Dr_Brainbottle

I'd slot more defense into your protector bots: I've got two level 50 IOs in mine. That will raise the defense on you and your protector bots closer to the defense soft-cap, and put your assault bot and drones comfortably over it because they get double protector shields.

Hitting the defense cap is the KEY to a good robot/ff build, and going comfortably over it gives you an extra margin of protection against debuff attacks which are actually pretty common.

There are a lot of things you can slot in protector bots besides just accuracy and damage. I have a heal and a stun duration, for example. Even at the defense cap your bots do occasionally take damage, and stunned enemies have a harder time getting out of burn patches, and that's where the REAL dps is.

You've taken mu mastery, but you haven't taken electrifying fences? That's usually the biggest reason for a robot mastermind to take mu mastery! Unlike many other hold powers, electrifying fences will lock a target down against knockback, so you can lay down a burn patch on some held captives without worrying about your own robots knocking them right out of it. If you don't have a tight corner handy to wedge them into with force effects, electrifying fences is the next best thing.

Are you aware that thunder strike is a melee attack? I didn't when I picked it in my last respec, and I've regretted it ever since. Melee attacks do NOT synergize well with force bubble, to say the least. Maybe it suits your play style better, but for me robot/ff is all about pushing enemies into corners with force effects and then watching them burn, burn, burn.

Oh, you've also taken kick, and slotted it. I guess you do like melee. But why kick, rather than boxing? Do you really need another way to knock someone back, when you've got a six-slotted force bolt? Or do you just want some place to stick the knockback protection set bonus?

Hover can take defensive ios, as well as travel ios. Also, if you pick speed instead of hurdle in the fitness pool, you can put even more travel ios in there and get hover moving at a nice clip, and it helps your flying speed even more. Are you taking hurdle because you intend to PvP? I'm more used to PvE, and pretty much always staying in a well slotted fitness speed boosted hover.

Tough and weave boost your own defense and resistances, but don't help your pets. If you were planning to take all the aggro as a "tankermind" that might make some sense, but even with thunder strike I'm not sure how well you're going to keep aggro off your assault bot unless you add the presence pool. Or is that another PvP thing?

You won't really be "pure tankermind" without provoke, but you'll probably kick so much *** you don't care.

One more suggestion, this time for filling your enhancement slots: the most important thing to do with a robot/ff mastermind is to "soft cap" the defense on you and your minions. that means getting at least 45% defense.

Note that this isn't just a case that "more defense is better", it's EXPONENTIALLY better as you get closer to the magic number of 45%. As someone on this forum pointed out, the last 5 points of defense from 40 to 45 are worth the same as all 40 points of defense that came before it.

But to get there you need to generously slot your powers with defense enhancers, and possibly the most important and yet least obvious place to put defense enhancers is your protector bots. Not only do they give a good defense boost against everything, you don't have to remind them to do it, and they cast TWO of those shields on your front line drones and assault bot, who will be taking the lion's share of the aggro. So every defense enhancement you slot in your protector bots are doing double duty where it really counts most. Yes, it's even worth giving up damage or accuracy enhancers to make way for defense. You might kill things a tiny bit slower without that extra damage, but you'll basically be invulnerable while you're doing it.

If you right click your assault bot, you can select an option to view it's combat stats, including it's current defense value and all the factors contributing to it. If you can beef him up to 45% defense against all types of damage, congratulations, you're in the big leagues.

Yes, minions that are allowed to run amok outside of supremacy range tend to lead to total party death... which I suppose is also a condition you aren't getting the full benefits of supremacy, but by that point it's the least of your problems.

also, not sure how well the bruiser would behave with group fly. That trick would probably work better with robots.

I recommend thugs/ff and thugs/pain.

Thugs mix well with more thugs, as you already point out.

Soft cap the defense on all pets with ff, and heal whatever damage trickles through with pain domination.

For power pools, I recommend both get fitness, leadership, and concealment.

Note that the personal invisibility power from the concealment pool sucks because it makes you "affect only self", but a mastermind can be GRANTED invisibility and not get that flaw. It also gives a small defense buff that never supresses, and even a small defense buff can be a huge improvement if that's what it takes to get soft capped. If the defense buff stacks, that's even cooler.

The ff can soft cap the defense of the pain mm, but not himself, so the pain mm should take the presence pool and learn how to tankermind while the ff mastermind stays invisible and commands his minions to focus fire on troublesome targets, which the tankermind cannot do without breaking bodyguard mode.

If one mastermind gets the flight pool up to "group fly", and the other gets teleport up to "group teleport", that might be an interesting synergy.

Also, if you take presence, medicine, leadership, and fitness, that's all four power pools right there. The fitness pool can improve your speed and jumping a bit, but if you want a "real travel power" you're going to have to give something up.

Or you could just get in the habit of buying raptor packs, I suppose.