3
It is tanky. I went with a Light engine 280 to protect it from the dreaded XL engine checks, and ran it with full armor. They can take a beating. Even weaponless, with 3 enemy mechs trying to kill me at the end of a game, I was still able to jump around into them to do damage for over a minute before they finally took me out. So I am going to assume that the hit boxes on it are pretty good.
The missile bay doors are nice with some builds. The added protection is a good thing, when you are using LRMs. However, on SRM builds, that delay while they are opening, and then firing, makes snap shots difficult, to say the least. I ended up just leaving them open while I was fighting in close, after missing some easy shots that would have splattered a light mech normally.
You have very limited energy hardpoints on the ones I bought. Either 2 or 4, but all seem to be located on the arms. However, the convergence isn't that bad. And while they arm mounted weapons are low, they aren't too low. You can still shoot over many things that would block arm mounted weapons on other mechs. I ran both a dual LPL and dual ER PPC loadout, and both of them worked reasonably well. Aside from getting a bit toasty.
The missile hardpoints are what make this mech. You have a lot of them, and the torso ones are relatively high, and well protected. You can use the good speed and mobility to make a good LRM support mech. Something to both give indirect fire support, and get in to medium range for direct fire support for damage amplification. The armor on it means you can take some hits and keep shooting. While the Dervish does a good job in this role, I love it as an SRM bomber. I was running the Frenzy with four SRM 6s in the torso, and four SRM 2s in the arms. You don't get ghost heat that way, and the SRM 2s cycle faster for follow-up shots. I set them up as 2 different weapons groups, and spent about half my time hunting down lights, and the other half the time shooting into the backs of heavies and assaults. You have a 68 point alpha, and with some extra double heatsinks, you can get off 2-3 bursts before you need to go cool down. In close you can use this to blow arms and side torsos off before using your speed and jump jets to get back out of the line of fire. And again, your armor lets you survive pulling this stunt more than once per game.
On a whole, I like the Dervish. It isn't anything particularly amazing. But it is a good, solid medium mech.
Edited by Bunny Wigglesworth, 20 June 2019 - 10:29 AM.
