Yep. Though it makes you vulnerable against phat creatures and creatures with same Atk - Hp ratio, but it's better than nothing. I'm not sure how the QI would be because of the ability cost, but I reckon it wouldn't be so bad anyway. They deal a tiny bit of damage and the dragon is just there because it deals a goody ~10.
On PVP1 for most of the part, I think that the lack of damage isn't tooo worrying, but it's nice to have a boost if needed, so I'd probably add a dragon even if I left the pandes.