Originally Posted by
Metal Gear Rex
Giving him the Protect spell grants the Dragon the advantage of Keeper Lightning immunity. I'm starting to remember that Protect does grant practically near immunity to Keeper Lightning, so there is a point to giving him that spell instead of just raw armor. I remember using that trick to make Ghosts and Horned Reapers immune to Keeper Lightning by giving them the spell at Level 1 and adjusting their natural armor stat with the 25% increase in mind.
For the Dragon, Protect gives him an extra edge over the Bile Demon as a tank with this extra immunity. Dragons level pretty fast so him hitting Level 5 isn't much of a problem. I think he's also supposed to get loads more experience than normal melee fighter because Flame Breath hits 10x per cast.
I don't have my patch files on this computer, but I believe I also increased the Dragon's armor to 100 from 90, which also gives him a bonus 12.5 armor overall with Protect (112.5 vs 125, 44% vs 49%).
I'm not exactly sure on the situation in FX right now with the spell damage nerfs as I only played the latest version briefly a few days ago up to Level 3 in the original campaign. However, considering the spell damage nerfs, I would assume that its pointless to ever refer to the Dragon as any sort of damage dealer considering that spells are his only means to deal damage. Therefore, it isn't a bad idea to also consider buffing his armor a bit more to 120 (for a grand total of 150 armor with Protect and 58% damage absorb) and make him go all the way as a pure Healer / Armor tank. He might also need Protect at Level 6 just to delay that extra armor gain but yeah.
It is a lot of damage to be able to just absorb, but if he can't do any real damage on his own, it doesn't really matter much does it? I think it makes him a very interesting tank compared to the Bile Demon, who can deal his own form of damage with melee and has a sense of crowd control with the Gas. I kind of wish I could properly emulate that kind of Heal tank for DK2 but sadly the game doesn't allow for it.
I did consider also buffing the Dragon's Defense, but that only helps him against melee fighters. The Orc already has high defense anyways. I like the idea of Armor bonuses because it gives him super tank capabilities universally.