A couple of quick tips on power leveling the dragon faster: 1) taking the Adaptable Trait applies to the dragon, giving it a bonus 30% to XP gain. 2) I always accompany my Dragon with two tier 1 cavalry units. This seems counterintuitive as it divides the XP between them, but with smart positioning on the world map, you can use the cavalry's bonus movement to trigger 3-4 fights per turn.
regarding the tip at the end about ot spending your skill points and save them until you have unlocked better tome-specific skills, do not forget that you can reset the skills on all of your heroes, including your ruler, once for free. So you can just stack health and defense up or whatever it may be and then do a reset mid to lategame to get the good stuff.
Another OP Dragon Lord combination I've found are Order Dragons with stacking flanking damage, to make use of the Distracting debuff they can apply. The Nature "Tome of the Beasts" will allow you to stack two +25% flanking damage buffs to cavalry of your race if you combine it with the "Sneaky" mind trait. The Aura from the Dragon will also buff adjacent units with "Fortune" and Morale, allowing you to gain 100% chance to crit by tome tier 2.
24:10 Blade isn't bugged, developers said that the idea of Dragon holding a dagger in his claws and assassinating people, was too silly, so that was intentional restriction🗡🐲
Huh, I find it merely highly inconsistent. If we go down that alley, all those wands would be unusable too cause too tiny for dragon claws. I mean I do get it and thanks for letting me know that somebody at Triumph thinks its a good idea to include a super anti-intuitive interaction with an item that costs Imperium :D
I personally enjoy a order dragon followed by materium transformation at 4 and astral transformation at 12. Ethereal gives you immunity against bleeding, bruning, DISEASED frozen and immobilized, order dragons gain in their aura a moral boost and a luck boost for even more crit chance. For government I play a materium faction to collect even more items for the dragon hoard, Rune Smiths for tech rushing + enchantments and mana addict for that sweet livesteal. One of the nice things about the order dragon aura is that it gives you moral leading to a loop where even if you don't cast spells your moral and it should go down your order aura keeps it up nicely. For tomes I start whit the tome of enchantment, followed by the tome of zeal at tier 1 Tier 2 I pick up the tome of inquisition and the tome of artificing Tier 3 I go with the tome sanctuary and the tome of dragons for the major race transformation and dragons ( but more to that one in a bit) At tier 4 I pick up the tome of exaltation for one reason only. Ascended warriors. Now I can transform my dragons from young into adults whitout showing them ever to my enemy's The second tier 4 tome I pick up is the golden realm so that I can actually afford these dragon stacks Finaly I end it whit the tome of the God emperor to cement the idea of this divine dragon that will never surrender and makes everything crit Also worth pointing out that your dragon DOSE benifit from your racial traits
Thanks for your videos, I've been learning a lot from them. About the transformation at level 12, one extra point in favor of Materium is that it turns your dragon into an Elemental, giving immunity to Bleeding, Poisoned, and Diseased. The Shadow Transformation turns the dragon into Undead, which gives some penalties to resistances. But both transformations are quite good anyway.
That's a very interesting point towards materium I haven't even thought about. I did notice the undead transfo, but the Elemental one I somehow derped. Thanks!
Ethereal trait from the astral transformation also ignores a whole bunch of negative statuses, at the cost of taking extra spirit/holy damage. (Not sure which statuses specifically, but I do think any of the stuns/snares don't work on ethereal?) The passing through walls bit is meh for the dragon tho, since it innately has flying...
@@Disappointed_Philosoraptor The revive won't work if you only have a single unit, which this build is trying to highlight. Astral or Chaos would be the better choice, as you will need ways to increase the world map mobility. You could also play around with "Perfectionist Artisans" as a Barbarian empire, to spam the world with infinite Outposts and Teleporters.
I noticed you didn't cover the Order transformation and think it's also broken. You get 25 healing and purge negative statuses on it every other turn with quicked breath with Comet. It outpaces Shadow's healing if you can't hit 5 units (although it's really not hard to hit 5 in a battle given it's size). Sure there's no hard CC component like Shadow but distracted isn't bad either.
