Dragon
The Dragon is a Melee tier 2 infantry unit in Symphony of War and are the next phase of development from Drakelings.
Stats 
| Stats | Base | Growth | Lvl 1 | Lvl 54 | From Tier1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Great | Great | ~179 | ~576 | 27~81 | |||
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Low | Low | 1 | 1 | - | |||
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Low | Med | 10 | 54 | - | |||
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Med | Great | ~25 | ~111 | 5~16 | |||
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Med | High | ~31 | ~64 | 7~9 | |||
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Med | High | ~19 | ~65 | 4~10 | |||
 |
Great | Great | ~ | 4860 | - |
Unlike most other promotions in the game, the change from Drakeling to Dragon increases the stat multiplier, rather than adding a flat bonus.
The low Weapon Power on Dragons is also a little deceptive: given they benefit from both Strength and Magic in equal measure; their Strength or Magic can be viewed as their Weapon stat when comparing them to other classes. Dragons also add 2.5% of their current HP to their damage, further helping make up for this.
Related Technologies
| Tech: | ||
|---|---|---|
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Martial Traditions | Gain Class Points 15% faster. |
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Dragon trainer | Gain Class Points 25% faster. |
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Spirit Piercing | Magic attacks from now will ignore 25% of the enemy's magic resistance. |
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Mixed Unit Tactic | Gains +3 weapon power for each different archetype of unit added to the squad, starting from the second.
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Battle Details
| Battle Detials: | ||
|---|---|---|
| Round 1 |  Magical fire attack,  Small Diamond AoE,  Magical Volley (7th), performed at 1 range.
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| Round 2 | Magical fire attack, Small Diamond AoE, Magical Volley (7th), performed at 1 range.
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| Extra Attack | Magical fire attack, Small Diamond AoE, Magical Volley (7th), performed at 1 range.
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| Other Detials: | ||
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Strategy
Tactics
Dragons can fire up and down walls, with their solid HP making them good at besieging fortified enemy positions.
They're also one of the better sources of magic damage in the early game, when the frailty of magician units can make them much harder to fit into squads.
Dragons can also quickly loose steam without support, as their damage is partially determined by their current HP, and every bit of chip damage adds up.
Overall: this doesn't prevent dragons from being reliable off-tanks that can tank, kill, respond to, and clean up a variety of situations: they just need to focus on what they're doing each turn, as they face strong headwinds when trying to do everything at once.
Squads
Most of a Dragon's bulk comes from HP, File:Strength.png Strength, and File:Magic.png Magic, not armor; meaning they take damage in larger chunks. Double the survival from double health is nice, until it means double the healing necessary to maintain it: which is were most other front-line tanks gain an edge over Dragons. As such: most dragons enjoy their own personal healer in a 1:1 ratio. This also helps ensure they are always doing the most amount of damage they can be.
Priestesses are the way to go over Hospitallers, given Dragons always enforce 
Heavy Infantry movement.
Oracles are also worth considering to help minimize chip damage that otherwise weakens a dragon with their shields.
Alternatively: Dragons can be used to maximize Capacity in any squad that's otherwise stuck in an awkward middle-ground of total 
Leadership; assuming the squad doesn't mind the movement type.
As Opponents:
Aggressive Attack is one of the best go-to options for most physical squads, enabling meaty hits that can quickly chunk through dragon's large health pools.
This can be somewhat high-risk; given the counter-attack damage taken.
Otherwise: 
Acolytes and their 
Magic Armor are a strong option to bait in and tank dragons; and given their low 25 Str promotion requirement to get to tier 3: 
Valkyries are even better.
Valkyries are also a good answer to most things, given their abundance of good qualities.
Builds
Traits
Healing Attuned and 
Unscathed are solid go-to options to allow dragons to quickly bounce back from loosing big chunks of their HP, or prevent a lot of big hits from happening in the first place.
Overpower Can make excellent use of their Strength stat and 
Colossal, enabling them to rapidly tank enemy 
Morale. This also seems to occur before the battle starts and makes a visible difference in the Combat Forecast window relative to other squads; enabling an Overpowering dragon squad to potentially drop an enemy squad from Fair Morale to Fearful Morale and automatically win with a 
Forced Surrender victory.
Arcane Might is also one of the strongest options to put their good Magic stat to maximum use, gaining even more damage output every time they boost their damage.
Artifacts
Aldor's Tower Shield and 
Obsidian Plate Armor are one of the best one-two combos for any front-line unit; and for Dragons especially the combo can go a long way towards lengthening their impressive HP pool and helping healers keep them alive.
Refuge and 
Giant's Thresher are also good options that more directly target how dragons function.
Refuge boosts in-combat healing by 20%, something Dragons and their healers appreciate, and Giant's Thresher takes advantage of dragon's space and capacity requirements resulting in their squad sizes having smaller quantities of units than most opponents they'll be fighting against; granting +25% damage vs. larger squads.
Cloak of Cunning and 
Essence of Embor are noteworthy options as well; given their ability to negate critical strikes against dragons and focus on other traits than Unscathed.
Affinity
Dark is the strongest overall option for Dragons, were the high STR and MAG combined, on units that put both to use, is a satisfying way to spoil a rare and powerful unit type.
Otherwise: the most common affinity in 
Earth is one of their best fallback options, making the most of their HP (and without suffering any Str or Mag penalties).
For promoting:
Lightning is a strong option for becoming a 
Blue Dragon
And counter-intuitively:
Water is one of the strongest options for the toasty 
Red Dragons
Fire is one of the strongest for the frigid 
Silver Dragons.
(Though Dark is still the strongest option for both 
Red Dragons and 
Silver Dragons)
Gallery
