MDD-A "Foxhound" (3x cSSRM6, 3x cSSRM4, 1x cERSL, 1x cMG, cAP)

5/5,

3 ratings

Meta for Mechbay Building: You can organize the positioning of your Streaks in the mech by putting missile pods in a certain order. Fiddle around until you get all the SSRM6s on top and the SSRM4s on the bottom. This allows you to fire your SSRM6s over partial cover as needed.


This is a full MDD-A Omnipod build. It is highly effective at taking out ECM Lights and Mediums in two salvos (about 6 seconds) and is sufficiently capable of fighting at its weight class. Against Assaults, the Streaks cause havoc with all the mech's components, and when fired from a side, are capable of taking out even a DWF's arm in a salvo and a half.

The two MDD-A arm omnipods have additional arm movement perks, allowing you to use your arms to get a small bit of extra lock-on capability for Streaks.

The reason that 3 SSRM6s and 3 SSRM4s are selected is two-fold.

First of all, firing an alpha of these six weapons is much less taxing on heat than firing off 6 SSRM6s at once.
Additionally, depending on your skill with managing weapons, you can basically bind these all to a single group with group-fire, and after the first salvo, not have to deal with heat penalty because all SSRMs of the same type will fire together with at least a half second difference in firing time, meaning you will not incur a secondary heat penalty.

By splitting up your fire, you also reduce ammo wasting from firing a full shot, common with other mech builds like the 4 Streak TBR and the 5 Streak SMN.

I had several games in the 1000-damage range, and most of the time, due to the sheer amount of alpha damage and accuracy, a fair number of kills due to the high amount of Streak damage being placed on enemies.





The two arm weapons were added based on experience with previous Streak builds not being able to properly take down enemies and components once they had been stripped of armor. These two weapons can basically be fired indefinitely between missile salvos and are helpful for breaking weapons in arms, legging mechs, and just being an additional nuisance in combat. However, operators may find different weapon sets, such as a cERML, more beneficial to their playstyle as needed.

Loss of either torso is unfortunate, but even half of this build is sufficient in putting out 30 damage missile lock-ons and either SL or MG harass depending on which side you lose.

The only real weakness in brawls comes when you encounter multiple ECMs, as your cAP can only handle one ECM at a time. This has become increasingly rarer in play, but in the event that you are engaged by multiple ECM, running or deploying a UAV will be your best option.

 

Tips for getting the srm6's on the top:

1. Get srm6's (streak, +A, or standard)

2. Get srm4's (streak, +A, or standard)

3. The MadDog installs short range launchers in the following order: middle, bottom, top. So to get the srm6's at the top, they need to be added last for each torso.

 

This is the "Tour Spec" build I used for the majority of the tournament. It eschewed the more brawl-friendly MG and ERSL for an ERML for ranged chip damage (and consequently tournament score). In addition, I moved the ammo into both torsos to reduce the dramatic effect of losing a torso. In many cases, even with a missing torso, I still managed to pull off 1K+ games as a supporting mech.



In addition, with further experimentation throughout the weekend, I have established that firing in chain above 80%, while reducing your alpha DPS, is much more intimidating to the enemy as it is a constant barrage of Streaks.

I've also received a few questions as to why I am doing this with Streaks as opposed to classic SRMs, and whether I'm just "horribly bad at aiming." In response to that, I would like to point out a few things.

1. Streaks have a range of 360m without mods. The additional range is beneficial for engaging targets like lights, or getting in a tad of chip damage that would be riskier with SRMs.
2. Streaks are accurate. As in, assuming no terrain is in the way, they will never miss. Such guarantees are unlikely with SRMs. If you have less than 66% accuracy with SRM6s, your DPS is identical to a perfectly accurate Streak 6.
3. The end result of firing normal SRMs and Streaks is that you hit a heat penalty either way, so DPS tends to even out in longer engagements, with the SRM boat having a higher potential DPS for about the first 8 seconds combat.
4. Because the pods are located in the torso, your SRMs are linked to where you are looking. Streaks are not. You can use your arms to lock onto targets to your side, above, or below you, and fire. The Streaks can be fired in a sphere covering the entire view of your mech, as opposed to a limited range capped by your torso.


Additional Notes:
With an Elite MDD, 3 Streak 4s can be fired together at 85%, and 3 Streak 6s can be fired together at 79% without reaching the heat penalty. In chain fire, 92% or below is an okay temperature to fire streaks.

 

First match ever in this build and 1k+ damage! Obviously, this is 5 stars! This thing's DPS is so high and reliable (unlike UAC or LRM), I don't even know what to say about it more.

Spoiler: screenshot

 

There is link to screenshot in the text. But okay, I duplicated the screenshot here in spoiler.

 

I really enjoy playing this build and I have it permanently assigned to one of my MDDs.

 

I'll be dog gone, 946 4th try!!! ...

 

Just did 1230 damage with 4 kills in this with a few modifications (I run 3 small lasers).

Oh yeah, second game only too hehe.

 

first game 800 damage, no mechskills at all, minor modifications (erml + mg) Most fun i had in a while