tl;dr: In depth look at my Graveborn/Brr-Zerzer build, which focuses on making Reaper of Bones last for the rest of my miserable pathetic life.

Updated last: 5/19/2022

Intro

So first and foremost, if you are looking for that satisfying crunch of big damage numbers and bursting through entire swarms of mobs, this is not the build for you. However, if you want to be able to look death in the face as a map full of mobs is rushing you from the rafters and be able to laugh and say, "I will not take a knee. You will not put me in the ground this day. Be prepared to meet The Maker and answer for your existence." Then maybe this build is for you.

Here is a brief video showing the build running a Normal C35 run. https://youtu.be/PGzTBBQvomk **This video showcases a slightly outdated version of the build. Please refer to this post instead of the video where they differ**

This is NOT a companion build, there is a very small companion subtheme because of our armor pick, but its not our focus here. I have confirmed this build can run Chaos level 35 runs with no deaths, all Elite levels sub-30 minutes. However since I am just horrible at the mechanics to spawn the raid bosses, I have not been able to test that solo as of yet, hopefully I can do that soon though. I gotta Git Gud first.

Skill Tree

Here is a link to how I am Set up and here is the explanations for why:

Action Skill: I fell in love with Reaper of Bones since the first time I ran it in the story, and I haven't looked back since. The entire build is designed with this action skill in mind. We want to start our Action Skill when we load into a map, and we don't want to see it stop until the map is clear.

Graveborn: The majority of our skills come from this tree as it provides the most useful skills to both increase our damage, and our survivability.

Essence Drain: With a very low spell cooldown due to Arcane Bolt's crit feature and this being a Kill Skill (for Graveborn capstone skill purposes), this synergizes way too well for our build, and results in us being able to nearly spam our spell every couple of seconds.

Sanguine Sacrament: One of our premier survivability tools here. We will be casting a spell roughly every 5 seconds so this will be active most of the time.

Dark Pact: We are a Dark Magic build, so this is a no-brainer for damage increase.

Stain of the Soul: Since we cast spells all the time, another no brainer for bonus Dark magic damage.

Dark Hydra: Ok so I know, hot-take to only have 1 point here, My armor gives me +2 to this skill though which gives me that Max 3 Hydras. For more explanation on that part, go read the bit about the armor choice below.

Dread Covenant: Ok so, initially I liked this skill cause when it procs it doesn't end RoB, but honestly the damage mitigation while he is alive is actually the star of the show here. Triggering the sacrifice, I have found, is actually best used as a audio trigger (because your character will always say something when this triggers) to tell us RoB will be ending soon since we lost that 35% damage reduction.

Ascension: Here is the first Kill Skill we grabbed, which is important to remember as we are running the GB capstone ability. +HP and +Spell Damage are both very useful to us. While with spells alone we wont hit max stacks, we should be able to easily hit max stacks as we roll through the mobs in the dungeons.

Lord of Edges: +Damage and +Damage reduction that is scaling with how low our health is. This is super useful for when we have had RoB active for a WHILE and the HP drain starts getting more intense.

Blast Gasp: This is probably our premier damage skill in the build. We should all know how powerful this skill can be especially with our spell spam, so I wont shove it down your throat too much.

Morhaim's Blessing: The GB Capstone, we have a couple Kill Skills in this build, most of which are related to survivability (especially HP regen) so being able to trigger all of those every 5 seconds is HUGE for us.

Brr-Zerker: I was drawn to this subclass because of the Class Feat, Rage of the Ancients. While we only have 1 Enrage buff in the skill tree, the one we have synergizes with RoB really well, so having it active through the entire Action skill is 100% a plus. This class also gives us a number of survivability options that I have found very useful.

Unyielding: Oh this baby is love. 3% HP regen through our entire RoB duration means more RoB-Zerker, simple.

Savagry: So this isn't exactly a synergy pick, was mostly a "I need to put 2 points somewhere to unlock the next skills, and Frost damage does very little for us" pick. Though as you will see later when we get to items, the extra Melee damage doesn't really go to waste for us.

The Old Ways: Bonus damage and Bonus Damage reduction. Damage reduction means RoB can stay active longer, plus this is the ONLY good skill at this Tier for our build.

Unarmored Defense: The boost to Max HP is huge for us as that's our primary resource. We aren't really going to ever have any ward during fights anyway with or without this skill.

Blood Frenzy: Hey look its our second Kill Skill! Extra Enrage timer means absolutely nothing to us, but a 9% Max HP restore every 5 seconds is *chef's kiss*.

