Attack Patterns
| Attack | Type | Damage | Counter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Floor Slam | Physical AOE | High, covers entire arena | Jump over the shockwave or stand behind pillars |
| Toxic Spit | Corrosive DOT | Medium, leaves acid pools | Move to clean ground, avoid puddles |
| Sweeping Beam | Radiation | Very High, tracks across arena | Hide behind stone pillars, beam destroys them after 2 sweeps |
| Summon Rakk | Minion Spawn | Low, but distracting | Clear Rakk quickly, they drop ammo and health |
| Tilt Arena | Environmental | None, slides you into death pit | Move opposite direction immediately, grab ledges |
Farming Strategy
Honestly phase 1 from 100 to 70 percent you just crit the head while it's stationary, use high crit weapons like Monocle or Unseen Threat and watch the health bar melt, it's pretty satisfying to see those big yellow numbers. Then phase 2 from 70 to 30 percent the chest core gets exposed after every Floor Slam so fire between attack animations and dump all your heavy ammo into it, the core takes bonus damage and the hitbox is enormous. Phase 3 at 30 percent and below is the enrage with faster attacks and Tilt Arena more frequent, just burn with everything you've got and don't hold back, use your action skill dump all grenades and stuff like that. For speed farming Fl4k Fade Away plus Monarch bipod literally deletes Graveward in seconds and Moze Iron Bear with Vanquisher Rocket Pods also melts, both are kind of ridiculous tbh and either one will get the job done fast.
Dedicated Loot Table
| Weapon | Type | Element | Drop Chance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flakker | Shotgun | Explosive | 10% |
| Lob | Shotgun | Any Element | 10% |
| Grave | Artifact | , | 10% |
| Vault Hero | Class Mod | , | 10% |
| Ward | Shield | , | 10% |
Best Weapons for Graveward
| Weapon | Type | Synergy | Manufacturer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monarch | AR | Bipod mode melts stationary crit spots | Vladof |
| Light Show | Pistol | 4 projectiles all crit the massive head | Jakobs |
| Hellwalker | Shotgun | One-shot crit on head hitbox | Jakobs |
| Yellowcake | RPG | Split projectiles cover large hitbox | COV |
| Plaguebearer | RPG | Homing projectiles from Rakk kills | Maliwan |
Detailed Fight Strategy
Graveward is basically a giant stationary target with phases so the fight is more about damage output than mechanical skill, and honestly I love this fight because it's just a DPS check and you don't have to deal with a million adds running around like some other bosses. The arena is a large circular platform with stone pillars around the edges and this massive guardian in the center, first thing you want to do when you drop in is get to one of the stone pillars doesn't matter which side. The pillars block his sweeping beam and floor slam shockwaves and they last through about 2 beam sweeps before breaking so you'll need to rotate, tbh positioning is half the fight here and if you get caught in the open without a pillar you're in trouble.
Phase one he's mostly just doing Floor Slam and Toxic Spit and the slam sends a shockwave across the entire arena, you either jump over it or stand behind a pillar. The timing on the jump is honestly pretty forgiving, just jump when you see the ring expanding from his fist hitting the ground, I've gotten the timing down to where I almost never get hit by it anymore and it feels like second nature at this point. The Toxic Spit leaves green pools that do corrosive DOT and if you stand in them for more than like 2 seconds you're dead, so keep moving around the clean edges of the arena and watch where you're stepping basically. During this phase his head is the best crit spot, it's stationary and huge, anything with high crit damage like a Monocle or Unseen Threat just deletes chunks of his health bar and it feels so good when you see those numbers pop up.
Phase two kicks in around 70 percent HP and his chest core gets exposed after each Floor Slam, this is where you want to dump all your heavy ammo because the core takes like 2x damage and it's a massive hitbox you literally cannot miss it. But the tradeoff is he starts using the Sweeping Beam more often and that beam is no joke, it tracks across the arena slowly but hits like a truck and you literally cannot tank through it even with the best shields in the game. Hide behind pillars when you see the beam charging up, seriously don't try to out heal it because you will die and it'll be your own fault. He also starts summoning Rakk and you should absolutely kill a few of them because they drop ammo and health, don't ignore them completely or you'll run out of both and then you're just standing there with no ammo looking stupid, trust me I've been there.
Phase three at 30 percent is the enrage and he tilts the arena more often which slides you toward the death pit at the edges, the moment you see the camera tilt sprint in the opposite direction, it's pretty much instant death if you fall off and I've definitely fallen off more times than I want to admit ngl. At this point just burn everything, use your action skill dump all grenades ignore the Rakk unless you need health, the fight should end fast if you saved your cooldowns for this phase, you know the drill, don't blow everything in phase one like I did the first few times and then wonder why the enrage takes forever to finish.
Best Vault Hunters for This Boss
Fl4k is the undisputed king of Graveward farming and Fade Away with Guerrillas in the Mist and a Monarch in bipod mode can kill him in literally one Fade Away activation if your build is optimized, I've done it and it's honestly ridiculous how fast he dies when everything lines up. The crit damage stacking from Leave No Trace and Megavore just cascades and his health bar evaporates, it's the definition of a speed kill and honestly makes every other Vault Hunter feel slow on this fight, like you try it with Amara after using Fl4k and you're just sitting there wondering where all your damage went and why the fight is taking 5 times longer.
