Dervish
The Dervish is one of the oldest and most prevalent designs in the Inner Sphere, despite only being added recently to MWO. It is a 55-ton medium with strictly missile/energy hardpoints, jumpjets, and a high engine cap. Although each variant is quite unique and boasts a wide range of possible loadouts, the variety is very subtle. Nearly every variant is suited to SRM brawl, although LRMs are possible and there is one very good MRM build.
The Dervish has somewhat large side torsos - like a Quickdraw but much more pronounced. Despite this, the mech is best run with XL and it's not difficult to spread damage with torso twisting. The arms make for decent shields, which is unfortunate for builds that rely on hardpoints in the arms, because that means they are fragile. Missiles in the arms also suffer from low mounts and poor convergence - making them less accurate against faster targets even in close quarters.
Note that the Dervish has missile bay doors on its side torsos. When missile weapons are equipped, the bay doors are enabled and provide a damage reduction bonus when closed as long as a weapon inside still has remaining ammo. The bay doors will open automatically without delay when weapons are fired.
| Variants | LA | LT | CT | RT | RA | HD | JJs | MASC | MaxEng | Accel | Twist | Pitch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DV-6M | 21 | 1 | 1 | 21 | 5 | FALSE | 360 | 43.1 kph/s | 130o @ 126.0o/s | 20o | ||
|
DV-7D | 12 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 5 | FALSE | 360 | 43.1 kph/s | 130o @ 126.0o/s | 20o | ||
|
DV-8D | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 5 | FALSE | 360 | 43.1 kph/s | 130o @ 126.0o/s | 20o | ||
|
DV-6Mr | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | FALSE | 360 | 43.1 kph/s | 130o @ 126.0o/s | 20o | ||
|
DV-7P | 12 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 5 | FALSE | 360 | 43.1 kph/s | 130o @ 126.0o/s | 20o | ||
|
DV-FRH | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 5 | FALSE | 360 | 47.7 kph/s | 130o @ 135.0o/s | 20o |
DV-6MR
This is the "energy variant". It has six energy, just like the Griffin hero, "Sparky", and so it can do all the same builds. Unfortunately, the DV-6Mr has all of its energy solely in the arms (like a PXH-2), which means they are somewhat low mounted, and a bit fragile.
If you wish to run pure energy loadouts on this mech, you might want to equip Rocket Launchers in each of the side torsos. This occupies the missile bay doors so that you get the benefit of the bay door damage reduction when they are not in active use.
This is really very toasty, but at least it provides better concentrated fire than a pure SRM build, and more sheer damage output than a pure laser build. Most of your firepower is in the arms like a Phoenix Hawk, so expect that this could be on the fragile side.
Dropping the SRMs down for more sustained output. You can't drop the SRMs completely without upgrading the lasers, as 6MPL alone is too weak for a 55-tonner.
Like the Griffin 'Sparky', 6MPL is paltry firepower for a 55-tonner, but we can't go without mentioning this build, as it will likely get played a lot. The Rocket Launchers are equipped solely to get the benefit of having operational missile bay doors for their passive damage reduction.
You could go with larger or smaller Rocket Launchers, and you can even take this thing to XL330 and above if you like, as heat won't be a problem with such meager weaponry.
With the tiny RL10s, you can fit snug laservomit builds and keep the side torso bay door protection.
Can drop to longer duration standard Large Lasers to fit LE285, or a larger XL315 instead (or higher), all with the same cooling or better.
3x LL is possible, but your heat efficiency will suffer.
MRM50 is adequate if meager firepower on its own, and this adds some brawl lasers to it.
Upgrading to 2x MRM30 can be done by dropping to XL265 or lower. But being so slow and hot, it most likely won't be worth it.
Hot, with a somewhat weak, albeit concentrated alpha. The lasers comprise more of your effective firepower than the MRMs. Probably better off running pure lasers instead.
