Bend Will actually breaks the entire point of dragon combat

[NordOfSolitude]

I've been replaying Dragonborn and just hit the part where you get Bend Will, and I think the shout is genuinely a mistake for how the DLC frames dragon encounters. Like, the whole build-up is that Miraak can control dragons and that's his big edge over you. Then you get the same power and suddenly every dragon fight just becomes... press shout, ride dragon, fight's over.

But here's what bugs me - the DLC knows this is a problem. It forces you to fight Miraak's dragon on foot first. It won't let you cheese it. And then when you actually confront Miraak, he's the one using Bend Will on you. The game is actively telling you "this shout is broken" by making it the centerpiece of the final encounter.

I think Bend Will should've had way more cooldown or a stamina cost or something. Right now on my current playthrough I'm just refusing to use it because the moment I do, every dragon becomes a trivial mount simulator instead of an actual threat. Does anyone else feel like it cheapens Solstheim's dragon encounters, or am I being too precious about it?

 

[ScrollsOfTamriel]

I think you're onto something, but maybe not quite in the way you're framing it. The shout being "broken" is kind of the point - Miraak's whole deal is that he's been hoarding power on Solstheim for ages, and Bend Will is supposed to feel like an unfair advantage you're stealing from him. The DLC isn't saying the shout is a design mistake so much as it's saying Miraak shouldn't have had this edge in the first place.

That said, yeah, it does trivialize dragon combat once you have it. But I'd push back a bit on the "the game is telling you it's broken" read. The reason you can't use Bend Will on Miraak's first dragon is just mechanical - you literally haven't learned the shout yet. And during the actual Miraak fight, he uses it on you because that's the narrative climax, not because the devs are winking at you about balance.

The real issue is that Skyrim's dragon combat is kind of already on easy mode if you know what you're doing. Bend Will just makes it more obvious. I'm on my second Solstheim run right now and I'm doing what you're doing - just not touching the shout for regular encounters - but I don't think that's the game's fault so much as it is that mounted combat is inherently less engaging than grounded combat, and the shout removes player agency.

If you want actual stakes, yeah, skip it or self-impose a rule. But I don't think the DLC is broken so much as it's just... giving you a tool that's stronger than intended and trusting you to use it wisely.