How effective is a Bots/FF build

I'm looking to try something different and was wondering what people think of Bots/FF. It seems like a pretty good mix only missing a heal. is the survivability good? I looked through the guides but most were a bit old so I wasn't sure how accurate the information is anymore.

Any advice would be great.
Thanks!

Bots/FF was my first 50. I love them, but I have to admit, they're a bit, erm, slow. Vs. AVs and such, they're a little tough since there isn't much mitigation besides the DEF boosts. Properly slotted though, you're almost untouchable, and with the bots second upgrade, you can deal a truly unholy amount of damage. I suggest Scirroco for your patron, since his hold has -knockback, and it will keep mobs in your Assault Bots burn patches.

Whoa, wall o text. Here, keep it easier, this is my personal pros and cons list:
(Note, I am by no means an expert on the topic, these are my personal musings)

Pro: Tough as Nails, personal attacks do decent damage in lower levels, teams love a bubbler, high survivability later on, OBSCENE damage in later levels, Force Bubble (that is all)

Con: Slow to start, little personal mitigation, Force Bolt is pretty terrible all around, low damage before Assault Bot


I love my Bots/FF, but I had more fun with my Thugs/SS.

Happy Hunting!

I will most likely be playing with another friend most of the time, but I'd like something that is able to solo when I want as well.

Thugs/SS huh? I know MMs are basically a team in themselves, but how does that mesh with others? And is there a class that fits best?

My first 50 villain was my Bots/FF MM. I took Ghost Widow as patron for thematic reasons though I may need to revisit that and do a respec someday.

It is incredibly effective and incredibly boring for me.

I also took Tactics, Assault and Manuevers. Basically I just hang back and buff them.

Once I went to get lunch while they waited on all the ambushes in the Peregrine Island mayhem (on the old highest setting whatever it was).

My bots/storm and bots/dark are a lot more fun.

Back with the old difficulty system, I could set it on the highest level and pad up to 5 people with no danger of dying to anything less than a Hero/AV. Between the silly defense and the knockback, it is a danger free set.

But there are no real damage boosters in either set, so killing is slow for anything except big groups of minions (all the bots get decent area attacks). But you can pick a fight with a room full of anything you want and then go get a sandwich while your bots do everything - most of the time they don't even need your single target buffs, just dispersion and leadership is all you're good for.

The Bots/FF was my first toon. He was created about 2.75 years ago and is still only lvl 29ish. I recently decided to revisit MM's and created my second one(a ninja/TA). Ninja TA is soooo much more fun and interactive then Bots/FF. For big teams bots/FF may provide something for you to do if you decide to buff team mates, but for solo - so boring. But to answer your actual question of is he survivable - so far yes.

Effective but dull. Besides rebuffing your pets every four minutes, there isn't much for you to do. You turn on force bubble, push everything into a corner, and go make a sandwich while your bots ... very ... slowly whittle them down.
I didn't have the patience for it, myself.

Is it still slow at 32? My bots/traps is currently tearing through x5 Arachnos spawns fast enough that I rarely put down a second set of traps for a given group, and Triage Beacon is usually up for one group in three.

Your experience would explain the behavior of one bots/FF mastermind I teamed with: he never figured out his bot controls, and would grab aggro by brushing enemies with Force Bubble. Fine when you're alone, not so good when you're shoving them away from the tank and scrappers.

Bots/FF is not different. it is pretty mainstream, actually.

My first 50 toon was a Bot/FF: It's a simple, semi/afk, beginner and solo friendly MM that can get you to 50 in no time at maximum mission difficulty setup.

The pro: when things go out of hand, just stand in the middle of the mob and let your bots wipe the field.

The con: it get boring in the long run, powerful but boring. Basically, you cast your bubbles, mow trough the mission's NPC with little more to do than refreshing force field and ordering your bots to attack (not even mandatory if you put them on aggressive).

Now if you want something more "active" go for poison, it's powerful and click intensive.

Bots/FF is the fastest, easiest path to soft-capped defenses, for both you and your minions. Other archetypes can spend millions to soft-cap their defenses, but you can do it with perfectly ordinary off-the-shelf defense IOs, and you don't even have to wait until level 50. Heck, you could probably even do it with just SOs if you want to be really cheap. Don't forget to slot your protector bots for defense, I put two defense IOs in them at level 50.

A soft-capped Bots/FF mastermind is perfect if you have a baby to take care of, and have to always be prepared to get up and go change a diaper or something on a moment's notice. Most characters will die if you take your hands off the keyboard in the middle of a big battle, but Bots/FF hardly even notices you're gone. If you set yourself to follow a teammate in a group, even the GROUP might not notice you're gone.

Once you're soft-capped against all types of incoming damage, the only other thing you might want to improve is how fast you kill your enemies. The key to getting really insane damage with a bots mastermind is to burn your enemies with napalm patches laid down by a fully upgraded assault bot. However, enemies have an annoying tendency to run out of the napalm patches. It's like they don't WANT to die, or something! How inconsiderate!

So what you need is a way to immobilize your enemies in a napalm patch, and watch them horribly roast to death. There are two good tools for this: force bubble and electric fences.

Force bubble is part of the FF power set, and it pushes everyone away from you. If you're in a room with sharp corners, you can trap people in corners and let your napalm do it's thing. This doesn't always just happen by itself, though: you have to maneuver around to push your enemies into the corner from a good angle, and compensate for the fact that they're also moving at the same time. There is an art to it, and it gives you something to actually do during battle other than twiddle your thumbs.

If you aren't in a room with sharp corners, you need something like Electric Fences which can nail a bunch of enemies down to the floor so that your assault bot can slather them with napalm. Electric Fences (from the Sirocco patron pool) is the only immobilizing power that is immune to knockback, and if you don't have that your bots will knock your immobilized enemies out of the napalm burn patches. Electric fences has a disappointingly small radius, but it's still the best power of it's kind available to you. And once again, it gives you something to do other than twiddle your thumbs while your robots do all the work.

One more thing you can do besides twiddle your thumbs during battle is heal. Get the "aid other" power, and six-slot it for heal and recharge. It's a surprisingly good single-target heal. It's especially useful at lower levels, but even at higher levels it's occasionally nice.

Speaking of lower levels, here's a final a bit of advice for how to survive them: never forget you can run away. You're a villainous mastermind, leaving your lackeys to die while you make a cowardly getaway is part of the idiom! For extra role-playing authenticity, I recommend raising a fist in the air and shouting something like "I'll get you next time, Longbow! My triumph is inevitable! Mwah ha ha haaa!"