As a beginner, I have no idea how you got to the starting point in this video. Did you create this faction? What culture, society traits, tome, etc. should I use to start the game?
Feudal Dragon with "Lord of War", could be strong, healing plus more movement, for your dragon, but, may also be bad choice, as each unit in army gets same amount of HP, healing 6 units > healing 1 unit.
Just tried this for myself, and I absolutely love it. Having one of the rings that affect enemy morale causes them to route with over half their forces left.
Hey mate, care sharing the whole build ? Like the race stuff and all the starting characteristics you picked ? Also what tomes do you advise ? Thanks a lot :)
I didn't feel like that was worth 2 entire skill points in general. Yes, it averts damage, but except for the flanking immunity the other stats are really meh. I think you get more bang for your buck elsewhere.
If your nation is industrious(I think), there's a trait in the fighter tree that lets your dragon lord enter guard mode at the end of the turn regardless of what action he took. Functionally making you immune to flanking while also adding 2 resistance and defense. Combined with the trait from the same nation where the dragon gets defense and resistance every turn they're attacked makes him truly immortal. my DL had 90% physical damage reduction and his elemental reduction wasn't far behind without any spell support. Truly nutty combined with the amount of healing and aoe damage involved.
@@wolas321 Yeah! Industrious Dragon Lord seems to be one of the most busted options so far and it's the only one where I think Heightened Senses is even kinda mandatory.
@@wolas321 The hero trait is indeed from the industrious civilization, though you can't counter Heavy Charge, which you will be more than likely to encounter in the late-game. The Flanking immunity is one of the best trait to have, as you can ignore damage multipliers. It's essentially like being immune to critical strikes, but also allows you to counterattack behind you. The AI will usually be passive if it would die when attacking or moving, allowing you to negate even more potential damage.
Yes, you can learn the cultural skill for your dragon as well and most of the time I think it's very recommendable. This base frame can be massively alternated, but right now the raw survivability of Nature+Materium is nuts.
Not only cultural traits, but the dragon lord also inherits body traits as well ^^ Poisonous Dragon Anyone? Or how about a Dragon with Quick Reflexes, making it hard to hit with ANY ranged attacks? (despite it's ridiculous size) Or the trait for bonus flanking damage? (gotta pump those tail-swipe numbers :3 ) But I don't know if they also inherit mind traits... if they do, I haven't noticed it yet.
Don’t think this works anymore. Looked at the aura for nature dragon and it says it applies regeneration to your units and decay to enemies but no regen for the actual dragon.
PSA: this is much harder (sometimes barely Mythbusters plausible) on the hardest difficulty. Fighting 2-4 units with a dragon is easy, but it will get destroyed against full stacks at the start.
Well Paradox also nerfed the hell out of the nature aura. Brutal difficulty has extreme stack sizes and I personally think your always off better to go with an army stack + dragon leader instead.
Do you think there is anyway to optimize a defensive build to be as efficient as offense? the only way ive been able to make it feel good is to add a fair bit of offensive power through the tomes as well. It just seems like my units still get melted regardless of high defense past the early game.
this doesn't work for me, the comet has 3 point cost and the dragon lords seems to exp the same alone or on a full stack, are you playing on fast or with advantages by any chance?
Yeah this whole playstyle got nerfed away by the recent patch. The regeneration aura part doesn't work anymore either. Nobody really expected this to be a long term thing though to be honest ^^
What I hate about the build is when i try to level up some small units with the dragon(after it's op already).. is the idea that your dragon will run away when the small units die. And it's running at full hp. Like really, Triumph??
You get a new set of choices everytime you play a new game. It's never the same choices with Level 8 and 16 on the dragon, and with heroes it's always a shuffle (4/8/12/16)
This recording has been made in Hard Difficulty, for Brutal you might need some troop assistance for the first few levels, depending on the map and your starting conditions (culture, tome etc.)
