I have just become a werewolf , I am level 66 on expert difficulty with 650 health... Why do I get completely thrashed by bandits ? I've unlocked Bestial Strength and Animal Vigor as well, and I still get killed really fast, plus my damage output is really low ... Does it get easier later or will I still die as frequently with all perks unlocked ?

I found it got easier the more non-totem perks you add. Once I got the totems I used the beast call totem so I could summon some werewolves. That helped. Nevetheless, I found it advisable to drop the difficulty down to adept at first and avoid clumps of bandits until I was able to buff up some. The Lord Stone could be of use as well. And never forget: you can always run away. My strategy for dealing with an ancient dragon while in ww form was to simply run over to a giant and get him to join in the fight while I ran around trying to avoid being breathed on (or worse, bitten).

summoning werewolves sound cool for distraction

Reassess your battle tactics. Try to keep your battles 1-on-1. You would find that your werewolf 1-on-1 battles are easy against anyone. You stagger with every hit, so your opponent doesn't even have chance to damage you.

Don't just charge into a battle when you see 5 bandit marauders hanging out. Use sprinting to your advantage. Sprint in. Sprint out. Move about. Don't get surrounded. Don't be afraid to run away. Werewolves are amazing at sprinting. Nobody can catch you.

Also keep in mind that all your weapons and armor are unequipped when you transform. That 0 armor is the real killer, what makes Beast Form useless at higher levels.

Visit Solstheim...

Good advice. To add to this: Keep in mind some strong enemies can deal up to 250 damage with a single attack on adept, and 500 on master. Can you handle this kind of damage without armor? What's your health? Around 400 health would keep you alive comfortably in Adept at level 81. In master, 600 health should keep you from dying too often. If you have less health, you have to play more carefully and choose your battles.

Do you have the werewolf ring? There are some tricks you can use. You can cast alteration spells and drink your potions before transforming. The effect continues when you transform into Werefolf. If you are a magic user and have little health, you can drink potion of Fortify Alteration, then dual-cast Dragonhide before transforming. That will give you max armor for 4 minutes. (This sounds like a lot of trolling fun, I should try this.)

WW's now have inherent armor. It varies depending on level. From the uesp wiki:

The armor rating is 0 at level 1 and then increasing in 50 point intervals every fifth level, beginning at level 11. The maximum rating is 400 at level 46.

Also, I don't see the 4 minutes for Dragonhide. It is inherently 30 seconds. With stability that can increase to 45. With a 100% fortify potion you are up to 90 seconds. There is no way to dual cast Dragonhide, it is a master level spell so you are already using two hands.

Good info on the Werewolf. Thank you. I thought I liked werewolf when I tried it out a few weeks ago. Much stronger than I remember before Dawnguard.


Ah, Dragonhide is the one of the few Master level spells that can be dual cast. The animation is the same, but it uses the usual 2.6x magicka for 2.2x power. It was an exciting discovery for me as well, when someone else here mentioned it some months ago. With Stability and Dual Cast 45 second Dragonhide becomes 99 second Dragonhide. With 100% Fortify Alteration, it becomes 198 seconds. I think you can get fortify alteration to 120% without enchanting anything yourself. And you can get it up to 160% if you do the maxing out alchemy enchanting thing.

I think there are perhaps several other master spells that benefit from dual casting. Perhaps that restoration master spell, or maybe the illusion spells. But I haven't tried those yet.

Some strategy going on here , can't complain about it , thanks a lot for your advice , I have around 500 health on expert and since I have the 4 damage perks it's starting to be ok but I still get killed quickly if I dont go 1 on 1 !
The other annoying thing is the time limit and the usage limit ... I'm hesitating to change to a Vampire Lord because I'm not patient enough to pause the game before every transformation to drink potions and cast spells
However I will get all the perks first and give it a last try ! I heard there was a werewolf pack on Solstheim where I could buy some upgrades, and I also have to start the totems quests to get the brotherhood howl since I recently was elected Harbinger

The once a day usage limit goes away once....

My question is: can you use that AND one of the rings you can buy on Solstheim? I doubt it. And I would rather have the health regeneration ring.

I just tried using dragonhide with the dual casting perk (thank goodness for Dragonborn) and I did not see any difference in time between that and the same spell without the dual-cast perk. Please confirm that dragonhide actually benefits from dual-cast.