What is the Monster Laboratory Daily Quest And is it Worth It?

In this short blog post, we’ll tackle everything there is to know about the Monster Laboratory instance. And if it’s worth clearing it daily.

Note: I appended some things to reflect the changes made on the recent update patch. To find out more about the important changes in the Episode 6 patch, simply click the hyperlink.

What is Monster Laboratory?

Monster Laboratory is a daily instance/quest added in Ragnarok Mobile Episode 5.5. It will cost you 60 30 combat time per run. The main mechanic is to kill all waves of monsters within the allotted 10 minutes of time. You will be rewarded with a huge base and job exp points as soon as you clear the waves.

This instance will be unlocked once you reach level 20. Simply talk to the NPC named Annie Prusse Monster Scholar in Prontera. She’s located near the mission board and exchange NPC.

Episode 6 Update Changelog for Monster Lab:

There are a couple of changes in the instance since the episode 6 update. The biggest one is the addition of the Prestige System. But these changes aren’t so big and it hasn’t changed the actual mechanic of the monster lab instance that much.

1. Monster Laboratory can now also be taken from any town. Just find Anni Prusse and you should be able to go into the instance.
   
   
2. Monster Lab now only consumes 30 minutes of combat time.
   
   
3. You can now purchase monster lab-specific items without going inside the dungeon.
   
   
4. You will now gain 10x monster lab prestige points every time you finish the instance. This will determine the Prestige Level of your character.
   
   
5. In conjunction with doing the monster lab instance, you can also buy Monster Records to instantly finish the instance. It will not cost any combat time and you will finish it as though you were able to kill all waves of monsters.
   
   I highly recommend reading our article about the Great Mentor’s License for more information about this.
   
   
6.  Higher Prestige Level will allow you to buy the exclusive monster lab items at a higher tier.
   
   Below are the items you can buy at each Prestige Level:

How Monster Laboratory Instance Works:

The monster laboratory daily quest kinda works like the Rift daily quest with a slight twist…

Here are a few quick things you need to know about this daily quest:

1. You can run this instance 3 times per day.
   
   
2. You need 60 30 combat time (green stamina) in order to get the base and job exp rewards in finishing this instance. 
   
   
3. The instance lasts 10 minutes per run but you can finish it faster as soon as you complete all the waves. But this also means you cannot get the maximum base and job exp if your party is slow to kill the mobs.
   
   If you can’t finish all the waves within 10 minutes, your base and job exp reward will depend on the number of monsters your party killed and your current level.
   
   The difference in base/job exp isn’t as huge as you imagined though.
   
   I made 2 tests on my level 110 Whitesmith. I wanted to see the difference in exp reward from killing 0 wave of monsters to killing all waves.
   
   The results are as follows:
   
   0 WAVES KILLED – base exp reward is 13, 691, 994
   FINISHED ALL WAVES – base exp reward is 15, 061, 194
   
   The difference between killing no monster at all vs finishing all the waves fast is only 1.3m+ exp.
   
   I get that this is still millions of exp points. But if we put this into perspective, one more run of monster lab will cover 13 times of failed runs.
   
   The point is, you don’t have to stress out if your party cannot kill the monster waves fast. The difference won’t be that big.
   
   
4. There is a maximum base and job exp you get as a reward per run. This varies depending on the level of your character.
   
   
5. You can still do the monster laboratory daily quest even if you’ve used up your green stamina but you won’t have any rewards. But this also means leeching is possible like you would in the Endless Tower.
   
   Note: Though you can enter this instance even at yellow or red stamina, the main prerequisite is that you still haven’t completed the 3 allowed runs per day. So if you already completed it, you cannot boost someone even if you want to.
   
   
6.  Though leeching is possible, there are level-bracketing in each instance.
   
   Characters cannot enter an instance higher than his/her level bracket. For example, if your character is only level 85, he/she can only enter the level 80-89 dungeon. Even if your party up with people who unlocked the level 100-110 dungeon, you won’t be able to enter.
   
   However, a higher level character can enter a lower level dungeon. So for the example above, a level 120 character can leech your level 85 character as long as you enter the 80-89 instance dungeon.
   
