Its pretty clear that you had intended on making dragons the theme of Skyrim. Why is it then, that dragons turned out to be the equivalent of cliff racers in Morrowind? There is nothing imposing about them. There are a handful of enemies that are far more difficult to kill than any dragon in the game. They are nothing more than a nuisance. Dragons need to have their damage increased by 2-3 times. In additon their health needs to be increased significantly. Right now on master difficulty I can run around killing dragons in a few swings with my 2H. Im not even a blacksmith. Is this what it means to be dragonborn? Because if it is, I am ashamed to be one.

For me they got much harder later on.

You're the Dovakiin. Your job is to kill dragons. I've been killed several times by dragons. I've been picked up and thrown by dragons and frozen to death by them too. I think the balance is perfect. Also they aren't like oblivion gates where you shut one walk 20 feet and see another one. I've only killed like 6 dragons and I'm level 20. I've been playing on Expert so that may be why they've killed me so much.

Edit: question. Are you in heavy armor?

Sick of the whining. You will be able to take matters into your own hands when the construction kit is released. Keep playing and you will find dragons that 1-hit you.

Dragons need to be smarter and more varied, rather than just pumping up their numbers. But then, that goes for all the enemies...

Are you trying to kill mages?!
Damn dragons [censored] my face cuz of low damage and I go oom.

As soon as i turned lvl 30 i needed to lower the difficulty to kill dragons. They did became incredebly strong now.. Before lvl 30 i wasn't scared of them indeed.. Just like killing a wolf.

But now, i indeed keep my eye to the sky all the time, and as soon as i hear a dragon roar, i save my game... lol

level 40 here and i get bent over then owned by dragons in several seconds what lvl are you 5?

Boss Dragons should have been more like Collossi in Shadows of the Collossus imo, hugh fights with intricate ways of beating each one. Now that would have been awesome :]
As is I kill regular dragons in one power attack and boss dragons in two :/ (level 31, dualwield Daedric swords with 264 dmg atm)

1. Nothing in skyrim is as annoying as cliff racers. NOTHING. Little bastard cawing over and over again, floating just high enough that they could hit you, but you couldn't hit them. Plus, when they were right overhead it was damn near impossible to hit them with spells. The Dragons don't have that annoying kacaw sound, they land so you can fight them, you get awesome powers from them, and they won't bother you if you just ride away on your horse or go into a building.

2. Funny story, before all this crap they made up about dragons needing specialized dragon slayers to kill them, there were actually dragons in Vvardenfell, but the cliff racers drove them into extinction by eating their food supply.

That said, the dragons are pretty easy most of the time. Especially in cities. The only real problem is making sure they don't kill my horse or any of the outdoor traders that I sell my loot too.

it would bad idea to to give Dragon a supreme AI... why? Because they will be more varied after studying your weakness... Or even worse if they are coordinating to box you in and Finish you off in A B C order effortlessly. How can you fight back if there are more one one dragon with that scary AI? I am sure Dragon Priest will be scarier if they managed to find a way to join in force to kill you. SCARY! I don't wan't to fight more than one Dragon Priest at all. Maybe you should try bring all Dragon Priest alive with console and see if you can outlives them at all.

Currently, in my situation, I barely beat an ancient dragon. As battlemage, I hate Frost Dragon more than else. Stamina Drain from a frost breath. Damnit!

Thanks to a recent in-game load screen I now know that are different "levels" of dragons. Brown and green worst. White and bronze best.
Considering how little you run into them its possible your only finding the weaker ones.
Would love to know what un-crafted 2h can down a dragon quickly. They are still tactical fights where you must use terrain and abilities to the max.
To me they are puzzles that fight back. I play on 2nd hardest dificulty and am in the 20s. And I've definitely lost a few times

Hit level 50 last night and went to Winterhold. Big ol' dragon swoops down and draws me to the College (wouldn't land in the city like it usually does) I get there, it is whipping the Arch-Mage royally, not even bothering to land. I get there and it breathes (or speaks) fire at me. In one breath, 200 health is gone. I play on normal mode and this wasn't a pathetic whelp we know as a Blood Dragon. This thing was the size of Alduin (I am assuming, for I have not beat the main quest, either one) and it is an Ancient Dragon or something. Tough bugger he was. Had to pop a few potions until he landed. Then it was on
Still, took me quite a few swipes from my Legendary Daedric sword

yea if ur fighting blood or regular dragon's they'll be like fighting anything else, frost dragons i can take out fairly easily too but the higher ones after that give me a run for my money they do.

i forgot to add one more thing what made things more interesting.

