Cold as the Grave is the 16th main story mission in Borderlands 3 (BL3). This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the Cold as the Grave Main Quest.
Cold as the Grave is unlocked when you complete Going Rogue.
Planet: Eden-6
Area: Floodmoor Basin
Quest Giver: Wainwright
Requirement: Complete Going Rogue
Recommended Level: 30
Reward: 9019$ / 22113XP / Unique Shield / Unique Rocket Launcher from each boss
Mission Info: Wainwright knows where the final Vault Key fragment is, which makes your job a lot simpler: shoot your way to the fragment, shoot your way into the Vault, then shoot your way out. It’s best not get get bogged down in the details.
Objectives:
- Talk to Wainwright
- Meet Clay
- Follow Clay
- Enter estate
- Find barrel delivery pipe
- Secure area
- Find delivery pipe
- Activate delivery pipe
- Activate delivery pipe
- Secure area
- Activate delivery pipe
- Destroy barrel
- Grab Vault Key fragment
- Enter conveyor system
- Meet Wainwright
- Defeat Aurelia
- Check on Hammerlock
- Head to estate grounds
- Reveal ruins: 0/3
- Reveal ruins: 1/3
- Reveal ruins: 2/3
- Activate bridge
- Enter ruins
- Meet Tannis
- Give Vault Key fragment to Tannis
- Wait for Key’s creation
- Take Vault Key
- Place Vault Key
- Defeat Grave
- Defeat Ward
- Observe Tannis
- Loot Vault
- Talk to Tannis
- Return to Sanctuary 3
- Talk to Lilith
Starting Location: Cold as the Grave
Talk to Wainwright
When you’re ready to start the mission, head to Knotty Peak and speak to Wainwright inside the house.
Meet Clay
Wainwright says Clay has the info about where the Vault Key is, fast travel to Reliance to meet him.
Follow Clay
Clay will head off to a location (he just outright disappeared for me and was immediately at the destination). Head your way there.
Enter Estate
Head through the newly opened door into the Blackbarrel Cellars area.
Find Barrel Delivery Pipe
Head forward down the path until you reach an area with enemies. Take them all out, then continues further.
Secure Area
Once you reach the delivery room you’ll need to clear it of all the current occupants.
Find Delivery Pipe
Once all the enemies are dealt with, head over to the marked spot in the center of the main room.
Activate Delivery Pipe
Hit the green button on the console near the large pipe.
Activate Delivery Pipe
Hit the button again to see if Wainwright got the correct code put in this time.
Secure Area
This time the pipe spits out some enemies, along with some more spawning into the room. Take them all out. After a while it will spawn a large armored enemy named Badass Hog, take it out too.
Activate Delivery Pipe
Once all the enemies are cleared out, head back and activate the button one more time.
Destroy Barrel
The pipe finally spits out the correct item, a barrel. Destroy it to get inside.
Grab Vault Key Fragment
Grab your last Vault Key fragment off the ground where the barrel was.
Enter Conveyor System
Head up the walkway on the rest of the room, then over on the conveyor belt to continue through a newly opened door.
Meet Wainwright
Head through the next rooms to meet Wainwright. Once you get into the second large room you’ll have a number more enemies to fight again before you can proceed. Head to the back of the room and drop down to the lower area for a chest, then go back up and up the stairs to continue. Head in to the room with the hanging bodies, then jump down the hole in the ground when you’re ready to proceed to the boss fight.
Defeat Aurelia
Aurelia uses all frost based attacks during this fight, so if you get hit they’ll slow you down. She’ll start by summoning a bunch of blocks around the room that block the way, but also function as cover. Occasionally she’ll throw a group of tracking icicles at you, or summon a number of tornadoes that move around the room. Once you get her shield gone, she’ll eventually start showing immune and then encase herself in a block of ice to try and regain shield. Shoot her ice block to break her out and stop the shield regeneration. If she jumps up on to a pedestal of ice to start shooting at you you can shoot this too to knock her down. When she summons a large snowball that floats up in to the air, it will reach a certain point then rain down a large number of snowballs in the immediately area, so get to the other part of the room if you can when that happens. Keep putting ammo into her while avoiding her homing attacks and she should go down easy.
