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 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.
Build templates are included where the recommended build varies significantly from the default setup.
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.
TagDevil
TagDevil is a fast-paced, mid-range tag build that relies on . The bouncing autos allow it to tag a large number of enemies very quickly, and or can be used to drastically increase either tagging potential or mobility.
GS Mirage
GS Mirage is a comfortable, long-range tag build that relies heavily on Mirage’s Ambush mechanic to trigger . This ability, when combined with , can strike up to three targets on its own, however, it will trigger on each of your clones. In total, this allows you to potentially tag up to 12 enemies with alone, and with good RNG that can be increased to up to 16 enemies with one auto-attack and a well-placed proc.
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.
Flamethrower Scrapper
Flamethrower Scrapper is a short-range build that focuses on using to tag enemies. This skill has an extremely short range, however, and so relies on the Scrapper to stay at the very front of the Zerg at all times. In terms of raw tagging potential, this build is actually quite poor during “Laps”, however it makes up for this thanks to its extremely high 
Superspeed generation. With enough Scrappers in a Zerg, this can heavily outweigh the poor tagging potential by drastically increasing the Zerg’s speed and inflating their bags/hour.
While running, you may find greater success by staying on Rifle, switching to Flamethrower for mob doors.
Staff Druid
(Consult the Tag info on the build page above.) Staff Druid is a long-range tag build that is extremely comfortable to play compared to most other options. It operates using a trick with the “Allow Skill Retargeting” option, which allows to quickly switch targets mid-attack. This build also outputs a moderate amount of Superspeed and healing to allies, and can boost ally damage on bosses by stacking 
Might and 
Alacrity.
TagRen
TagRen is a mid-range build that plays similarly to TagDevil. It relies heavily on to cover ground quickly, and occasionally may use to make up ground in a very fast group. This build needs to hover near the front of the Zerg due to its 900 range on Shortbow. This build doesn’t bring anything special in terms of tagging, but has extremely high boss DPS which makes it great for groups that are doing boss doors.
While running, you should use , and switch to when at boss doors.
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.
Tag Tempest
Tag Tempest is a mid-ranged beam-focused tag build. This build functions much like Staff Druid, using Beam Retargeting to rapidly tag a series of enemies using . It is extremely simple to play and very safe, a powerful group stunbreak thanks to . It also grants a small amount of Superspeed!
C Tier
These builds are serviceable in the Labyrinth, though not up to par with other options.
Condi Scourge
(The build page above does not feature a tagging variant; instead, pay attention to the paragraph below for an explanation on how to use it.) The standard Condition Scourge build with full 
Viper stats can be a moderately effective tag build in the lab when using specific sigils and runes. Take , Scepter + Torch, and Staff. Your Staff should have a and . This build is mid-ranged thanks to the range on Sand Shade, so hover near the front of the Zerg. Use , auto-attacks, and Marks to tag enemies while mobile, making sure to use your shade skills on mob doors for effective AOE (Do NOT use on mob doors). On bosses, swap to Scepter/Torch for DPS.
With this build, it is worth taking Wells in place of the typical skill bar. Use , , and . Reserve Wells for tagging groups of enemies when your Shade is down.
Willbender
With the nerf to Firebrand's and its poor mobility, Willbender is the more effective guardian option.
Although its virtues provide ample mobility, the tag potential falls somewhat short and must heavily rely on Staff skills like and along with . Since many enemies in the Lab are ranged, can also be used to gain a large number of tags. A allows us to use our skills more often.
can be used to tag mobs, though the travel time means it's not completely reliable. Try to practise firing staff skills at one target before immediately charging to a second.
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.
Warrior
Rather than introduce a full build for Warrior, instead it is recommended to just buy Jezza’s Flamethrower and use with or .
Warrior is extremely poor at tagging, unfortunately, and is not recommended for the Labyrinth.
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.
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