs will determine a players gold per hour. The difference between the lowest tier build and higher tier build can be as much as a 30 or 40% difference in gold per hour.

It is worth noting that the builds provided below are meant to be generally applicable. In very advanced groups with a focus on boss doors, it is worth running more specific, adjusted DPS builds which are mentioned further down.

A Note on Power Builds

If your build uses Power gear, such as Berserker stats, it is worth removing your trinkets so as to not one-shot the enemies and allow allies to tag as well. It may also be worth using a Masterwork weapon, instead of an Exotic+ one.

S Tier

These builds are the best-in-class at tagging. They are capable of the highest possible bags per hour in the Lab and are widely accepted as the go-to tag builds.

Click to Open

A Tier

These builds perform quite well in the Labyrinth, though they don’t quite live up to the S-Tier builds. Typically, A-Tier builds sacrifice some tagging capability for an increase in speed or comfort.

Click to Open

B Tier

These builds are only recommended if you do not have access to one of the classes mentioned above, as they typically are lacking in some critical area.

Click to Open

C Tier

These builds are serviceable in the Labyrinth, though not up to par with other options.

Click to Open

Sub-Optimal Builds

These builds are not recommended for the Labyrinth, but they are listed here because poor warrior needs at least some kind of love.

Click to Open

Other Resources

Pact of the Mad King

The main purpose is to bring in awesome tags for Mad King's Labyrinth during The Shadow of the Mad King's Festival that are easily accessible, and can tag in and out, potentially creating a 24/7 Labyrinth Farm.

Join Pact of the Mad King's Discord

The Overflow Trading Company

This guide was made in partnership with the Overflow Trading Company. You can find their discord Here.

Null's Lab Guide

This document is still mostly up-to-date and contains detailed information on the magic find breakdown, as well as an alternative take on build recommendations. It is full of very useful information and is included here for that reason: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kNoF1Hx0WueB188dVtTuJQmy8KBdrHnSY3-N9RFC8SA/edit#heading=h.luxi0syil96i

In Closing

Lab farming is a great way to quickly make gold and is accessible to all players, even those under level 80! It is highly recommended that you at least give it a try if you haven't before.