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 with Fangs of Asterkarn, which itself needs Ashes of Malmouth and Forgotten Gods installed. 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).
Wereraven is the other half of that same node and plays as a cold caster with no weapon damage at all, so go Werewolf only if you want your gear to scale your hits.
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.
Form of the Beast is the node that actually pays you for staying shifted, because the transformation itself hands you no stats on its own.
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 Belgothian’s Shears are dead weight until they’ve already sunk points into them.
Bloodfangs is a double strike that leaves enemies bleeding out, and it’s a weapon pool skill, which is exactly why it goes silent in wolf form.
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.
Onslaught is the first casualty of shifting, so the stacks it feeds into your cooldown skills stop building the second you turn.
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 got it half right. It isn’t really a Werewolf-specific problem. Crate Entertainment’s official v1.3.0 patch notes, which shipped alongside the expansion, 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.
Where to Spend Your Points First
Werewolf first, then Form of the Beast. The transformation hands you no stats on its own, so Form of the Beast is the node that actually pays you for staying shifted.
Voracity next. 28% Attack Damage Converted to Health is the reason the form holds up against packs at all, and the v1.3.0 leech resist cut made it land harder than the tooltip suggests.
After that, Untamed Rage for the 33% damage absorption once you drop below half health, and Rallying Cry for the instant heal of up to 30% of your health. Frenzied Cry pulls its cooldown down to 8 seconds if you’re dual wielding.
Implements of War comes last of the core picks, for the flat bleed and the dual wield unlock.
Everything else waits. Skip weapon pool skills entirely, since those points are wasted, and lean on your second mastery for resist reduction rather than raw damage modifiers.
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 agrees 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 strips 45% Bleed resistance at max rank, plus strong offensive ability and crit damage bonuses | Little direct bleed-damage support beyond the resist reduction |
| Nightblade | Dual Blades is a 16-point passive whose flat Piercing damage still lands in wolf form, but only while you dual wield melee weapons | 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 | Eye of Reckoning and the shield skills are either WPS-locked or built around blocking, which the form can’t do |
For a straight bleed line, Bloodfrenzy is the anchor at 110% increased Bleeding damage, with Open Wounds and Bloodborne behind it.
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 Eye of Reckoning is central to your build plans, know that the skill simply doesn’t fire in wolf form.
Chaos Werewolf
Blight of Ch’thon converts every point of Pierce damage on Feral Claws into Chaos, and that single passive is the whole reason the Chaos Werewolf exists. Bonechilling Cry then drops enemy Chaos resistance by 25%, and Occultist backs it up with Solael’s Witchfire and Vulnerability.
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 splits in two. The passive half carries over, so the flat bleed and the dual wield unlock both work while shapeshifted. The 18% chance to trigger Onslaught doesn’t, because Onslaught is a default attack replacer and those are the first thing the form kills.
Barrog’s Bloody Arm is worth grabbing early. It drops from Barrog, the Bloodied in Lower Crossing, the first area you hit after leaving Devil’s Crossing, and it noticeably smooths out early 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 in the Steam discussions. 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.
