It was cute the first couple of times when I had already beaten the Main Quest and had 17 Dragon Souls to spare. Now it's turning quest progression into a painful chore. New playthrough level, 55 and a couple of Mastered Shouts and a handful of single words unlocked. Got only as far returning the Horn to the Greybeards in the MQ. I get attacked by cultists and decide to pursue that endeavor. Except I can't progress any further because a developer at the gamesas office had the bright idea to have Miraak troll after EVERY [censored] dragon kill. If you play on Master or above and don't utilize smithing you know how tedious it can become to kill a dragon. However I balance this out by seldomly fast traveling and having dragon attacks feel like a real surprise. Now I've broken ALL my self imposed restrictions and even turned it down to novice (killing 4 dragons back to back on master IS tedious) and Miraak continues trolling. So I throw in the towel. You win Beth. Thanks for making an otherwise epic game unplayable for me.

/semi-frustrated rant

Ideas:

1. Don't have Dragonborn activated automatically when you start a new game. Play it when you want to play it.

2. Go to Solstheim and kick his ass.

I've only had him steal 1 or 2 souls out of 5 Dragons I killed in the span of his questline. Try making a saving before landing the killing blow on a dragon and loading it up if he appears?

EDIT: sorry, but this pic is just perfect for your situation...

http://i.imgur.com/e9JQ7Xk.jpg?1

I was just about to say...why don't you go kick his ass? The little [censored] deserves it anyway

I second this.

Don't get mad for something that you were not forced to do. Dragonborn requires moderately high level players (20-ish IIRC), so just do your buisiness in Skyrim until you got enough souls and are strong enough.

http://i.imgur.com/lx6b0Ra.jpg?1

At this point go to Solsthiem and kick his ass

I had this issue before too. I just kept playing. And I don't fast travel. Made his demise all the more sweet and satisfying.

edit: And that character was new. He needed dragonsouls to progress.

LIke I said, I'm level 55 and built focused solely on combat, destruction, and restoration. I could take MIraak right now. But I can't unlock the Bend Will Shouts to get that far because your friendly neighborhood Dragon Priest keeps getting in the way.

Does this work?

It does. At least it did for me. Maybe make a save when the Dragon is grounded at 50%ish health to be safe. I remember killing a Dragon and having him appear, but then reloading for some reason and killed the same Dragon again. He did not appear the second time. It's random, but I'm not sure when the calculation for him to appear is made.

Thought he only svcked the souls of every other dragon?

It's random. I keep rolling duds. I'm going to try Hev's idea. He would be the one to know how circumvent a Dragon Priest.

I've only lost 2 out of 5 dragon souls when I was getting the words filled out. Next character I just made sure to not do the MQ until I felt I was ready for Solstheim then I'd get the words (as far as I could) and save my souls for when I needed them.

Yeah I'm not hitting Solsthiem again until I've got a good 6-10 souls saved up. I'm usually crazy prepared, but somehow forgot about this. Thanks for the advice folks.

I loved how he came in and stole its sole from me. Added some real life anger for him and made killing him that much more fun.

There's a slight problem with "Go kick his ass" posts...

If you can't unlock the Bend Will shout, you can't go kick his ass.

Yes, having him steal souls can be infuriating if it happens every time. I am perplexed why some people have him steal *every* *single* *one*, while others don't have him swoop in every time. Perhaps you didn't make a proper offering to the Random Number God and this is the manifestation of his displeasure with you?

In any case, you can get a freebie soul if you return to the Tomb of Jurgen Windcaller (maybe two if you are okay with 'sploits and click the "use" button fast enough).

Aye i second this i have learned this hard way you need to have 2 dragon souls before you meet him for the first time because he will not let u absorb any and if you have used it on other shouts then you are screwed

Luckily Miraak doesn't steal every soul. I think the OP is just a bit impatient and had 1 or 2 souls stolen from him after he took 30 minutes to kill a dragon because he's playing on Master or Legendary and may have even gotten killed a couple of times forcing him to reload and have the same fight over and over and felt the need to exaggerate in his rant. Keep trying OP.

Unfortunately, I don't have this problem because I don't fast travel. So whenever a dragons spawns, he just ignores me and flies away into the distance (I even had one fly into outer space and boldly go where no dragon has ever gone before.) And if you manage to get his attention he attacks everything in the area, even goats but when the dragons runs out of stuff to kill, he flies away with half his health. Now that is truly frustrating and annoying.

If it weren't for that, I wouldn't feel all that compelled to kill him really.

You only need 3 souls for the questline anyways.

I like having Miraak Steal souls.
once I purposely started dragonborn then went back to Skyrim to do the MQ and see how many souls he would steal.

Have you destroyed his will control stones? Once I did that he only showed up 30% of the time

To be honest, when he steals dragon souls from me now I don't even get upset; just look at him like "does this make you feel like a man? [censored] [censored]"

with each soul I steal, I am one step closer to my Return. *Evil Laugh*

That's funny, and a great compliment to the dev who did this, whatever you think?

By the way, does Miraak surrender his soul when he dies?

This should be in the spoilers section.

you get 10 souls + whatever he stole.