At Winterhold College one day, I left the Hall of Countenance after finished learning the awesome conjuration spell i had been waiting for so long: summon Daedra Lord(I think that is the exact spell). I takes a brief looking at the surrounding, then I turn to my left and saw a Blood Dragon staring at me. I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts what I just saw with paralyzing fear. Then, I ran to next pillar as Blood Dragon finally opens his mouth to breath a frost breath. It was amazing to [censored]( figuratively) my pant after get surprised by a Blood Dragon.
What surprised me is arch-mage can summon Daedra Lord and proceeding to beat the [censored] out of Blood Dragon.


like-wisely, in other time during my journey to Sky Haven Temple, Ancient Dragon does make me [censored] my pant. I have tasted defeat many times and it remain me to save often because I has had to travel far to temple all over again and see Ancient Dragon all over again too and dies all over again too after trying different tactic (and killed by few of fael.. whatever they are called. with them added to the battlefield make it harder!)

After all of this happened on the battlefield, after defeated that many enemies and a Ancient Dragon,make the victory tasted so sweet!

damn it can't we please have some kind of insta perma ban policy for people posting bullcrap on the forum, you mods really need to crack down harder on trolls.

On master difficulty and without smithing upgrade it would take several dozen of hit to kill an ancient dragon with a daedric weapon .(and that's assuming 100 weapon skill AND damage enchantment, with no smithing AND no enchantment we''re looking at 100+ hit to kill a dragon,)

And without smithing you're going to reach what? 50% damage reduction with a full suit of daedric armor maybe not even that much.Have fun watching the drgaon take 300 HP of your health bar with a single bite.

Stop whining, dragons can eat you, dragons can turn you in to frozen food, dragons can roast you, high level dragons will abuse you

My only suggestion for "fixing" dragons (which I don't believe are especially broken), is to give them some damage boost against Npcs. Let them one-hit kill nonessential npcs, and let most npcs flee in terror, instead of having old women fighting dragons with their bare hands. That would help making me feel like I'm a dragonborn hero.

I still run from them.

I don't think they are too weak, but they are scaled to your level and I don't like that one bit. If I'm level 3, I just don't see me capable of killing a dragon even with a few guards helping me. I should be running away from the dragon, not dying to killing it for loots, which is what I do when I see one. Dragons were never a threat in normal difficulty from level 1 to level 43 (my highest level right now). Giants were a bigger threat than dragons.

I think the problems with dragons are:

1. Too many of them in general
2. Not enough uses/need for their matierals/souls (though this extends to other materials as well)
3. Not varied enough. There should have been 2 or 3 additional types, and they could have given them more than just ice or fire breath.
4. They aren't particularly smart, and like to go after wildlife/random stuff, but this applies to all AIs in the game.
5. Dragonrend is a little too good with its reuse time vs duration.
6. They don't have any kind of damage penetration. Deathclaws in New Vegas were vicious because their damage could bypass our armor.
7. Their melee attacks are extremely slow and weak.
8. Their damage reduction is not good enough at mid to upper levels.

Are you kidding me?weak melee? even if you're at the armor cap (80% damage reduction) an ancient dragon will kill you in 4, maybe 5 hit if you're really high on HP. If you play a legit char it still takes about 30 hit (at 200 damage per hit) with a one handed weapon to kill a said dragon, that not weak.

Of course if you're exploiting crafting loophole to get a weapon damage in the four digit number then yeah, nothing gonna feel like it got enouh hp but if you're cheating why are ywe even talking about challenge?

I don't know what game you guys are playing but Dragons are so easy it's a joke. And it's not a matter of difficulty slider as much as it is that they are proportionately weaker than other monsters like trolls, giants, mammoths and even hagravens. I mean really they feel like fighting a cave bear with less DPS because a cave bear will give you all he's got at least. I have zero flame resistance and I just stand there and laugh at their fire, walk up in their face, do a dual power attack and it's pretty much over. All I have are elven swords, one does 10 fire and the other 10 shock damage. My one handed is probably about 65.

They should just double everything (damage/health) and it would feel about right. Or at least make some of the tougher ones really tougher and have a few easy ones so you can get shouts, but once in a while certain dragons are brutal, then it would be nice.

I'm level 30 and they have been easy since about level 12. I must have killed 20 or more by now. I was really hoping you would basically have to run for your life if one spotted you up til about level 15-20, then with companion and a couple guards, a ton of potions be barely able to kill one. By the time your level 30 you could kill one on your own but not blood dragons... then by the time your level 40 be owning them or something like that.

I find dragons ridiculously easy, but that's because I have over 100% Frost resistance (presumably capped at 80-90%ish, seeing as I still take a tiny bit of damage from Frost dragons' attacks), and over 50% Fire resistance. I don't necessarily think they should do more damage, because I had to rove far and wide to find my gear and enchant it specifically to counter dragons; without my gear they'd toast/freeze me pretty quickly.

I do agree that they need more HP though. It's fine that I can improve my character enough to resist their attacks, but they should still take more than 5 swings.

EDIT: P.S. I've killed around 40 dragons (the buggers seem to turn up wherever I go) and I'm yet to die to one. I still take on every dragon I see in the wild, because fighting dragons is awesome, but I have to say I wouldn't be so keen to chase them down if they weren't such an easy kill.

Try leveling more.. You'll love the Ancient Dragons..