Yes, he was the "Traitor", and Vahlok was the "Guardian".

He was pretty cool, wish there was more interaction and speeches with him. he was very easy to kill I found, even on expert.

I dunno if I could say he was the best but he is in the top 5 I think, if for nothing more than his attitude when you do speak with him and his cool get up.

More like one of the lamest.

He has a lot of bluster.

He looks really stupid in that dumb looking gear.

He runs around like a little girl, every time he is almost easily killed.

I think he falls under the "could have been" category. Harkon was an all around bad-ass based off everything we know underworld vampires should be. But since this DLC shadowed out everything Miraak did as unimportant it made him seem as a pawn of HM more than his own person. I would have liked a different DLC with HM, and more sinister plots involving Miraak to put him up there as one of the best.

Dagoth Ur was better.

Like Miraak, Dagoth is an opponent and not a villain. He is not doing what he does out of evil, but because he thinks it is his way to break free/ the right thing to do respectively.
This is always what makes the best opponent.
In the real world no-one thinks of himself as evil. No-one does 'evil' things 'Just cause. Im bad. Oogah-boogah.'
'Evil', for the most part, for the part that is not treating people as things, is usually a point of view.
What you have in the Tribunal vs. Dagoth is that both treated people as things, and Pratchett teaches us that is the definition of evil.
What we have in Miraak is a soul hungry for a path that doesnt involve fealty to the old gods, but ensnared by a Daedra.
Miraak isnt really evil. He just wants out. Allright, maybe it drove him a little crazy.

Best villain?
Dagoth
Because he got more exposition.

Most tragic villain?
Miraak
Wouldnt you?

Well said, Merari.

Indeed, well said.

At least Miraak is in a better place. Inside my body. Awks.

Miraak needed more backstory, a longer main quest and a proper ending dialogue to further explore his motivations...THEN he would've been the best TES villain ever.
As it stands now, I'm going with Dagoth Ur as best villain...even if he was UGLY ( have you seen him in Morroblivion? God...) Miraak has a badass look, he's powerful, very powerful, but you see him two times during the whole questline and has less dialogue lines than Alduin...

I HATE the fact that you end the main quest with more questions about him than when you start your journey to stop him....why did he rebelled to the Dragons? Why did he refuse to kill Alduin? How did he escape Valhok's custody? How did he serve HMora if he was trapped in Apocrypha?

1. Their souls gave him power. 2. Not sure, might be just because he's a dike. 3. He was killed, no? 4. Weird tentacle things.

1. That's all? As I understood it, he was tainted by Mora so he started to kill Dragons to absorb their power...ok fine with that, but did he already refuse to fulfill his role to kill Alduin? Yes? No? Why?
2. Lol
3. I don't know, Valhok defeated him as he's the Guardian of the myth. He was Miraak's jailor, so Miraak was still alive after his defeat and imprisonment...then...who killed him and when? Did he fail to escape custody and was killed by Valhok?
4. Ehm....what?

Miraak was good enemy, but too weak and easy to beat. Ebony warrior, karstaag, alduin and dragon priests they was much thougher than Miraak. I hope we see much thougher enemys in future skyrim.

He seems to need the attention.
Cool character, basically, but from what I get, he lacks lore.

How were Alduin or the Dragon priests harder?

Miraak seemed to fit the role of antagonist much better than many of his predecessors in both Skyrim and other past games. His charisma, dynamism, and tendency to steal the souls of dragons slain by the player inspire a strong dislike of him and gave him the classic characteristics of a villain. In contrast, once the player is able to see that Miraak is merely a puppet in the hands of the gods (in this case Hermaeus Mora), a bit of light is shed on the similarities between both dragonborn. Although they have been manipulated into serving as instuments to the leaders of two followings, Akatosh and Hermaeus Mora, the player can see shades of himself in the antagonist. All of these factors combine to create a truly unique rival.

In comparison to previous villains such as Harkon and Mankar Camoran, Miraak is definately a better antagonist, and had the potential to approach Dagoth Ur status. Sadly, the story was a tad too short to warrant this appointment. A nemesis on the level of Miraak within this DLC came as a surprise. In my opinion, the add-on was quite well done.

In my opinion he was really good as a villain, I just expected his voice to be a bit more intimidating, it sounded as if he didn't finish puberty and was caught with a weird high/low voice. I still kinda liked Alduin better just because of the dragon lore and story behind him.

He has all of 5 minutes of dialogue. Hardly.

Don't get me wrong, he seemed pretty awesome, but he was hardly the antagonist I had hoped he would be.

I cast my vote for Dagoth Ur.

Miraak is under-developed, as is Harkon.

1. Ebony Warrior and Karstaag were more like secret/bonus bosses and are purposely made far more powerful than they canonically should be. It was just something Bethesda added to challenge high level players.
2. To each his own, but I'd say Miraak was far more dangerous than Alduin or a dragon priest.
I do agree that he should've been tougher.

OT: I liked Miraak as a character. He could've had a more direct role for sure, but overall, he was among my favorites. Much of his background was left ambiguous because it was his background. Not yours. We know all about the Nerevarine's background because he got his own game. But if he were to appear in Skyrim, our character would learn little about him. I think the devs wanted Miraak to be like a corrupted mirror image of the pc, that's why they gave him a background that was just as open as our own.

This. RPGs have done it for ages.

One of the more prominent examples I can think of is Omega Weapon in FF8. Ultimecia was as tough as they come for final bosses, but Omega Weapon was on steroids and took far more finesse to beat.

Same here, sadly.
I liked the main quest, but it was too short.
I liked Miraak, but he appeared only two times and even if you do the side quest related to him and you read the book " The Guardian and the Traitor" his background is very underdeveloped...

He was pretty cool from what we saw but some more interaction would have been awesome.

At least you could speak a bit with Harkon, and his relationship with his daughter made it easier to want to kill him.

I'd gladly head out to the pub with Miraak if it weren't for the whole "rawr I want your soul" thing he has going on.

Agreed. Miraak could have been the best villain (far better than Alduin) but a serious lack of screen-time condemns him to be a bootnote in my memoirs.

When you have over powered weapon like +400dmg DB Warhammer Miraak is easy, and hes easy even normal powered weapons, but you need use right tactic. Alduin was much thougher, he used storm call i bet you taked much of dmg against him (my opinion). Dragon Priests like Otar or Hevnoraak they gave me hell of fight. I was about 40lvl when i killed them so they was probably about 20-30lvl greatures, and they use very strong magic! I dont know how you can say Miraak is strong he fight like fox (my opinion) Nevermind everyone haves own opinions.