After I got my Robot/Dark Mastermind Space Cadet. up to 40 in COV, I decided to roll a new toon while I waited for I7 to drop. The various other villains I tried just weren't doing it for me, and the missions were too fresh in my mind for me to enjoy them. I decided that I'd roll up a hero to play while waiting for I7.
The jetpack at Christmas had kind of spoiled me, so I decided I'd make a Peacebringer, and I decided to make it on Triumph so that I'd have the cash on hand to make him shine. Being kind of short on slots, I deleted a level 10 fire/empath controller I had and never played and rerolled him as a Peacebringer. He was based on a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic I wrote, so he was actually kind of tame looking by COH standards.
I didn't expect to get him too far because I figured I7 would hit and then I'd go play my Mastermind again. I did hope to get him to Level 20 though because that's when you get the Dwarf, and I very much wanted to have that power for him for concept reasons.
Getting to 20 was kind of hard. The Quantums and Voids (the PB's archenemies who do unresisted damage like you wouldn't believe at the lower levels) sliced me up like bologna again and again, but I kept on plugging until I hit 20.
And Dwarf is amazing. You don't get stunned, held, or immobilized in Dwarf form. Almost never. In Drake's entire career, he was only held once while in Dwarf form, and that was just long enough for "Immobilized" to pop up on my screen and then he was free.
For Drake's costume at this level, I wanted something similar to Captain Marvel's, but I just couldn't get it to work right. Personally, I think he looks like something out of a Flash Gordon serial in his level 20 outfit. Not bad, and it grew on me:
The more I played Drake in Dwarf form,the more I enjoyed it. In my mid-twenties, I had a Freak mission where I was escorting hostages out, and I wound up aggroing an entire middle-sized room of Freaks on me ... plus the patrol that was chasing me for saving the hostages.
And I didn't die once! I just kept plugging away with my low-low Dwarf damage and eventually the room was clear. I think I used up all the blues that I had on me, but I did it, and it was a blast.
For the rest of Drake's career, most of his slots wound up going into some aspect of his Dwarf form. The result is that he's never really going to be big on damage, but he's tough enough to do a creditable job tanking AVs ... especially in the
post-ED world where Stone tanks are the only ones that can go toe to toe with an AV without needing support.
When Drake hit 30, I was feeling nolstagic for Blue and gave him a Blue-like costume. Seeing as how he's Blue's cousin, it seemed appropriate for me.
In his forties, Drake was an able soloer thanks to his inherent defense against stuns and mezzes and holds. The only baddies that proved to be sheer aggravation to him were Malta and Carnies. Malta Sappers and Quantums/Voids are not a good combination when they're standing right next to each. I've found the best way to take out a Sapper is from a distance-- but that leaves you wide open to the Q/V who slaughters any Kheld who tries to take them down at anything but melee range. I soloed the Malta arc, and it was pure torture. I griped about it all the way through. After fighting the Carnies and dealing with their new power that lets them drain endurance at range-- not as fast as a Sapper, but annoying enough-- I decided not to touch any of the Carnie arcs, and I passed entirely on the 2nd Malta one.
The main problem I had in the early forties is that while Drake can go toe to toe with the AVs, he didn't have the damage to take them out himself. Even the Elite Boss versions of Nosferatu and the Clock King kicked his butt solo. (No defense against Psi damage-- not holds, but the
Defender-style attacks-- and Nosferatu is like a Bone Daddy on steroids.) I had to team up a lot, but it really wasn't too hard to find teammates in the early 40s range. This is something that would change when I got past 45...
Drake hit 40 right when they were offering the free costume token, so I tried to create something that was of Silver Age flair. I wound up liking it so much that I kept it and it was his main costume for most of the last 10 levels:
The last five levels for Drake had a lot of aggravation. On a decent-sized team, he was able to hold the AV's attention while his teammates pounded the AV to oblivion. Support was needed because even though Drake has an awesome self-heal in his Dwarf form-- was over 920 points when he finally hit 50-- a lot of the AV attacks can cause your own attacks to have a slow recharge, and without good backup he'd have been one pasted lobster.
The hard part about the last 5 levels was that finding a team got to be hard at times. Most of the people I played with as Blue are long gone from Triumph or almost never log on. I had made some new friends, but most of them didn't level as fast as Drake. They were willing to help out, but finding enough higher level people to mentor the lower level ones got to be a real challenge.
In the end, though, with a lot of help, I managed to get Drake up to 50. Blue is always going to be my favorite because he was my first toon and I spent a lot of time and energy working up a background for him, but Drake is versatile and self-sufficient and can do things I'd never be able to live through playing Blue.
It was a real fun ride, and you can't ask more than that.
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