Overview
Are you interested in the purple toothy monster that is Mr. Foxtrot? Do you want to slay your enemies with lots of bullets and grenades and perhaps even a large knife you’ve stowed upon your person? This may very well be the guide for you.
Intro to Foxtrot
Foxtrot was recently buffed in the latest (July 21st) patch! <3.
His gun now fires a good bit faster and his iron sights have been improved with a minor level of zoom. I’m a fan of the changes :3
This guide has been updated to reflect those changes.
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This isn’t a guide with a lot of pictures and silly stuff, it’s just text that describes how one might play Foxtrot and how I believe he should be played.
I don’t want to spoil the lore so I’m just going to clarify a few things you probably already know.
Foxtrot and Mike are cloned from the same dude, the best. Foxtrot was an experimental batch while Mike was a standard clone.
What do you get when you play Foxtrot? Lots and lots of guns! More guns than any other character actually.
Your rifle has four weapons attached to it:
-The primary bursting fire
-The scrap cannon (which is greatly underutilized and underrated)
-The sticky bomb launcher (more pew)
-The overdrive module/attachment (lots and lots of pewing @ 75 rounds)
These are accessed by use of skills, I’ll go over that later.
In addition to this you have a great quick melee that involves a quick shank of the knife strapped on your leg. This is one of the best quick melees in the game as it has high damage (over 100) and high pushback.
Foxtrot can also regen health, gain damage boosts, movement speed buffs, and even reload buffs just by killing things. Yeah, you wanted a character that murders stuff AND has sustain? Here he is.
Let’s Talk About the Scrap Cannon!
Whiskey has a nice shotgun skill that’s extremely versatile and can save his life and his teammates. It can also be outfitted to buff his attack damage on struck targets.
Foxtrot may very well have the most versatile helix in the game. There’s a lot of options and you can usually choose either helix and still have a nice build. This is really evident on the scrap cannon most of all.
The scrap cannon was slightly nerfed as of the July 21st 2016 patch. You can no longer “prime” the scrap cannon, prime meaning that you bring the ability but don’t shoot yet. It now just immediately shoots. This makes it much harder to aim. </3. It’s still a totally viable weapon though, I simply recommend the helixes that decrease accuracy now.
You have two really solid choices:
-> A utility cannon you’ll use to escape, save teammates, or completely ♥♥♥♥ over enemies.
-> A sizable damage buff that rests nicely on top of your passive 25% bonus (totals to 50% bonus)
You can mix and match these if you like, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless the situation calls for it.
Utility Cannon:
-> Choose “Flak Off” and “Scrap Bank”
-> If approached by a melee, you have 3 shots to push them away from you, as well as your quick melee
-> Someone over extends towards your team. Get behind them and then blast them further into your base/team. They will regret their mistake immediately and you will get a nice assist.
-> When you unlock Napalm stickies you can blast people back into the flames so your AOE does its full damage. This is a really fun move, I usually do it to large melee characters who rush me. (Note: Napalm stickies are a mutation you’ll unlock as you level Whiskey).
Damage Cannon: (I rarely use this and I don’t recommend it, especially if you’re new to Whiskey)
-> Don’t choose scrap bank, pick the left helix instead. This gives you a +25% damage boost on a target for 8 seconds.
-> Now for helix one you WON’T choose flak off. You’ll want the left helix “Weighted Down” instead.
-> The basic strategy is stick them with a slow nade, hit them with the scrap cannon, and then crit, baby, crit. When stacked with your passive +25% and some +attack damage gear, this can melt people.
I used to recommend utility cannon. I now think they’re equally helpful. The damage cannon is pretty crazy now! +50% damage boost when combined passive and buff. It’s potent.
Let’s Talk About the Sticky Bomb!
The stickies are very simple and very potent. The first time you use them you’re going to think “My god these stickies are slow, guy, I can’t hit a moose in a snowstorm with a flapjack at this speed!”. The stickies have a crazy arc, because they are insanely lethal. It takes about ~5 hours to start getting more accurate with them. Once you can aim them though, everyone will be scared of you (and rightly so). You’ll want to aim where they’re running/jumping, not where they are. Just like you lead with Thorn’s arrows, only much more extreme. Look for jumping enemies like Thorn, Caldarius or anyone dumb enough to jump for no reason. Once you memorize the jump arc, it’s very easy to hit Battleborn who are mid air.
Onto the build!
If you’re using the utility scrap cannon, I would recommend grabbing “Triple Threat”. This lets you shoot 3 stickies at 100+ damage each. If you land even one, you can start shooting your enemy/scrapping them into a corner while you wait for the added damage boom. It’s a nice way to scare the ♥♥♥♥ out of people. They’re at full shield health, then 3 seconds later (that’s how long it takes a sticky to explode) they’re at half health with no shield. Once you combine this with napalm, you’re looking at a potential damage of 800 or higher. Obviously the AOE damage won’t all hit, but it will usually halve your target’s health.