Moze is a close second though, Iron Bear with Vanquisher Rocket Pods and some points in Stainless Steel Bear lets you just hold down the trigger while walking around dodging stuff and the damage is pretty ridiculous. Short Fuse procs with a Flipper or Plasma Coil also just shred through his massive hitbox, pretty effective tbh and way safer than Fl4k squishy builds. Zane is decent but not amazing because his damage relies more on movement speed bonuses and kill skills which are harder to keep up since there aren't many adds in this fight. Amara is honestly the weakest for Graveward, she can get the job done with Ties That Bind and a good Phasezerker setup but it takes longer than the other three, her strength is mobbing not single target boss DPS. So the ranking is basically Fl4k then Moze then Zane then Amara, and the gap between Fl4k and everyone else is honestly kind of huge, like it's not even close if you have the right gear.
Mayhem Mode Differences
Graveward scales pretty brutally at higher Mayhem levels and his health pool is already one of the biggest in the game, at M10 it becomes genuinely ridiculous and you absolutely need an optimized build or you'll be in there for 15 minutes wondering what you're doing wrong with your life. The floor slam shockwave travels faster at M6+ so the jump timing window gets tighter which honestly caught me off guard the first few times I tried it on higher Mayhem. The sweeping beam also does more damage and the pillars break after just one sweep instead of two which means you need to rotate positions much more aggressively, kind of annoying but manageable if you stay on your toes and pay attention to pillar health.
Modifiers can make or break this fight, Galaxy Brain is actually great because it increases his head hitbox which is already huge and Speed Demon helps you dodge the tilt arena mechanic faster. But Laser Fare or Post Mortem can be really annoying because the environmental hazards force you off the safe zones and you end up taking damage from random stuff you can't even see. Dazed and Infused is a straight reroll, you don't want him resisting your main damage element and that's just facts imo. And Drone Ranger or any buddy system modifier makes the Rakk situation way worse because now you've got extra enemies flying around and it's just chaos, like who thought this was a good idea. At M10 specifically you basically need to be using one of the meta boss killers like Monarch Light Show Flipper Plasma Coil you get the idea, if you're trying to kill M10 Graveward with random world drop legendaries you're gonna have a bad time and I'm not even exaggerating, it will take forever and you'll probably die to something stupid like Rakk chip damage or whatever.
Speed Farming Tips
This can be one of the fastest farms if you set it up right and the spawn point outside the Vault is maybe 15 seconds from the arena with a vending machine right there for ammo resupply, super convenient honestly and one of the best boss run layouts in the game. The key to speed is Fl4k with Fade Away and with a properly rolled Stackbot class mod and a x4 Monarch the kill itself takes under 10 seconds, like it's actually insane how fast it is once you have the right setup. The entire loop of loading in running to the arena melting him grabbing loot and quitting is about 45 seconds total, you can get so many kills per hour it's kind of ridiculous, probably the best legendaries-per-hour farm in the entire game if you're efficient about it.
A few specific tips, use a Cutpurse Launch Pad artifact to refill heavy ammo on melee during the run in and toggle bipod mode on the Monarch before you drop into the arena so you're ready to fire immediately, those seconds add up when you're doing hundreds of runs. Don't even look at the loot until he's fully dead and the death animation is playing, the loot isn't going anywhere and those extra few seconds of shooting matter. If you're on Moze instead of Fl4k hop into Iron Bear during the death animation to skip the loot fountain delay, neat little trick I picked up from watching speedrunners do their thing. And honestly the best farming time is during the Loot the Universe event if that's active because the world drop rate goes crazy and you'll get way more legendaries per kill, event farming is just better in every way, more legendaries more world drops more class mods more everything and stuff like that.
Common Death Causes
Getting swept off the arena by the tilt mechanic is probably the number one cause of death and it's always embarrassing because it's 100 percent avoidable, you see the screen start tilting and you just sprint the other way but people panic and run the wrong direction or they're in the middle of a Fade Away and don't notice the tilt. If you're scoped in a lot just unzoom periodically to check the arena angle, I've died to this exact thing like a dozen times and every time I'm just sitting there facepalming myself because it's so avoidable and yet here I am falling into the void again.
The sweeping beam kills a ton of people who think they can out heal it and you can't, even with a Old God shield and all the regen in the world that beam does way too much damage. Just hide behind a pillar and when the pillar breaks which it will after 1 to 2 sweeps move to the next one immediately, don't wait for the next beam to start charging because by then it's too late. The Rakk seem harmless but they'll down you if you're at low health and not paying attention, they also block your shots sometimes which is super annoying when you're trying to crit the head, clear a few whenever you get a break in the boss's attack cycle or you'll regret it. And finally the Toxic Spit pools linger for a really long time and they're easy to back into while you're dodging other attacks, keep your camera aware of where the pools are or you're gonna have a bad time, learn from my mistakes basically and keep an eye on your feet.