With the Dawnguard expansion, Werewolves will be getting their own perk tree that they gain perks in by feeding.
Some of the known perks focus around increasing the Werewolf's "survivability" by increasing his Health and Health recovery. However, due to a bug with Patch 1.3 that hasn't been fixed yet, Werewolves have no Armor Rating whatsoever. Which means that even with a gargantuan Health pool, it will dwindle very rapidly due to the fact that you're taking full damage from all attacks. Werewolves will still be "squishy" no matter how much health they have, if they have no damage mitigation. This can be seen in some of the clips of Dawnguard that we've seen. In the clip with the Werewolf player attacking the guard, each shot of the guard's bow is taking large amounts of health out of the Werewolf. Going up against multiple opponents as a Werewolf, would likely be suicide. This needs to be fixed. Bethesda needs to give Werewolves back their Base Armor Rating, and then implement a perk that increases it further, in order to make Beast Form balanced and somewhat on par with the Vampire Lord.

Another thing i'm wondering about, is if a Werewolf player will be able to assist the Volkihar or the Dawnguard, while remaining a Werewolf. Instead of recieving new Vampiric powers or whatever, you could recieve item rewards or such for completing quests. It'd be pretty lame if players were forced to cure their Lycanthropy before they could assist either of the main factions in the expansion.

I'm hoping to see at least some sort of response from Bethesda about these two topics specifically.

I don't think that removing the werewolf form as counting as light armor was a bug, it may have been a fix.

Pretty sure it was a bug. Awhile back, Vsions responded to a post about Werewolve's losing their AR, stating that he'd check into it.
The very fact that my Lvl 68 Nord Warrior with 550 Health/320 Stamina/100 Magicka can take on a group of Draugr Death Overlords no problem when equipped, but get's wrecked by a single Draugr Death Overlord while in Beast Form even though he has 650 Health/420 Stamina then, is messed up. In order to survive a fight like that, i basically have to spam the sideways Power Attack to send my opponent flying, hoping he doesn't hit me. If there's multiple Draugr Death Overlords, then i'm screwed in Beast Form against them.
There's two ways that i've found that can actually let me survive such a fight in Beast Form, and one of them is an exploit. The "legit" way, is to drink a Elixir of Regeneration and a Elixir of Vigor right before i transform. That way i have +100% Health/Stamina Regen for 5 mins. The "exploit" way, is that i drink a bunch of Fortify Restoration potions (Resto glitch), then drink a Elixir of Alteration, then cast Dragonhide, making it last for a huge period of time, granting me the damage reduction cap in Beast Form.

they. are. not. volkihar. i pray they are not volkihar, i actually like the sound of volkihar in the lore.

ayway, i do hope we get some armour rating, im tired of using acrobatics to survive when it is not even a skill anymore and werewolves are suposed to be border-line immune to most weapons

The beast form will be getting updates, too. You'll be able to get more health when changed, recover more health when eating, do more damage per hit, make higher-level enemies flee, summon other werewolves to help, and more.

I'm well aware of that. However, having the extra 100 Health really won't matter, when it just means you might be able to take 1 more hit before dying. What Werewolves need is a form of damage mitigation, especially considering Werewolves are practically immune to most weapons but silver/enchanted in the lore. The higher level Fear Howl won't work against Undead, Automatons, Daedra or Dragons still. Summoning other Werewolves probably won't be of much help either when they too can be killed in 3-4 hits, and the Howl has a cooldown.

> The higher level Fear Howl won't work against Undead, Automatons, Daedra or Dragons still.

Depends - it could be exempted, but even if not, doesn't the Master of the Mind (illusion) perk work on the fear howl too?

What is this Fortify Restoration potion glitch/exploit?


Good point.....BUT I'm unsure if that perk would help werewolves, since the howl is considered a shout. I assumed the perks for Illusion only applied to spells you cast, not "shouts".

It's easily the most overpowered glitch in the game. It can turn you into a veritable god in Skyrim if you abuse the hell out of it. I only use it to boost my Carry Weight enchantments (Sick and tired of having to haul crap back to my houses), or like i said, to give me Armor Rating/Damage Reduction in Beast Form. This here explains what it is at the bottom in "Notes". http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Fortify_Restoration
This here goes very in depth on it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ9m7owVg_w