I can't kill the Ancient Dragons... It kills me on one bite every time. If I where to lower my difficulty to novice, would that still happen? I dont want to lower my difficulty unless I know for sure. Thank you.

I had that problem too... until I got my enchanting up to snuff... now I can fight one with Dragonrend if I stay out of the way of its bite. Make sure that you have resistance to its breath... seems like it's usually frost. If you get three items with 30+% resistance and some powerful spells or bow action, you can take it.

I got ambushed by one the other day... landed in the forest and breathed on me before I could equip my stuff... I died in 3 seconds.

Lower your difficulty and find out. No one will think less of you.

I take you've problems once they land and not because of their powerful magic attacks?

Don't attack them from the front! They turn very slowly so you can use the same techniques for mammoths and giants. At level 50 my character looses 1/3 of her health even wearing ebony armor if she's not quick enough to block the attack with a shield.

Arrows with nasty grotesque poisons are your friends. Shoot, hide, snicker as bar decreases slowly. Repeat!

They do a good 300 damage with their bite. Attacking them from behind probably isn't a great idea, they hit you with their tail. Your best using ranged attacks, unless you can stagger/block with a shield or have someone sponging damage for you.

Turning it down to novice will result in you doing 2x damage, and taking 0.5x damage.

I'm a lvl 48 assassin/dual wielder...playing on Master, Ancient Dragons are the only thing I can't kill...

Thanks I'll try that out.