Items

Gun: GLUTTONY!!! I use a gluttony with the dagger storm. I shouldn't need to explain why this is one of the best Dark Magic guns in the game honestly. Its a Ferriore gun that spawns a dagger tornado when you throw the empty gun away. With the amount of health regen we have in the build, the HP you lose when you reload rarely ever matters. Now, you CAN use whatever gun you are more comfortable with. a Fearnot would work very well with this build as we have a companion subtheme in our Armor choice.

Melee: Frying Pan. I have a Dark Magic frying pan with Echo on it. I initially wanted this just for the extra damage mitigation you get just having this equipped, but the Echo roll gives us some really nice damage chunks here and there. Best used when you have a Gluttony tornado out and just cast a Spell.

*Technically any melee weapon is fine for our build as we don't use it much. Though if you find a good one that refunds Action Skill cooldown, that is an ideal roll as it can help you get your action skill back up faster if it does drop.

Spell: Arcane Bolt. Ok main reason for Arcane bolt? Low base cooldown, refunds cooldown on crit which should be basically 100% of the time. I have one with 2 charges, and +2 projectiles. The Charges are more important than the projectiles IMO as that's gonna let us trigger our Capstone as often as possible.

Armor/Classmod: Scarlet Claw. Now this armor is usually geared towards companion builds. I tested both this and the Corrupted Platemail for this build, and the Claw feels much better (and the math on Platemail is.. sus). Now the big thing to remember here is you want this in Graveborn/Spore Warden NOT Graveborn/Brr-Zerker. Armor pieces roll with specific skills based on the class combination. Grave/Spore lets us get points in Faithful Thralls and Dark Hydra. Dark Hydra is a Kill Skill so we are triggering it on spellcast, and Thralls is giving the entire build extra damage because those Hydras exist, even if they aren't providing a lot of damage on their own. You want all 5 skill points to be in these two skills, and swap the single Skill Point I have above in Dark Hydra to Thralls depending on which one has the lower bonus from the armor.

*Corrupted Platemail can serve as a fine alternative Armor if you cant find the Claw you are looking for.

Amulet: Bloodwell. This basically doubles your Max HP pool during fights. With the roughly 10k+ max HP you will have because of this, all of your HP regen effects will be even more impactful when they trigger.

*A Theurge is a good alternative Amulet as being able to bring your action skill back up faster if it does drop due to 1-shot hits or getting swarmed a little too hard.

Shield: Cursed Wit. Shouldn't need too much explanation honestly, Its one of the best shields in the game. +100% damage vs enemies close to you is just too powerful to ignore.

*Note: If Cursed Wit gets a nerf, or you just cant find a decent one, a Body Rune can fit in this slot, though its not nearly as good at time of writing.

Rings: The most important thing for our rings are Spell related stats. Spell damage and Spell Crit chance are the two most important. We want our Spell Crit chance as close to 100% as possible to trigger the cooldown refund on Arcane Bolt.

The legendary rings you want to look out for are:

Mood/Thumb Cuffs: Both of these give 33% bonus to their stats, and will be active through your entire Chaos Run.

Championship: If you have the luxury, I would keep a couple of these in your backpack for the boss chambers as they provide a 50% buff to the stats on the rings.

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Enchants

There's a few good enchants we can pick from but here is the list I personally run. The point here is to spread our damage bonuses across as many different locations as possible. I recommend getting the HP regen enchant for your ward no matter what you put elsewhere as this will be very important for sustaining RoB.

DO NOT grab any enchants that increase your Ability Damage. RoB does not scale with Ability Damage as it doesn't deal any ability damage, it deals Bonus Dark Magic Damage.

You want enchants that trigger either on Spell Cast (OSC), or while action skill is active (ASA). Here is a brief list of enchants to look out for:

ASA Enchants: Increase Dark magic damage by 50%

OSC Enchants: Increase Damage Dealt by 15% for 10s; Increase Elemental Damage by 20% for 5s; Increase Dark Magic Damage by 30% for 5s

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Notes

So as I stated at the beginning, this is a sustained damage build, not a burst damage build. You are very tanky with this set-up and can easily run through Chaos runs with no deaths, and minimal Save your Soul interaction.

Elemental Overload is your worst enemy for Curses. Never take it. Don't. It will turn a 30 minute Chaos run, into a 2 hr Chaos run and you will want to shove your frying pan down your ear canal and fry your brains for breakfast with a side of bacon and biscuits. 100% of the time the Boss has Immunity to Dark magic damage.

Let me know what you think, and I hope you enjoyed the in-depth look at why I made the choices I did.

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Edit1: Forgot to include Enchants... like a dingus

Edit2: Added note about Elemental Overload curse, don't risk it.

Edit3: Added video link!

Edit4: Swapped T1 Skills on grave side; Added alternate Item choices for some slots; Updated rings following the changes from hotfix; expanded on enchants section.