Gems vs. Farming – Minotaur’s Labyrinth

The Minotaur’s Labyrinth is one of the most important areas in Raid: Shadow Legends for unlocking mastery bonuses for your champions through scrolls. Each champion requires a total of 1,650 scrolls, broken down into 100 Basic Scrolls, 600 Advanced Scrolls, and 950 Divine Scrolls. While many players opt to instantly unlock masteries by spending 800 Gems for convenience, farming the scrolls offers additional benefits, such as earning XP and Silver, while conserving Gems that could be converted into energy.

In today’s article, we’ll break down the actual cost of farming masteries through the Minotaur’s Labyrinth and compare it to the instant unlock option, so you can decide which route is more beneficial to you.

The biggest advantage of spending 800 Gems to unlock masteries comes down to one key factor: time. With just a click, all scrolls for the selected champion are instantly unlocked, allowing you to build out their mastery tree immediately. Early in your Raid journey, it’s often recommended to use this method for your first 1-2 six-star champions. Doing so helps you progress faster through areas like Campaign, Dungeons, and Clan Boss. It also helps you to start farming future champions by clearing Stage 15 of the Minotaur’s Labyrinth, where you gain the highest amount of scrolls per run – speeding up the process and maximizing energy efficiency.

Since scrolls are shared between champions who aren’t fully mastered yet, having one or two champions already maxed ensures the scrolls go directly to the champions you’re farming. The same strategy applies for any additional champions you choose to master later on.

In the mid to late game, whether you choose to instantly unlock masteries with 800 Gems can often depend on your resources and playstyle – whether you’re free to play or a spender, and how much energy or gems you have available. However, with the addition of background battles, farming scrolls feels less tedious and offers valuable rewards along the way. Now, let’s just hope Raid increases the dungeon stages in the future to make farming even faster!

When farming masteries for your champions in the Minotaur’s Labyrinth, you’ll want to consistently clear the highest stage for maximum efficiency – Stage 15. This stage offers a scroll drop range of 24-32 Basic Scrolls, 11-16 Advanced Scrolls, or 6-12 Divine Scrolls per run. The type of scrolls you receive depends on the progression of the champion receiving them. For example, they’ll only start earning Advanced Scrolls after completing the Basic Scroll requirement, and Divine Scrolls after finishing the Advanced tier. Each champion requires a total of 1,650 scrolls to fully unlock their masteries: 100 Basic Scrolls, 600 Advanced Scrolls, and 950 Divine Scrolls.

The benefit of farming masteries over spending Gems to instantly unlock them can be significant for players willing to put in the time. Not only do you earn valuable XP for champions that aren’t yet fully ranked, but you also accumulate Silver with each run. On top of that, farming is a more cost effective use of your Gems and Energy in the long term. In the next section of this article, we’ll break down the exact cost difference between farming and instant unlocks. Plus, with the amount of energy you may have from various sources, you can further reduce the need to spend Gems purely on energy refills when farming masteries.

So, let’s take a closer look at how many resources you could be saving when farming masteries for each champion. In terms of XP, the amount earned depends on how many champions are in your team. For example, if you’re using one champion to clear the waves and boss, along with a single champion you’re farming, that champion will earn significantly more XP than they would in a full team of five. It’s important to note that many players rely on multiple champions to consistently defeat Stage 15 as they progress. Just make sure the team you’re running has a 100% success rate, so you’re not wasting energy on failed runs while trying to earn a bit of extra XP.

When it comes to how many runs are needed to take a champion from zero to max scrolls, it starts with the energy cost for Stage 15, which is 14 energy per run. On average, it takes around 150 to 160 runs to fully unlock a champion’s masteries, factoring in the variation in scroll drops per run. This estimate applies when focusing on a single champion. If you’re farming scrolls for multiple champions at the same time, the number of runs required will increase accordingly.

• 150 runs = 2,100 energy
• 160 runs = 2,240 energy

Assuming you have an energy cap of 130 in-game, let’s take a look at how many Gems it would cost to convert directly into energy for these runs. This calculation doesn’t factor in any energy you may have already accumulated – whether from stacking energy, or earning it through Doom Tower, Tournaments, Events, Missions, or Milestones.

• 16 refills x 130 energy per refill = 2,080 energy
• 16 refills x 40 gems per refill = 640 gems

The calculation above is based on 150 runs, which leaves you about 20 energy short. However, you can typically use energy you’ve naturally generated to cover the remainder. Below, let’s take a look at what’s required for 160 runs:

• 17 refills x 130 energy per refill = 2,210 energy
• 17 refills x 40 gems per refill = 680 gems

To fully reach 2,240 energy, you would either need to generate the remaining 30 energy naturally or use one more refill.

DOUBLE XP

• Solo = 20760 XP (100%)
• 2 Champions = 10380 XP (50%)
• 3 Champions = 6920 XP (33.33%)
• 4 Champions = 5190 XP (25%)
• 5 Champions = 4152 XP (20%)

NO DOUBLE XP

Without Double XP, simply divide the numbers above by 2:

• Solo = 10380 XP
• 2 Champions = 5190 XP
• 3 Champions = 3460 XP
• 4 Champions = 2595 XP
• 5 Champions = 2076 XP

SILVER

Silver is another important factor when choosing to farm masteries instead of using gems to unlock them instantly. For each champion you invest in, you could earn over 1 million silver through farming. While it might not seem like a huge amount at first, over time it adds up and can be valuable for upgrading artifacts during enhancement events, as an example. Here’s a breakdown of how much silver you could be earning.

• 7,420 Silver Per Run
• 1,113,000 silver from 150 runs
• 1,187,200 silver from 160 runs

To conclude, based on a scenario of completing 150 runs, even if directly converting gems into energy for farming and not factoring any you have conserved on your account, it’s definitely more cost efficient. Not only are you saving 160 gems compared to instantly unlocking masteries, but you’re also gaining over 1 million silver for each champion you complete, along with valuable XP to rank up their levels while unlocking masteries at the same time. The only real advantage of instantly unlocking, as mentioned at the start, is the time saved from not having to farm!