Dragon Behavior

• A Dragon not engaged in combat will emit a distinctive "air rushing" sound while in flight.
• Dragons are Neutral enemies, meaning they are hostile towards all NPCs in the immediate area, and vice versa. However, sometimes dragons will not notice any enemies in the area at all and fly around nonchalantly. One may eventually become aware of nearby mobs and attack them, but if it doesn't encounter any enemies it eventually flies away.
• Dragons have numerous combat patterns: When first encountered, they will usually take advantage of their speed while in flight to sweep enemies on the ground with Shout attacks. Occasionally, they may also stop to hover in place, or land on the roof of a building and proceed to use a Shout, then fly away for another attack. If the target is out of range for regular Shouts, it will use a longer ranged Fire or Frost "ball" Shout which explodes on impact with a surface. When grounded, they become susceptible to close-ranged attacks, and their attacks consist of swinging their tails, using Shouts, and attempting to bite at an enemy with their jaws. If dragons successfully do enough damage to a player, they will perform a finishing move by grabbing half player's body with their mouth, swinging them back and forth a couple of times, then launching them into the air.
• After a Dragon has sustained enough damage, it may lose the ability to fly. If airborne when this happens it will crash land (in the nearest relatively open area), scarring the ground in the process.

Defense

• A Dragon can often be heard before it is seen. They roar on a regular basis and they make a distinctive sound when flying. This can be used to avoid or track them.
• If the player is a Vampire they are more resistant to ice, but vulnerable to fire, this might be good or bad depending of the dragons encountered, if the player is a Dunmer and a third level Vampire the Dragonborn will be very resistant to all elemental damage Dragons can produce.
• It is possible to find gear in game that protects against a percentage of elemental damage. This percentage stacks, so if the player has the right gear equipped it's possible to nullify up to 85% of elemental damage. Unfortunately, 100% resistance to any elemental damage is impossible.
• Spellbreaker can deflect the breath attack of any dragon up to ancient dragons without its ward breaking.
• As always, the player must be careful about their surroundings. NPCs can accidentally wander in and get hit, turning them hostile.
• Using Dragonrend right before a dragon shouts will make the dragons shout disappear and also cause them to land. (Not true when fighting an Ancient Fire Dragon)
• Become Ethereal is helpful when the player has low health.
• Mages can conjure an Atronach of the same type as the dragon (Flame for fire breathing dragons, and Frost for frost breathing dragons). This takes advantage of both the Atronach's total resistance to its element and the Atronach's tendency to make a huge target of itself.

Offense

• With the correct perks and powerful weapons, Dragons can be instantly killed with sneak attacks from a melee weapon or bow.
• When landed, a dragon will let out a long roar when an attack causes it to reach 50% health (the same point where it can no longer fly). While doing its roaring animation, the dragon is incapable of attacking. Using the Slow Time shout can give the player enough time to finish it off before it even stops roaring.
• Shield bashing a dragon on the head will cause it to recoil its head and stop breathing fire or frost prematurely. Power attacks can give the same result, albeit less reliably.
• Distracting dragons with Shadowmere can be useful. Shadowmere is the toughest horse and can withstand the attacks and give the player time to kill dragons.
• Using the Marked for Death shout can make dragons a little less difficult to slay.
• Using weapons with drain magicka will eventually stop a Dragon from shouting
• Mages can force any dragon to recoil over and over by spamming an Apprentice-level dual wielded Destruction spell like Firebolt with the Impact perk. This makes them easier to kill so long as a large pool of Magicka has been obtained beforehand.
• Using Fire Breath on Dragons is extremely useful, as it drains a lot of health and does additional fire damage, and Frost Dragons receive more damage.
• Dragonrend, of course, does a lot of affects to Dragons. It slows the Dragon, and depending what type of dragon and words used, the Dragon gets weak, even slowing it's ability to Shout.
• Dragonbane is very effective because of its dragon damage enchantment.

• Several different spells are capable of launching dragon corpses if cast on a dead dragon. Spells that work include Raise Zombie, Frost Spike, and Magelight.
  • A Wabbajack bolt is also capable of launching dragon corpses
• Prior to patch 1.3 dragons had been known to become glitched into mountains and other textures, which caused them to fly backwards and spin around wildly.
• Skyrim can sometimes fail to render the dragon's texture, leaving the player to fight the untextured model. The texture will appear once the dragon is dead.
• Even when standing behind columns or large structures dragons perform their execution move, reaching through and grabbing the player in their mouth and tossing them aside for a one-hit kill. Likewise, dragon breath attacks such as Yol (Fire) and Fo (Ice) can usually damage the player through cover and obstacles if what the player is hiding behind isn't thick enough. This is more common with higher level dragons and in the area of The College Of Winterhold.
• Very rarely, when the dragon landed sometimes they'll be stuck on the ground when he had a full health
• In some instances, when two dragons are encountered simultaneously one may die instantly upon landing. However, in other cases, both are able to land without dying.
• On a rare occasion a dragon has be seen flying around with full health and then fall to the ground and die.
• Prior to version 1.4*  PC  , Dragons could get stuck in their out-of-combat flight animation (just straight flying, informal description) while fighting them. The direction they are stuck flying in is completely random, often they can be stuck ascending or even flying straight up, roaring and flailing their head about. During these glitches, the Dragon moves at a very slow speed. Reducing them to zero health may or may not break them out of this glitch. Also, they can even simply break out of the glitch after an apparently random amount of time has passed.
• On rare occasions you can not absorb the dragon's soul and is just a corpse with its flesh still bound.