![[Brutal] Here be Dragons, Evolving a new monster - Dragon Dawn - Age of Wonders 4 - Ep.1](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XXZd7Ulopyg/mqdefault.jpg)
A couple of quick tips on power leveling the dragon faster: 1) taking the Adaptable Trait applies to the dragon, giving it a bonus 30% to XP gain. 2) I always accompany my Dragon with two tier 1 cavalry units. This seems counterintuitive as it divides the XP between them, but with smart positioning on the world map, you can use the cavalry's bonus movement to trigger 3-4 fights per turn.
regarding the tip at the end about ot spending your skill points and save them until you have unlocked better tome-specific skills, do not forget that you can reset the skills on all of your heroes, including your ruler, once for free. So you can just stack health and defense up or whatever it may be and then do a reset mid to lategame to get the good stuff.
That's a smart one, I keep forgetting the Reset button lol
Another OP Dragon Lord combination I've found are Order Dragons with stacking flanking damage, to make use of the Distracting debuff they can apply. The Nature "Tome of the Beasts" will allow you to stack two +25% flanking damage buffs to cavalry of your race if you combine it with the "Sneaky" mind trait. The Aura from the Dragon will also buff adjacent units with "Fortune" and Morale, allowing you to gain 100% chance to crit by tome tier 2.
24:10 Blade isn't bugged, developers said that the idea of Dragon holding a dagger in his claws and assassinating people, was too silly, so that was intentional restriction🗡🐲
Huh, I find it merely highly inconsistent. If we go down that alley, all those wands would be unusable too cause too tiny for dragon claws. I mean I do get it and thanks for letting me know that somebody at Triumph thinks its a good idea to include a super anti-intuitive interaction with an item that costs Imperium :D
@Ic0nGaming As far as dragon lore goes (at least in D&D) dragons have actually been known to utilize wands in combat!
@@Ic0nGaming Also, daggers would be rather inefficient for dragons since they already have claws. Wands don't require finesse
I personally enjoy a order dragon followed by materium transformation at 4 and astral transformation at 12. Ethereal gives you immunity against bleeding, bruning, DISEASED frozen and immobilized, order dragons gain in their aura a moral boost and a luck boost for even more crit chance.
For government I play a materium faction to collect even more items for the dragon hoard, Rune Smiths for tech rushing + enchantments and mana addict for that sweet livesteal. One of the nice things about the order dragon aura is that it gives you moral leading to a loop where even if you don't cast spells your moral and it should go down your order aura keeps it up nicely.
For tomes I start whit the tome of enchantment, followed by the tome of zeal at tier 1
Tier 2 I pick up the tome of inquisition and the tome of artificing
Tier 3 I go with the tome sanctuary and the tome of dragons for the major race transformation and dragons ( but more to that one in a bit)
At tier 4 I pick up the tome of exaltation for one reason only. Ascended warriors. Now I can transform my dragons from young into adults whitout showing them ever to my enemy's
The second tier 4 tome I pick up is the golden realm so that I can actually afford these dragon stacks
Finaly I end it whit the tome of the God emperor to cement the idea of this divine dragon that will never surrender and makes everything crit
Also worth pointing out that your dragon DOSE benifit from your racial traits
Thanks for your videos, I've been learning a lot from them. About the transformation at level 12, one extra point in favor of Materium is that it turns your dragon into an Elemental, giving immunity to Bleeding, Poisoned, and Diseased. The Shadow Transformation turns the dragon into Undead, which gives some penalties to resistances. But both transformations are quite good anyway.
That's a very interesting point towards materium I haven't even thought about. I did notice the undead transfo, but the Elemental one I somehow derped. Thanks!
@@Ic0nGaming and with the T5 materium Tome it will also gain the unit enchatment "eternal earth" for a free revive once per battle.