Check on Hammerlock
Once you’ve put Aurelia on ice, Hammerlock and Wainwright will be let out of their blocks. Head over to check on them.
Head to Estate Grounds
Now that you have all the Vault Key fragments, you need to find the way into the vault out on the estate grounds. Head outside.
Reveal Ruins: 0/3
Head over to the statue to deal with the first ruin. Listening to the recording beside the statue, the clue should tell you to shoot the statue in the head.
Reveal Ruins: 1/3
Head to the newest opened area to the West. Head into the tunnel area then all the way back to the statue at the far West of the area. For this statue you want to go around behind it and shoot it in the back.
Immediately after doing that you’ll have a Badass Jabber spawn and run towards you. Take it out then head all the way back East to the new area.
Reveal Ruins: 2/3
Head up to the greenhouse and interact with the door to get inside.
Take out all the enemies in the greenhouse, then head to the second room. This statue you need to shoot right between the legs.
Activate Bridge
Head back outside to the central area. In the middle of the pool a button will come out for you to activate.
Enter Ruins
You can now head across the bridge to the ruins.
Meet Tannis
Tannis meets you inside the building with the other Vault Key fragments.
Give Vault Key Fragment to Tannis
Hand over the last fragment to her.
Wait for Key’s Creation
Tannis heads inside and will assemble the Vault Key for you.
Take Vault Key
Head over to her and take the newly assembled Vault Key.
Place Vault Key
When you’re ready, jump down the hole to another boss area.
Put the vault key in the waiting receptacle in the middle of the area.
Defeat Grave/Defeat Ward
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A pair of guardian enemies will immediately spawn instead of a large Vault Monster. They run around try to melee and shoot you, but shouldn’t be too hard to take out. As they are guardians their health bars are just shield type, so shock element works quick against them. At a certain point they will start standing still and both tandem casting a spell where you will have orange orbs shot at you from the middle of the vault arch. Pump into one of them until they die at that point, then take out the other.
Defeat Graveward
Now the real boss fight starts, the two guardians go into the large entity at the back of the area to turn into the Graveward, which is a giant boss that floats outside the arena area. It has a number of attacks that it will do to attack you, and after each one it will reveal it’s critical points that will allow you to deal more damage. The crit points for it are the two orbs in it’s hands.
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And the light up area in it’s chest.
Whenever it does either attack where it’s hands stay in one spot for a seconds, tilts the arena floor, or jumps on the front and spews poison on the ground you can put shots into the crit points for extra damage. Otherwise just keep watch for it’s attack and the enemies it summons. If it swipes across the arena it will leave a poison area that you should avoid standing in when possible. When it does the arena tilt, you can jump into the holes on either side to stop yourself sliding, or just face up the hill and keep jumping while pressing forward if you’re not near the holes.
After a certain amount of damage it might also drop and rest it’s head on the arena floor at the front. You can shoot it directly in the eye for more damage too.
Once it’s done this one, it will start to shoot lasers at the arena floor. These either go right up the middle around sweep across the front, so they’re relatively easy to avoid. Once you have it’s health all the way down, it spews loot out for you.
Observe Tannis
Tannis comes out with her device to try and completely neutralize the Vault Monster so the Calypsos can’t use it. Wait for her to do her thing while you grab your loot.
Loot Vault
You can now head in to the Vault to collect your real loot.
Loot the chests around the area, then go grab the Eridian Synchronizer from the middle of the room.
This now lets you equip your final inventory slot, which holds artifacts that give stat boosts.
Talk to Tannis
Once you’ve grabbed everything, head back outside and speak to Tannis.
Return to Sanctuary 3
Fast travel yourself back to Sanctuary
Talk to Lilith
And finally speak to Lilith to complete the mission.
This finishes Cold as the Grave main mission in Borderlands 3. Now the next quest Blood Drive becomes available.
Next Up: Blood Drive
For all other Mission Walkthroughs, check out our complete Borderlands 3 Walkthrough.
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