FF=The dull set. If you want to choose one of those 2, go TA.
TA gives you a far more active role (as Max hints at above). FF is bubbling every 2 minutes then letting you pets do their thing untill they need bubbling again, effective yet yawn inspiring.
TA will give you something to do right the way through a fight, glueing mob groups, debuffing, holding etc.
If you want more deffense buffs then take some leadership skills yourself and stack that with your enforcer buffs
Just adding to the two above. I have played a TA for a while (robot/TA) and I quite enjoyed the TA side of things. You can slow, hold problematic foes, debuff and eventually hold as well. I deleted mine cause I got bored of the robots being all ranged and knockback based but I half miss the TA side.
With the ammount of time it takes me to set up my little hoard now, the idea of adding 2 more buffs on top of that frightens me away from FF. I'd be thinking "hmmm 15 minutes, do I have time for this mission" quite often and shortening my play time. Whilst I've seen it is effective when running all that downtime is not my flavour of fun
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
Have to agree, played a Robot/FF to 16, but got bored with the constant bubbling, especially when I was trying to keep my team bubbled with stalkers running off everywhere, and other MMs pets to see to.
TA on the other hand is great fun to use.
I really should do something about this signature.
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TA gives you a far more active role (as Max hints at above). FF is bubbling every 2 minutes then letting you pets do their thing untill they need bubbling again, effective yet yawn inspiring.
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This is probably just with the way I play,
(Disclaimer: I have only played FF to the level where you can get Dispersion Bubble) but FF worries me since if your henchmen are suddenly getting under attack and quite obviously going to die..you can't suddenly with one power re-right the situation, it is more of a
Oh dang, I've already applied def buffs... sort of admittal 
Whereas with Trick Arrow then, you can quite obviously just use your powers faster or more of them to try and help...and the other secondaries too 
Chiefette
I have a level 31 Thugs/TA MM. It's quite a fun combo and very effective in teams as well as solo. I'm looking forward to getting Oil Slick at 35 to see what my arsonist makes of it
Octavian Vanguard
@ohmsEU and @ohms 2
Badging character: Bimble on the Union server, Badgehunter.com and City Info Tracker.
I have a thugs/FF Mastermind, only low level so far but I'm enjoying it. There's a sizeable end drain when buffing but otherwise I can largely sit back and play blastermind to an extent.
Oh and big automatic pistols and a bow? Doesn't work for me.
Oh and with the one attack you do get with FF you can keep a boss knocked off his feet while your boyz fill him full of lead.
Highguard, if you want survivability, this [u]link[u] takes you to a thread where I've discussed why Forcefields are awesome for that, and more.
And by the way, no-one but masterminds make 'doing little' while 'doing everything' look cool. It's what makes us supreme. I for one enjoy playing like a god.
See ya in-game. P.S, lemme know what you think of Pistol's build.
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Oh and big automatic pistols and a bow? Doesn't work for me.
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Who needs pistols when you have a bow that can do so much 
Octavian Vanguard
@ohmsEU and @ohms 2
Badging character: Bimble on the Union server, Badgehunter.com and City Info Tracker.
I have a Thug/FF MM (lvl 41). Normally I would agree that FF is the boring set, but my view for this MM was very 'in your face'. So I took the full Thug set, its quite fun blasting away with all the different pistol powers, especially until the mid-20s (empty clips is great on early Mayhem mishs).
To avoid the constant bubbling syndrome, and to give me enough powers for the fitness pool (which I need with my play style) I took only 4 bubble powers - Force bolt (required and an incredibly useful boss control power), personal forcefield (for when times get tough), dispersion bubble (for protecting my boys - not amazing, but enough to notice a difference and not have to keep bubbling), and force bubble (useful for controlling minions or holding ambushes at bay, especially around corners). This set doesn't provide uber defense, but it will keep your game interesting, keep you on your toes and not bubbling all the time (I also have 2 medicine powers for helping out, although didn't take them until late).
I have a Bots/FF Mastermind. I rather like the 'standing there and let my pets do all the fighting' aspect that FF allows. Once I've bubbled up my bots I can concentrate on managing them and keeping them (and other team members where possible) buffed up.
I find that the protection that FF provides, compliments the inherent powers that my bots have. The fact that the Protector Bots have their own FF power almost hints that Robotics and Force Fields go together, not that I'd imply that's the only way to go when creating a Robotics MM.
If I create another MM I'd probably look at what secondary poweset best compliments the powers that the pets have.
PANGAEA - Lvl 50 stone/stone Tanker
NX-02 - Lvl 50 robotics/force field Mastermind
DEUTERON - Lvl 50 Warshade
My three highest toons
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Oh and big automatic pistols and a bow? Doesn't work for me.
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Who needs pistols when you have a bow that can do so much
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All Very true. But I rolled a Thugs/TA last night and for concept reasons was just going to go for the bow. In the end after about an hour I had to re-roll and choose the dual pistols as my lv2 power as I was getting very bored with waiting for my punk to reload and flash arrows debuff isn't that useful at lv2. I'll respec out of it later on and go purely archer on em.
Just a warning, unless you are patient as hell, take at least one blast
"Oh my God, they're coming right for us!"
If you got patience for the casting/execution time, TA is a lovely set to play with, massive aoe. FF is a more easy going and self defensive, fire it off and enjoy the misses the mobs do all the time. Specialy with bots :P
As for flasharrow, its lousy. In pvp its quite usefull due the -perc.
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
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Loving my 31 thugs/ff at the moment as so easy to level. Gaming solo on relentless at moment with considerable ease. ONLY time when I have to drop level is for hero or EB as no debuff of course and not damaging them quickly enough on relentless-will be interesting to see post 32 if any difference. I love hanging back and surveying the whole scene plus if a team wipe looks likely personal ff is awesome
especially now I have aid self.
PS I done dark miasma (see sig below) but really fancy thug/poison-something else to consider perhaps
Hi,
I recently decided to make a Thugs mastermind (since they're all new and sparkly, or they were when I7 came out).
I'm trying to decide on the secondary to go with them. I've narrowed it down to either Forcefields or Trick Arrows.
I know at this point there will probably be suggestions of Dark Miasma, but I've been there and done that and would like to try somethign else.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to why Thugs/FF or Thugs/TA should be avoided or anything that makes them nice and fun?
I have a concept in mind for both, so now it really just comes down to which will be more fun, and for me a part of that is not aquiring a lot of debt or taking frequent hospital visits.
The combination of Forcefields and the Enforcers Manouvers makes that seem like an nice option. I understand that the defence values can get into the 40s? Which should make the pets very tough. The downside I see is the large periods of inactivety between bubbling everyone.
With Trick Arrows I like the idea of having -Res and -Def skills to increase damage output. Also the combo of an arsonist and Oil Slick Arrow seems like it could work well (how effective is the knockdown on Oil Slick and does it lose this effect when set alight?)
The downside to this is that while the enforcers will still have manouvers I wont have any defences boosts for them and I believe the only -acc in TA isn't really worth taking for acc debuffing. So will I end up losing henchmen so often that the boost I gain from -Def and -Res powers is nullified by lack of henchmen alive?
I notice you don't see a lot of /TA masterminds around. Is there a reason for this or is it simply that /Dark does it better?
Thanks in advance for any feedback.