Ethereal trait from the astral transformation also ignores a whole bunch of negative statuses, at the cost of taking extra spirit/holy damage. (Not sure which statuses specifically, but I do think any of the stuns/snares don't work on ethereal?) The passing through walls bit is meh for the dragon tho, since it innately has flying...
@@Disappointed_Philosoraptor The revive won't work if you only have a single unit, which this build is trying to highlight. Astral or Chaos would be the better choice, as you will need ways to increase the world map mobility. You could also play around with "Perfectionist Artisans" as a Barbarian empire, to spam the world with infinite Outposts and Teleporters.
Ethereal takes extra Lightning damage
But immune to the most amount of statuses
I noticed you didn't cover the Order transformation and think it's also broken. You get 25 healing and purge negative statuses on it every other turn with quicked breath with Comet. It outpaces Shadow's healing if you can't hit 5 units (although it's really not hard to hit 5 in a battle given it's size). Sure there's no hard CC component like Shadow but distracted isn't bad either.
If you combine the Chaos Aspect with the Shadow Transformation, your Dragon will still be able to gain Morale but will be unable to lose any.
As a beginner, I have no idea how you got to the starting point in this video. Did you create this faction? What culture, society traits, tome, etc. should I use to start the game?
Tried your build and loving it. Able to defeat 4-6 units so far depending on the makeup of the battle
Feudal Dragon with "Lord of War", could be strong, healing plus more movement, for your dragon, but, may also be bad choice, as each unit in army gets same amount of HP, healing 6 units > healing 1 unit.
Just tried this for myself, and I absolutely love it. Having one of the rings that affect enemy morale causes them to route with over half their forces left.
Hey mate, care sharing the whole build ? Like the race stuff and all the starting characteristics you picked ? Also what tomes do you advise ? Thanks a lot :)
As a single unit, you'd probably want to take the second level of the "Heightened Senses" Dragon Lord trait, as it will make you immune to flanking.
I didn't feel like that was worth 2 entire skill points in general. Yes, it averts damage, but except for the flanking immunity the other stats are really meh. I think you get more bang for your buck elsewhere.
If your nation is industrious(I think), there's a trait in the fighter tree that lets your dragon lord enter guard mode at the end of the turn regardless of what action he took. Functionally making you immune to flanking while also adding 2 resistance and defense. Combined with the trait from the same nation where the dragon gets defense and resistance every turn they're attacked makes him truly immortal. my DL had 90% physical damage reduction and his elemental reduction wasn't far behind without any spell support. Truly nutty combined with the amount of healing and aoe damage involved.
@@wolas321 Yeah! Industrious Dragon Lord seems to be one of the most busted options so far and it's the only one where I think Heightened Senses is even kinda mandatory.
@@wolas321 The hero trait is indeed from the industrious civilization, though you can't counter Heavy Charge, which you will be more than likely to encounter in the late-game. The Flanking immunity is one of the best trait to have, as you can ignore damage multipliers. It's essentially like being immune to critical strikes, but also allows you to counterattack behind you. The AI will usually be passive if it would die when attacking or moving, allowing you to negate even more potential damage.
I found, while playing on Brutal Difficulty, there are precious few low level mobs for this strategy.
It's totally okay to put some units with the dragon at first. You start out a tad bit slower, but that's all.
My only issue with shadow is the becoming undead and the weaknesses to elements besides that its 10/10 my favorite anyone else agree?
Love all your videos. Sorry I don't comment on all because I'm usually listening at work, but I swear you read my mind sometimes.
Nothing to be sorry about. Very glad you like the vids! Now I need to get back busy with my Dark Culture Build ... :D
@@Ic0nGaming I'm starting a new game, but i'm looking forward to the Dark Culture Build :)
I believe the dragon also recives your cultural traits, so there might be some synergies there...
Yes, you can learn the cultural skill for your dragon as well and most of the time I think it's very recommendable. This base frame can be massively alternated, but right now the raw survivability of Nature+Materium is nuts.