DV-7D
The DV-7D boasts six missile, which is really nice to have. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the hardpoints are in the arms, which is terrible because they are somewhat fragile and have poor convergence. This variant can run loadouts similar to the Bushwacker BSW-P1, but worse, because the Bushwacker is tankier and has good convergence.
Decent burst, but needing to dodge ghost heat is rather annoying when it comes to SRMs.
The DPS is high, the heat efficiency is decent, but the synergy and convergence will leave a lot to be desired.
So having your SRMs in the arms is bad. But having the damage reduction side torsos is why you do it. Just hope the arms aren't flimsy.
DV-6M
Four missile plus four energy is a very good combination for a 55-tonner, however these hardpoints are strewn across the entire mech leading to minor convergence issues on SRM builds.
The missile spread quirk and torso mounts means that this is the variant that you should equip MRMs on.
The torso hardpoints and spread quirk makes this the best variant for MRMs. Note that anything more than MRM60 is impractical, and Light Engine is also rather impractical. You'll want 12DHS bare minimum, and enough jumpjets to poptart.
Same as above - arm hardpoints bad, but tankier side-torsos good. Obviously this is worse at poptarting and better at brawling.
Going XL for the benefit of speed and jumpjets allows you to better get on top of your enemy where the relatively poor convergence will be less of an issue.
The Dervish is the only medium capable of running SRM24 plus this many lasers, and it still has decent speed. This build is even more reliant on the arms, but thankfully the added laser mounts don't make the arms any larger.
If you're worried about XL survivability, you'll have to deal with going significantly slower.
More, and better quality (pinpoint) firepower than just plain 4x SRM6a, but obviously suffers in heat efficiency.
DV-8D
The DV-8D has all of its missiles in the torsos, making it the best SRM brawler other than the hero. Not only is convergence good, but the arms can be stripped for extra tonnage if you don't want to use the energy hardpoints, or you can leave them armoured if find yourself able to expend it all with aggressive torso twisting.
This is like a more nimble GRF-2N without the ECM.
Three MRM20's is arguably the better way to run MRM60 - this costs less heat and has tighter spread while only weighing one ton more.
Can drop engine or armour for more jumpjets. Trying to add lasers however is too high of a cost - don't bother.
A truly new and unique build, although slightly on the hot side. It may be tricky to keep the arms attached when brawling, but you may be more worried about your XL.
This can be run with LE280 if you drop to just the base 10DHS and 1 jumpjet - it'll be hot.
Identical to a GRF-2N without the ECM.
DV-7P
This is a mirror hardpoint configuration of the DV-6M. Which is to say for missile loadouts it is strictly worse, as everything is in the arms with the poorer convergence and chance of being stripped, and there are essentially no quirks to compensate for this disadvantage.
The unique and apocryphal characteristic of energy torsos is really only beneficial to PPC poptarting, but this mech lacks the quirks that it takes to make PPCs even worth equipping.
This is the most obvious build for this variant - using the decent torso mounts for poptarting. However, the Griffin "Sparky" hero does this same build better, because it has heat quirks and better shield arms.
DV-FR "FRENZY"
Like the Huntsman "Pahket", what we have here is some pay-to-win hardpoint creep - this hero is the strongest variant of the Dervish. Not only does eight missile allow for same massive burst and DPS builds alike, but it allows you to run more optimised versions of the DV-7D's six-missile builds if you so wish.
The heat management will be garbage, the two-volley alpha to avoid ghost heat will be garbage... but the burst damage output will be insanely high.
Remember you cannot equip 8x SRM2, as that currently has ghost heat and it will add up quickly. This is penalty-free, runs pretty cool, and runs pretty fast. You can drop engine and LFerro to fit another jumpjet.
Unlike 8x SRM4, you can actually alpha this.
The spread on the SRM6's without artemis is obviously worse than the SRM4's, but the net concentrated damage is a little higher. Whether it's worth an extra four-ton investment is up to you. This build is best used within ~50m of the enemy, you really need to facehug to milk the SRM6 non-artemis advantage.