If you’re going damage buff scrap cannon, grab “Triple Threat” or “MIRV stickies”. Personally, I like the triple stickies way more. I used to think MIRV was better, but it has a weird behavior in close quarters. If the MIRV action doesn’t happen before the grenade hits your target, the grenade WON’T stick to your enemy and will instead bounce off of them. This is very annoying and I do not like it. Now you’ve got three stickies that can ALL SLOW YOUR FOES. The ability only has a 15 second cooldown (can be upgraded to just 10). This means you can slow your enemies and unload your load in their slowed faces (that was a jumble).
I’ve been enjoying slow stickies lately, I alternate between utility and damage buff as I’m still figuring out what I like best and what fits my playstyle best.
Oh and at level 8, WILL YOU PICK THE COOLDOWN BUFF OR THE DAMAGE BUFF?!
Pick what you want. It depends how you utitlize the sticky. I usually go cooldown reduction because the napalm damage boost is already massive.
Let’s Talk About Overdrive!
Overdrive is your Ultimate Ability! It overrides your burst fire primary with 75 rounds of fully automatic fire (can be upgraded to 100 rounds at level 10).
When should you use your Overdive? Whenever you need extra damage! It’s an extremely versatile ability and can diffuse most situations. Are you about to die? You know what will fix that? MORE BULLETS! A lot more bullets really fast in their face parts!
You have two choices when you hit level 10:
-> +25 overdrive bullets
-> 100% shield penetration
Which one is best? It’s up to you. It really is. No seriously, pick the one you like. Go ahead. Do it.
Do it now. NOW. I always pick shield pen if Reyna is on the enemy team and so should you, that’s just a logical conclusion we can all enjoy. You’re welcome.
Overdrive is really simple. Shoot lots of bullets really fast, I don’t think I need to elaborate here so I won’t.
Let’s Talk About the General Build!
So besides the scrap cannon and the sticky, there are a few helixes that alter your primary weapon and your passive ability.
At level 3, you can pick a fantastic acog scope that lets you shoot everyone’s face parts over and over again very easily as well as a nice red dot sight scope that increases your aimed movement speed as well as your aimed fire rate. I’ve used both equally, right now I prefer the red dot sight as the attack speed buff is extremely potent when coupled with attack speed buffing gear. The acog is less viable in my current opinion. It forces you out of close quarters combat which is where your stickies and scrap cannon shine. Choose what you like, of course. Just know that the acog won’t let you counter snipe Marquis or Toby.
At level 5, after you unlock the mutation “Killer Regen”, you regenerate 220 health over 10 seconds every time you kill anything. This is in addition to dealing +25% damage for the next 8 seconds. Pretty snazzy. Very snazzy. Use this mutation if you don’t have a medic. Otherwise pick what you want, the reload boost is nice and so is the movement boost.
At level 7 you get the option to upgrade your 3 round burst to 4 rounds. Pick this helix. Pick it everytime. You can unload your mag faster as well as get 4 critical hits in a row as opposed to three. That’s very nice. I like it.
What about the gear?!!!
I run attack speed and attack damage, attack speed that boosts when I crit, and Whiskey’s legendary. I would recommend that build. If you don’t have his legendary yet, then grab a reload buff in place of his legendary. You could go all out crits with the acog scope if you’re crazy good at snapping crit bursts (I’m meh to okay at crit bursts).
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With Foxtrot’s recent buff (July 21st 2016), his primary weapo is now much deadlier. It shoots considerably faster and you may no longer need attack speed buffing gear. I still recommend it and I think it’s the best way to go, buuuuuuut you can live without it now. <3
How Should I Go About Murdering Stuff?!
A.K.A. What’s the playstyle?
I like to think of it as aggressively defensive. Protect your minions by murdering someone! You can’t tank damage so don’t try to. Be passive in your playstyle, harass people when you can, kill if you get the opportunity, but always go back to an area you can defend/escape from.
If you want to push, lead with your stickies, people get the ♥♥♥♥ scared out of them when a big red blinky bomb is stuck to their face (or three for that matter…). Once you get your napalm stickies, you have the ultimate wave clearing device because it goes with the minions instead of just sitting behind them.
With your primary weapon, go for crits if you’re confident in the shot, otherwise just grab the chest hitbox. You’ll hit for 36-54 damage and that’s enough to drop a shield in just two bursts. Other than that it just takes practice playing him to get your playstyle down and learn when to pick damage or utility in your team comp.
If you liked this guide lemme know, I can make more.