Not only cultural traits, but the dragon lord also inherits body traits as well ^^ Poisonous Dragon Anyone? Or how about a Dragon with Quick Reflexes, making it hard to hit with ANY ranged attacks? (despite it's ridiculous size) Or the trait for bonus flanking damage? (gotta pump those tail-swipe numbers :3 )
But I don't know if they also inherit mind traits... if they do, I haven't noticed it yet.
Check out the 'Avatar of Chaos' spell if you want to be able to summon copies of your Dragon Lord
Damn, that works on Heroes? :D
@@Ic0nGaming Only the faction leader
Great Video going to try this tonight!
Keep in mind though that the regeneration aura got heavily nerfed and doesn't work for your dragon personally anymore =)
@@Ic0nGaming I see that. Well dang. I'll see how it plays. No biggie. I just needed an Idea. AOW4 noob but I love it and will learn it. Thank you!
Don’t think this works anymore. Looked at the aura for nature dragon and it says it applies regeneration to your units and decay to enemies but no regen for the actual dragon.
I think they nerfed the nature aura as it doesn't apply on the dragon anymore
PSA: this is much harder (sometimes barely Mythbusters plausible) on the hardest difficulty. Fighting 2-4 units with a dragon is easy, but it will get destroyed against full stacks at the start.
Well Paradox also nerfed the hell out of the nature aura.
Brutal difficulty has extreme stack sizes and I personally think your always off better to go with an army stack + dragon leader instead.
15:00 the nature aura no longer applies to the dragon :(
This unit is so powerful
Do you think there is anyway to optimize a defensive build to be as efficient as offense? the only way ive been able to make it feel good is to add a fair bit of offensive power through the tomes as well. It just seems like my units still get melted regardless of high defense past the early game.
this doesn't work for me, the comet has 3 point cost and the dragon lords seems to exp the same alone or on a full stack, are you playing on fast or with advantages by any chance?
Yeah this whole playstyle got nerfed away by the recent patch. The regeneration aura part doesn't work anymore either. Nobody really expected this to be a long term thing though to be honest ^^
@@Ic0nGamingWould you consider making another Dragon Ruler Build video?
Amazing build :)
What I hate about the build is when i try to level up some small units with the dragon(after it's op already).. is the idea that your dragon will run away when the small units die. And it's running at full hp. Like really, Triumph??
Dragon shouldn't lose morale, atleast less. Or a skill to make it not. Furthermore higher tier units shouldn't be to bothered by low tier units dying.
Man your voice is glorious
Does this build still work/stand up today? Considering this is 11 months ago
This one got nerfed into the ground sadly.
Nice!
Did they change the level 8 signature skill? Sont have the rejuvenation one
You get a new set of choices everytime you play a new game. It's never the same choices with Level 8 and 16 on the dragon, and with heroes it's always a shuffle (4/8/12/16)
Thank you! Didn't know that, new to the game
No dragon slaying weapon in-game yet ?
there's a lance hero item in game that gives giant killer and the dragon lord is a giant unit.
can we get a build tutorial
Yes PLZ Mr Ic0n Gaming :))))
Can this take down Tier 4 and 5 baddies?
I think they patched the nature aura 😢 it's not working for me
Yes, the Regeneration part only applies on allies now. It was too good though admittedly.
@@Ic0nGaming Sir will u make new one Dragon Hero build without support army, Offensive strong and hard to kill :)
How do u speed up the battles like that?
Hi, can you specify the build? thks
i got it right now... but the new update scramble this a litle bit. Nature aura doe not give rejuvination on the dragon any more
Yeah, the build has been basically broken. I did expect it, was too good to last.
what difficulty is this?
This recording has been made in Hard Difficulty, for Brutal you might need some troop assistance for the first few levels, depending on the map and your starting conditions (culture, tome etc.)
@@Ic0nGaming thanks
They nerfed this so much :/
whole magic buff are aplied to Dragon comet spell also or nop?