I've just reached my final confrontation with Miraak, something that I've been looking forward to for ages. God, if I'd known how full of bugs that battle would be I would've dreaded it! I mean, it's not so much that he's hard. On the contrary, for my superhero with all his high powered weapons he's a comparative walk in the park. But I've found that, unless you go in there with little more than an iron dagger he bugs out every time! He just turns into a ghost in the middle of the room and stays like it! This makes me wonder if his scripters only designed him with low level characters in mind? Well, anyway, this BIG let down almost totally ruined Dragonborn for me. Only the extra goodies (new weapons, spells, armour and followers) made it worth getting. It's just a good job I'm good at RPing and can fill in the massive gaps left by this limp wristed final battle...

Not sure what you mean. The few times I've fought him everytime his health bar was low he would turn invincible for a little while and absorb a dragon soul from the dragons landing on the battle scene. Annoying, yes, but I guess some sort of challenge.

Perhaps if you lower his health bar very fast it bugs out? Is that it?

EDIT: I admit that overall it is a weird battle.

I've tried fighting him with my dagger, taking my time with him, and still he bugs out in the middle of the room. Once he even disappeared off the tower altogether!

When he's near death, he will absorb some souls to regenerate. When your damage exceeds his "essential" threshold in a speed which the script cannot catchup in time, his script stalls.

I hope bethesda has learned from that. Cool boss fights should probably be without any tinkering with the HP values.

I'm not sure if you can call the fight cool. It had the potential to be very cool, but even without the bugs have you listened to the shout he uses to get the dragon souls? It makes him sound like Scooby Doo! They also made him too weak. Now, if they'd made him more like the Witch King....

As I said, if they didn't slap that condition on him, it wouldn't matter when he absorbs. Obviously whoever the designed that battle meant for it to be a full on battle of shouts between the two dragonborns. Except, you can't have fun using shouts on him either with your timers being significantly longer than his.

For it to work I think they should've made him far, far stronger, rather than have him make up for it by absorbing souls. Give him some really tasty unique high powered dragon armour and weapons, and make him invulnerable except for an "Achilles Heel" like the Witch King. Only a certain type of weapon can kill him and only in a certain place, something like that. But what did we get? All we got was a fancy Dragon Priest dressed in unarmoured robes and armed with average weapons.

I've also noticed my dragons don't turn to skeletons like they're supposed to.

Gotta love bugs

I had the same bug when I tried to kill em with my greatsword (Daedric greatsword) he would turn into ghost form then just stand there looking at me...I waited (Like went to go make a sandwich waiting) and came back only to find him STILL standing there...doing nothing...

I actually avoid finishing the DLC now because I'm so bug worrisome :/

The couple of times I've fought Miraak I have not had a problem. I think what Daedric_Dovah said is the key.

Yep, done all that. Waited for him to make his speeches, and waited. I used a weak Dwemer dagger and a weak flame spell, but nope, he still bugs out in the centre. Part of my problem, I believe, is that he isn't absorbing any dragon souls. They fall down dead, he does his "Scooby-Doo" shout, but no souls come from them. They also don't turn into skeletons.

Only bug I had there was he drop through the floor immediately after death and so I never had change to loot him before I played the quest again with another character. But it was just a little bug and didn't annoy me or ruin anything for me.

What system are you on? If you try to one-shot kill Miraak the quest will get bugged, I had this a few time happening to me on PS3. I suggest hitting him a few times with your fist before going over to high damage spells or weapons. Its also advisable not to use Shouts against him. Good luck and don't let it discourage you, just reload a prev. save and try again. Eventually you will get it.

I found out what it was. I've been doing some Googling and I came across some similar troubles people were having with the Unofficial Skyrim Patch. I deactivated it and tried again. Yep, Miraak went right ahead and svcked on those dragon souls this time! I also found I could easily finish the quest bug free even with my pretty powerful dagger that I normally use, just so long as I let Miraak finish his speeches, of course. All went silky once I'd turned off the patch, no troubles at all. I suspect it could've bugged out if I used my greatsword, 'cause I doubt the battle was made for a weapon with almost 1000 damage rating, as well as a high grade fire damage enchantment.

After I turned off the patch everything went exactly as it should. Miraak even turned into a lootable skeleton afterwards! Love it! I was dreading having to use workarounds to avoid Miraak's death. Thing is, I didn't even cheat or anything. On the contrary, I even went easy on the poor old sod by using my knife and letting him shoot his mouth off. If the game wasn't bugged and I could fight him how I wanted I could've finished him off in a few of minutes!

No, the bug prevents you from getting them (but according to UESP you could still loot him via console commands). I was a bit surprised that we didn't get Miraaks mask - until I played the quest with another character and got it.