Ancient Dragons are Disappointing

[Purushii]

The game keeps telling us the wyvern-type dragons we see early and mid-game are weaker, pale imitations of the “legendary” Ancient Dragons, yet the wyverns seem to have infinitely more personality than all but two (Forti and Placi). With how lore significant Lansseax is supposed to be, they could have easily had her appear only once in Lleyndel, and return in Farum Azula as a stage hazard, with a final confrontation somewhere (maybe after the eagles). It just feels incredibly cheap to have copies of her show up, somehow using the glaive that’s supposed to be unique to her and her brother, and just take up space in the legacy dungeon. Out of all the repeat bosses/mini bosses, I definitely hate them the most.

[Twisty]

The Ancient Dragons ruled the prehistoric era before the Erdtree. And they would protect their Dragonlord as a wall of living rock. Dragonlord Placidusax lies at the heart of the storm beyond time and he ruled over the Ancient Dragons during the Age before the Erdtree. But once his "god" had fled he continued to await its return and he dwelled eternal beyond time.

It seems like when Placidusax was in stasis after he's god had fled, the Golden Order started to rise up during this period. And the rule of the Ancient Dragons was being contested. So Gransax attacked the Capital and thus began the War against the Ancient Dragons. Which eventually ended after Fortissax (who was called the mightiest boulderstone of the Ancient Dragons) was defeated and befriended by Godwyn the Golden.

After Gransax attacked the Capital, the Tree Sentinels and some of the Knights of the Erdtree started worshiping the Ancient Dragons. The Dragon Cult became a second religion within Leyndell. And after Godwyn made peace with the Dragons, Lansseax (Fortissax's sister) became a priestess of the Dragon Cult and communed with knights like Vyke the Dragonspear. Btw the Ancient Dragons can take the form of a human and they interbred with the humans and produced the short-lived Draconians (a race you can pick as a preset). There's also the Dragon Communion (an offshoot of the Dragon Cult) which hunted the modern Dragons to consume their heart and receive their powers. Some of them turned into Magma Wyrms.

Greyoll (the big dragon in Caelid) is the mother of all the mortal/modern dragons like Agheel, Adula, Smarag, etc. But immortal Stone Dragons like Placidusax and Lansseax are far more ancient. There are two types of Dragons, the Ancient Dragons and the Mortal Dragons. The Ancient Dragons have gravel stone skin, 2 sets of wings and can wield red lightning while the modern dragons have flesh, blood and only one pair of wings but they have more affinities to natural elements as a result of them adapting to the Lands Between. Examples of which are Borealis and the Ice Dragons that ruled the Mountaintops before the Fire Giants, there's also Ekzykes with the Scarlet Rot, and the Glintstone Dragons, Smarag and Adula.

The Mortal Dragons and Greyoll are descendants of the Ancient Dragons but they are far weaker and vulnerable than the Ancient Dragons.
From RSnA_ds on Reddit

[ressenmacher]

To be fair, there are differences between the first ancient dragon and Lansseax. The former uses a different moveset, one expanded with moves from Fortissax and with a wholly new aerial glaive attack in the second phase.

That said, I share your disappointment with them, not for their inclusion (it is, after all, their capital city lol) but for the fact that you get stuck on a platform entirely taken up by the dragon to fight it, the camera becomes lodged in their ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ five seconds after combat begins, and what could be interesting encounters become a mess of mindlessly hacking at ankles and hoping that you can outheal the damage you take.