   
7. This instance is a matchmaking mode. You can enter this solo and you will have a full party once you get inside.
   
   You can also party up with someone you know and the system will fill the missing party members.
   
   
8. You get more investigation points when killing each monster.
   
   You can use it to purchase items from the adventure merchant from within the dungeon. These items cannot be used outside of the monster laboratory instance but it will help you kill monsters faster.
   
   
9. If you get disconnected during your run, you will not get any rewards but your combat time will also not be consumed.
   
   
10. Even if you don’t have green stamina, you still get investigation points. But then again, you can’t use the items you can purchase outside of the dungeon so it’s pretty much useless.
    
    You can, however, use those the next time you run the monster laboratory instance.

Monster Lab vs Normal Grinding vs Leeching:

As you know, the new Niflheim Pet Adventure is a pretty lucrative way to earn Zennies without needing to continuously spend a lot of time grinding or investing in expensive gears and bronze/gold medals.

This is great for making your alt character a money-making machine!

The problem is, leveling a character to 110 is really hard for a character without much equips.

So I’ve been thinking, which is better in terms of pure experience points alone? Monster Lab, solo grinding or leeching with a strong farming character like the Warlock or Genetics?

So I made 3 tests using my level 101 Whitesmith at Toy Factory Level 1. One for grinding solo, another one is leeching to a stronger character and lastly, doing the monster lab instance.

As you can see, my Whitesmith gained the most experience points doing monster lab than grinding solo or leeching.

Though my Whitesmith can kill Cruisers in a single skill, it still performed worse than leeching to my brother’s Warlock. Which is still not better than doing the monster laboratory daily quest.

I can probably get better exp if I leech on a less crowded area in Magma Dungeon but I doubt it will exceed the exp I got from the monster lab.

Pros and Cons:

On to the main question, is the monster lab daily quest worth spending your combat time on? Well, it depends.

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons:

Pros:

• You can get the most base and job experience points for your 180 90 combat time doing Monster Laboratory than solo grinding or leeching from stronger mob-killing characters.
  
  
• Doing 3 instances of Monster Laboratory will only take about 30 minutes or less. This will save you 2.5 hours of grinding without lightning chains and 30 minutes without it. Though it won’t save you as much time as it did before the episode 6 patch, you will still gain the most base and job exp for your 90 minutes worth of combat time.
  
  
• You can level up your alt characters even without investing Zennies on equips just as long someone from your team can kill the mobs in the instance fast.

Cons:

• Probably the biggest con is you won’t have as many Zennies and loots as you would if you just grind normally. So I won’t be recommending doing this for your main characters.
  
  
• Since you can only do this 3 times a day, you’ll still have some green stamina left after completing all 3 runs. This kinda ruins the whole point of not investing equips for your alt character if you don’t have someone to leech you.
  
  
• Even if your alt character doesn’t have any good equips, you can still run lower levels of pet adventure.
  
  That said, you won’t get nearly as many goodies than when you do lower levels of pet adventures like the Glast Heim Outskirts map if you choose to do this instance.
  
  If you can reach level 110 or 120 for your alt character though, the Zennies you can earn per day doesn’t even come close compared to any other pet adventure map.

It is worth it if:

• You want to save time leveling up your characters. Especially your alts.
  
  
• If you want your character to gain as much exp as possible within the 90 minutes of combat time.
  
  
• You don’t want to invest gears for your alt characters but you still want to level them up so you can do the Nifleheim Pet adventure or higher pet adventures from future patches.
  
  
• Your focus is to level up your character as fast as you can and you don’t care much about the Zennies you can earn when doing normal grinding.

Conclusion:

Doing the Monster Laboratory instance daily and then leeching from another character is probably the fastest way to level up your characters so you can reach the minimum requirements for high-end pet adventures like the Niflheim or Lighthalzen pet adventures.

While the amount of Zeny you can get is very low, it does help with your sprint to level up your alt characters so you can do higher daily pet adventures sooner.

Sure, there are a couple of ways to earn 1-3M+ from your alt characters. But some of us don’t have much time for that, given that we also spend time grinding from our main characters.

The monster laboratory instance is pretty useful for people who don’t have much time to spend doing normal grinding.

Did we miss something? Please let us know in the comments.