DLC #94 - Skyrim - Dawnguard

Vampires vs Werewolves

Back to the main story-driven content of Skyrim DLC, this package adds 10 further trophies to the game, along with a brand new story arc centred around a vampire cult whose sole goal is to find an Elder scroll that holds the key to vanquishing the sun, the vampires only true threat.

Only 3 of the 10 trophies are geared towards progression through the main quest-line (though there is also an extra trophy for completing a lengthy side quest too), with the "Kindered Judgement" trophy, awarded for completing the kindered judgement quest and thus, concluding the story. This contains 12 additional quests and contributes a solid 8-10 hours towards the game.

The difficulty of this will always depend on what difficulty you choose to play the game on. You're never overwhelmed by enemies and there aren't any challenging boss fights worth noting (even the final one), so you can drop the difficulty if you wish to, and even changing this mid-game has no sanctioning effects on the unlocking of trophies.

In regards to the rest of list, most of it that isn't achieved by merely completing quests, can be earned through very basic tasks, but there are still a small bunch to look out for;

Werewolf Mastered - Acquire 11 werewolf perks
Vampire Mastered - Acquired 11 vampire perks
Legend - Defeat a Legendary Dragon

The "Werewolf Mastered" and "Vampire Mastered" trophies go hand in hand, and require you to maximise the brand new skill trees for each class by killing enemies and either draining their blood (vampire) or feeding on their heart (wolf). One reason they're both referenced to is because they can be quite grindy, and there aren't enough enemies available to kill throughout the quest-line to satisfy the demands of both trophies, so you'll need to go the extra mile afterwards for whichever class you didn't choose to fulfil first. This will include some dungeon crawling, though you can speed up the process and visit major cities killing off the population of people within them, but you cannot fast travel whilst in either creatures form, which is a bit of an annoyance, so hopping around from dungeon to dungeon and killing anything else on the way in between is probably the best method.

However, the main reason they're both referenced is because the "Werewolf Mastered" trophy is actually missable. The Beast Form power (which grants you the ability to change into a Werewolf) can only be granted back to the player on one occasion IF you choose to cure yourself when Harkon offers you the Vampire Lord power at the beginning of the new quest-line. You can speak to Aela of the Companions guild, who will offer you Beast Form only once thereafter, whereas you can actually become a Vampire an unlimited amount of times, so as long as you make sure you prioritise the Werewolf perks, then it shouldn't matter, but it's easy to overlook if you're not well informed about the situation. It is probably better to reject the Vampire power when offered it and go through the quest-line using Beast Form, and then transforming into a Vampire at a later time (Just make sure you've actually obtained the Werewolf power beforehand, because you get this power through the main game during the Companions story arc and not during this DLC).

The "Legend" trophy requires alot of work to be able to even reach the stage of where unlocking it actually becomes a possibility, not to mention how hard it can be to slay a Legendary Dragon. The general consensus seems to be that the Legendary Dragon will only appear once the player reaches level 78 and beyond. This means there is a huge amount of grinding to be done on skills in order to reach this threshold. Under previous circumstances, this would have taken a ridiculous amount of dedication, but the Skyrim Legendary Edition added the ability to make skills "Legendary", which was an update also rolled out into older versions of the game.

This meant you can maximise a certain skill to Level 100, and then enter "Legendary" mode, where it would reset back to level 15 and you could start levelling it all over again, whilst it still contributed to your overall character level. Imagine trying to hit level 78 where you had to stretch out every single skill and level them all to an equal measure. Torture.

Even with this, I still had to make the Alteration skill Legendary 9 times, and standing there casting the Muffle spell on myself still took about 5-6 hours out of my time just to be able to reach the minimum reported level to trigger the appearance of a Legendary Dragon, and even before all of that, there were an almost 70 solid levels dedicated towards the main game and it's 3 DLC packages, which is a big commitment in itself.

In regards to fighting the Legendary Dragon itself, I managed to find one very quickly after hitting level 78, so the reports are fairly solid, and the fight can be a challenging one if you're that way inclined and want to pit yourself against one of the hardest enemies in the game. It has some brutal life draining shout and deals heavy ground damage, but patience is the best defence and as always, you can alter the difficulty level without any adverse effects on trophy progression.

If you're prepared to overcome the barrier of grinding for levels, there isn't much else that will stand in your way of unlocking every trophy in this package, though it is important to always be aware of the missable trophy, and take the appropriate steps to ensure you can unlock it. If you've already earned the Platinum trophy, you'll at least have hit level 50 already, and the rest is just a matter of playing through the DLC offerings and then grinding out Legendary ranks for whichever skill is most efficient for you to level up with ease.

The story is expansive, but won't contribute greatly your overall level, and there aren't many more opportunities to level up within any of the extra side content. The amount of time you'll spend grinding levels just depends on how far you need to go to trigger the Legendary dragon, but it's nothing terribly difficult.