Werewolf is one of two shapeshift forms on Berserker, the new mastery added with the Fangs of Asterkarn expansion on July 23, 2026. It hits hard against groups and comes with built-in lifesteal, which makes early levels feel fast. It also locks you out of most weapon-triggered passives from other masteries, which catches a lot of players off guard mid-build.
This guide pulls from early post-launch reports across Reddit, Steam Community threads, the Crate Entertainment forums, and early playthrough footage, plus Crate’s official class page and the v1.3.0 patch notes. Treat anything endgame-specific here as still in flux.
What we cover:
What Werewolf Is and How You Unlock It
Berserker is the tenth mastery, added specifically with Fangs of Asterkarn, and it requires the expansion to play. Per Crate Entertainment’s official class page, Berserkers are the brutal, unflinching defenders of Asterkarn who have embraced the beast god Mogdrogen’s gifts to shapeshift into ferocious beastlike forms. The mastery has three core features: Honed Weapons of War (dual-wield specialization), Monstrous Transformation (Werewolf or Wereraven), and Unbridled Ferocity (the class’s warcries).
Werewolf comes from the Monstrous Transformation skill line. The transformation costs 50 energy to activate, and once you’re in it, your basic attack switches to Feral Claws, a 2-energy attack with a 90-degree arc that hits up to 2 targets. Rip and Tear is the form’s second dedicated attack. Unlike Feral Claws, it doesn’t appear to build Onslaught stacks based on early testing, so anything built around the Onslaught mechanic stops mattering the moment you commit to the form.
The Mechanic That Trips Everyone Up: Weapon Pool Skills
This deserves its own section because it’s the most-asked question in nearly every thread. Once you’re in Werewolf form, you lose access to two categories of skill:
- Default-attack replacers, like Onslaught, Cadence, and Savagery
- Any “% chance to activate with default weapon attack” passive, known as a Weapon Pool Skill, or WPS. Bloodfangs is the example that comes up constantly.
Everything phrased as activating “with default weapon attack” simply doesn’t work on Werewolf. The confusion is that Werewolf’s own tooltip doesn’t use that exact wording, so plenty of players don’t realize skills like Bloodfangs or Avalanche are dead weight until they’ve already sunk points into them.
What still works: warcries (Rallying Cry, Bonechilling Cry), mobility skills (Leap, Blitz), spells, shield-block effects, and artifact actives.
Gear matters too: percentage-chance procs on shields and weapons, tested with a Quake-proc shield and an Icicles-proc weapon, still trigger while shapeshifted, even though the form itself can’t block.
Is Werewolf Actually Good?
Reports split hard in the first few days. Some players called it absurdly strong at low levels; others said it fell off against tougher single targets. The character would go from feeling overpowered against normal packs to doing next to nothing against a strong mob. That’s not a one-off complaint. Multiple independent sources describe the same pattern.
Most early threads only got half right that it’s not really a Werewolf-specific problem. Crate Entertainment’s official v1.3.0 patch notes, posted the day before launch, confirm boss health was increased by roughly 32% at level 100 (about 15% for superbosses), and many older boss encounters were tuned up to bring their damage in line with modern content. Every melee build got hit by that change, not just Werewolf. The Reddit rumor going around that “early bosses got buffed” turned out to be accurate. It just wasn’t unique to this class.
The same patch quietly helps melee builds recover some ground. Monster Armor was reduced by 17% on Champion-tier enemies and up, and Monster Armor Absorption dropped 20% across the board, a change Crate specifically called out as favoring small, fast attacks like dual-wielding. Monster Life Leech Resist on Ultimate difficulty was also reduced, making attack-damage-to-health conversion roughly 16% stronger against an average boss, which is good news for a form that leans heavily on lifesteal.
For the early-game damage swing specifically, there’s a practical fix. Max the Werewolf skill itself before anything else and skip weapon pool skills entirely, since those points are wasted. Lean on your second mastery for resist reduction rather than raw damage modifiers early on.
Best Second Mastery for Werewolf
Werewolf’s base attacks deal weapon damage plus Piercing and Bleeding, so most of the debate comes down to which second mastery boosts one of those damage types or converts it into something else. No one fully agree on a single best answer, and that’s worth saying rather than picking a winner for you.
| Second Mastery | What It Adds | Where It Falls Short |
|---|---|---|
| Shaman | Devouring Swarm gives -35% bleed resistance at max rank; Primal Bond adds 135% bleed damage, 75% longer bleed duration, and 15% damage absorption | Less offensive ability and crit support than Occultist offers |
| Occultist | Curse of Frailty adds -45% resist reduction, plus strong offensive ability and crit damage bonuses; also supports converting Piercing into Chaos damage | Little direct bleed-damage support beyond the resist reduction |
| Nightblade | Dual Blades needs only 1 point and adds flat Piercing damage that applies to Werewolf’s attacks even without WPS access | Its headline active skills (the piercing and cold abilities dual-wielders normally build around) don’t fire in wereform |
| Oathkeeper | Solid defensive kit if you want extra survivability | Core skills like Whirlwind and shield-based abilities are WPS-locked or need a shield you can’t use while transformed |
Berserker’s own exclusive bleed skill, Bloodborne, matches Primal Bond almost stat-for-stat (135% bleed damage, 75% longer duration, 90 flat bleed), but the two are mutually exclusive. You commit to one or the other, not both.
If Whirlwind is central to your build plans, know that the skill simply doesn’t fire in wolf form.
Gear and Passives
Dual-wielding and two-handed weapons both affect Werewolf’s damage output, since the form pulls from your equipped weapon stats even though it replaces your attack animation. Implements of War is murkier. Its flat bleed bonus applies while shapeshifted, but whether its weapon-effect proc also fires on Werewolf’s attacks is disputed. Until Crate clarifies this directly, treat any claim about Implements of War proccing on Werewolf as unconfirmed rather than settled.
Barrog’s Bloody Arm is worth grabbing early. It drops from Barrog the Bloodied before the first Riftgate, grants +3 to Implements of War, and noticeably smooths out the early parts of Act 1.
One cosmetic note comes up constantly. Your gear’s appearance disappears the moment you shapeshift, no matter what you have equipped. Developer Zantai addressed this directly on the Crate forums. The form originally had a time limit specifically so players could still see their gear between transformations, but in his words, “gameplay trumped fashion” in the final design. Pick Werewolf for a long-term character, and you’re committing to looking like a werewolf, full stop.
