Dragon faction any good?

[Ninjabiscuit90]

Topic
I'm a big fan of dragons and was just curious if they're any good. I read a few comments about the lord not being able to equip items, and they kind of fall off towards the end.

[cernodan]

You control the buttons you push. A faction is only as good as you are.

[LordTheRon]

Dragons are really strong in the beginning, but after the latest hero rework, they stay viable all game. They just require a different strategy.

And to have fun you don't have to min-max.

[Beaghan]

Dragon is just the leader. It can be the leader of any of the races. There's also many different ways to do your dragon just like there's many ways to play a Champion, Wizard, etc.. I think that Dragons make excellent leaders but the new skill system makes all of the leaders better in my opinion so they can all be great and powerful.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by Ninjabiscuit90:

I'm a big fan of dragons and was just curious if they're any good. I read a few comments about the lord not being able to equip items

Dragon can equip rings and miscellaneous items, but nothing like armor and hand-held weapons (which no self-respecting dragon would WANT to equip, anyway!)

[Overread]

But you do have the forge so you can throw those weapons and armour you don't need (after making sure your other heroes don't need them) into the forge for points and use them to craft claw weapons for your dragon.

Dragons are good solid fun and certainly very tough in the early game.

[Blanch Warren]

If it's a game with item farming then they'd be good.

[Gundalf]

Besides the Dragonlord which can fit with almost every build, Dragon related units are mostly in the tome of Evolution and tome of Dragons. They are mainly designed around the evolution mechanic where units transform into higher tier version when they reach Legendary rank. This can be strong in the early game where it is mostly PVE and you are busy clearing the map as you can get higher tier units as you would normally have avaible at the time. In the late game when it is about wars against other players it falls of as it becomes difficult for low tier units to survivie enough battles to evolve.

Then there is also Dragon major Transformation which gives racial units the Dragon type, natural regeneration and +30% dmg when below 60% hp.

In the new dlc there are also some asian dragons, in the tome of Prosperity and Calamity.

https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/DualTomes.html?type=tome_of_evolution&

[Astronimo]

Tome of if evolution is a must have in any evolution type of build. It's just too good. Racial+15 health at legendary is fancy too.
Slithers are very strong t3 skirmishers. And fit well into animal build too. Wyvern are fine, but could get some love.

Now for t3 tome of dragons. Transformation is very good, and extremely good if you go for t5 nature. Mage enchantment works great with ghostfire/miasma build. Purifying flame spell is a great heal and dispell.
Dragons are pretty strong as a t5 mythic and also got an upgrade in the patch (with t5 nature tome). Overall pretty solid unit.

Dragon lord currently is the strongest leader. Elder of chaos is busted.

[se05239]

The worst thing about Dragon Lords at the moment is that their class is tied to the affinity you pick. So you can't go fire mage dragon or nature tank. It's hardlocked now, which sucks.

[TirAsleen]

Originally posted by Astronimo:

Dragon lord currently is the strongest leader. Elder of chaos is busted.

Are you sure?

Inferno Breath with amplified Chaos looks spicy, but Elder of Chaos and controlled chaos does not seem to do that much?

What does "Fires of War"?

[AnemoneMeer]

Yes. God yes.

Dragons have the strongest early game of all options, and remain personally strong all game. However, they have a very spicy upkeep cost of 30 gold right from turn 1, meaning that they will consume a new unit's worth of gold every other turn earlygame, and still a significant amount past that.

Dragons need to push their power advantage to acquire resources rapidly in order to win. They're strong, but you will get out-eco'd if you fall behind. Playing to your strengths gives you the single strongest unit in the game right from the outset. Failing to causes your economy to burn to the ground.

[Astronimo]

Originally posted by TirAsleen:

Originally posted by Astronimo:

Dragon lord currently is the strongest leader. Elder of chaos is busted.

Are you sure?

Inferno Breath with amplified Chaos looks spicy, but Elder of Chaos and controlled chaos does not seem to do that much?

What does "Fires of War"?

It adds +10 (20 to non repeating) attacks at 5 stacks.
Key part is that it is added to the base damage, so all %s will also apply. Warclaw with that stuff can hit for 400+ easily (at level 16+ ofc)

[TirAsleen]

Originally posted by Astronimo:

Originally posted by TirAsleen:

Are you sure?

Inferno Breath with amplified Chaos looks spicy, but Elder of Chaos and controlled chaos does not seem to do that much?

What does "Fires of War"?

It adds +10 (20 to non repeating) attacks at 5 stacks.
Key part is that it is added to the base damage, so all %s will also apply. Warclaw with that stuff can hit for 400+ easily (at level 16+ ofc)

Ok, you're right then. :D

[Silavire]

The Dragon Lord is alright, in my opinion. You can't equip gear items, but can still use wands, rings and trinkets. They have a Treasure Hoard mechanic, which gives you gold income for every item in your arsenal, so any piece of garbage you find is still kinda useful.

There is also a Tome of Dragons (Dragon Dawn DLC) available to everyone. With it you can recruit 4 types of young dragons and "raise" them to adulthood by ranking them up. The recent DLC Ways of War added Tomes of Calamity/Prosperity, each with a Chinese type of dragon, 1 for each tome. I didn't really play with those yet, but on Dev streams they said that Prosperity one is pretty busted.

[DeadCoyote]

Yep.
And a lot of fun.