Dragons are generally not meant to be tanks. They are aerial assassins for taking out archers and mages. You can MAKE them tanky with items, however.

Get another Paladin in there something else to help finish what the dragons start. Hell Ive been known to make Abby into a paladin, Three paladins three dragon riders still fly and paladins will heal anything that drops below 5O% HP

The purpose of dragons is to build 3-dragon flying units, which you won't be able to benefit from until endgame. Reds are built for dealing the most damage, so that's the route people tend to go with them. Their job is to pick off archers on walls without exposing themselves to significant counter attacks. The grind is painful, but it's worth building two dragon squads for this purpose. Sybil is a fair choice to lead the other one.

You would think big magic dragon breath attacks would be good for smashing through armored frontline, but the tank troops end up resisting dragon damage the best. Stay away from the heavies to get the most out of your dragons. If you're familiar with the fire emblem games, think of them as being like pegasus riders.

I suggest turning off permadeath. This game wasn't balanced well for its use, you're just hurting yourself for the sake of hurting yourself by turning it on. At least save it for your second playthrough if you insist on raising the difficulty after your first run.

Ah, thank you - not familiar with fire emblem, so was mentally thinking of dragons as powerhouse anti-heavy units, so I was kinda using them wrong. I'll adjust accordingly!

You may be right on the permadeath - I was about to say it hasnt seemed bad yet, but I'm still pretty early, and just now starting to see enemy squads that scare me in terms of killing guys in one round (firearms, etc). Later I can see this might get frustrating.

Dragons are a bit of a long-term investment.

The hatchlings are terrible. The basic green dragons are still pretty bad. They only start doing damage when you evolve them to 3rd tier (red, blue or white) and that requires such high stats they will usually need to be high level. (Giving them Dark affinity and/or a few magic leaves and whatnot can help a lot to get them to evolve.)

Dragons only become really good when you unlock the final tech on the left-hand tech tree and you get to evolve them into dragon riders. Others have mentioned the flying thing, and it's a game changer in many missions.

One more thing to be aware of is that dragon damage is calculated in a strange fashion. (As researched by a user named purple charmander on this forum.) It depends on magic and strength, as the description states, but also on the dragon's current health. So damage drops as they get hurt.

And finally, the Red dragons seem to deal a LOT more damage than the other types for some reason.

Don't forget that Dragon damage is calculated by both strength and magic, meaning items or consumables that increase either help and Dark affinity gives dragons a big boost compared to other units because it affects both STR and MAG.

Also, I took to giving my dragons things like Arcane Barrier, Arcane Might, etc. and noticed a big difference in performance.

Remember you can use xp scrolls and CP scrolls on dragons too.

If you want to use dragons to tank use them in cautious mode. They still deal good damage since it's already meant for AOE.

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

And finally, the Red dragons seem to deal a LOT more damage than the other types for some reason.

This goes into multipliers.

For a brief summary of stat growth as its relevant here - dragons all share a base growth table. Dragons however instead of using modifiers like other classes, use multipliers to get from the base stat to their actual stat.

And finally we have the action multiplier for damage.

Reds, have comparatively insane multipliers:

1.6x magic (1.25x for the other 2), 1.5x strength (also 1.25x for the others), 1.2x HP (this one is average for blue and red), and 0.85x for damage (silver is 0.65, blue is 0.8x)


When magic and strength also are added at a 200% multiplier, that extra 25% and 35% sky rocket.

More for the OP though:

This early on you'll be limited in what dragons you really have with their high multipliers, likely with many more greens than anything else.

Greens have comparatively low bulk to the other types you'll get. But as already mentioned the damage comes from strength, magic, and current HP.

Originally posted by Nobody:

Don't forget that Dragon damage is calculated by both strength and magic, meaning items or consumables that increase either help and Dark affinity gives dragons a big boost compared to other units because it affects both STR and MAG.

Also, I took to giving my dragons things like Arcane Barrier, Arcane Might, etc. and noticed a big difference in performance.

This from nobody covers alot of the relevant tips.

The skills in question:
- reduce damage to hp
- increase strength based on magic, which in turn also reduces damage taken on the physical side, in turn increasing the hp maintained

Dragon stats are multiplied by a value compared to many other classes who just get flat additions. This leads to a case of having far higher values once that extra 20% can actually mean something. Or once you hit things like reds, the extra 50-60%...