Beasthood, what is it exactly? (spoilers, most likely)

So has anyone ever filled up the meter? Did you transform? I have yet to be able to come even close to filling up the meter when using one of the pellets. I think about just below the halfway mark is as far as I can get it, and then run out of enemies and have to haul to the next area. And by the time I get there, its almost fully depleted, and or the pellet effect runs out.

I'm curious if you actually turn into a beast like the dude on the roof of the windmill in the woods, or if you just turn into one of the dudes walking around with with farm equipment. Or is this just a stat that increases damage to certain enemies or something obscure?

You won't transform into a beast. That's not how it works.

Beasthood is a damage increase, nothing else. How it works is that, as that meter fills, each attack will do more damage. The closer the meter is to being full the more damage you'll do. If you use fast hitting weapons or the heavy attacks, you should be able to fill it decently, thus doing more damage. As you know there is also a Beasthood stat. The higher that is, the more damage your increased Beasthood damage will do. Also, the higher your Insight, the lower your Beasthood damage will be.

So, something like this:

Regular damage: 100
Beasthood meter half full: 175 damage
Beasthood meter full: 250 damage
Beasthood meter half full, but high Insight: 120 damage

And so on. Totally using made up numbers though, I don't know how well it scales, but just to get a general idea.

So disappointed.

In addition to what was already said, a higher Beasthood meter scales down your defense in the same way it scales up your attack, but I'm not sure about exact numbers.

There is also (apparently) a special weapon in the game that always has the beast meter on, without having to use the pellets.

@sterling: Yeah, it makes people wonder why the word 'transform' is being mentioned in several items. There doesn't appear to be a way to transform into a beast. Popular guess is that they didn't have time to put it in, but were planning on it. Perhaps future DLC?

It also reduces your defenses too, though, so it's really more of a risk/reward thing. The major problem with it is that there just aren't enough ways to make the mode active. As far as I know, there are only the Beast Blood Pellets and a weapon you find in one of the Chalice Dungeons. Since the Pellets are temporary, the only way to really play around with it is to use the weapon, which limits your options.

It's a shame. It seems like there could be some really cool builds centered around it if From had bothered to open it up a bit more.

The beast claw is pretty rad.