Help choosing between bots/traps or thugs/traps

I have both toons, but want to focus my limited resources into one of them for now. I was going over what I thought were pros and cons, and this is what I've come up with so far:

BOTS PROS
1. Lieutenants can heal other bots and each other, albeit slowly.
2. Mostly energy damage, smattering of other dmg types
3. Possible, with FFG and the pet defense IO and Maneuvers, to soft cap Assault Bot's and Battle Drones' defense
4. Protector Bot's shield makes soft-capping your own defense possible, making for a good Tankermind build, as well as making Trip Mine easier to use in a firefight
5. Bots blow up immediately when using Detonator

CONS
1. Having your Protector bots cast shields takes time. If your bots die and you re-summon in the middle of a fight, they won't be at soft capped defense immediately. And if your Protector Bots are switching back and forth between buffing and fighting it'll take even longer. (Having Provoke in your build helps to offset this problem.)
2. Weaker overall damage output, even with energy damage

THUGS PROS
1. Easier time soft-capping defense on all pets, as the Enforcer toggles affect themselves as well as your other thug pets
2. Thugs can slot both Pet +def and Pet +resist IOs thanks to Gang War
3. The Enforcers use toggles for +defense, so it's there even if you re-summon during a fight
4. Other players thugs' buffs can buff your thugs, and vice versa
5. Higher overall damage output, even with mostly Smashing/Lethal dmg, also upgraded Enforcers have Assault
6. Don't need to slot for as much accuracy on pets, upgraded Enforcers come with Tactics

CONs
1. Next to impossible to soft-cap your def, as thug's leadership does not affect you
2. No healing available from pets.
3. Mostly Lethal/Smashing damage.
4. Arsonist is NOTORIOUS for running into melee and getting himself killed.
5. Animation time on detonator is several seconds longer on thugs

Anything important that I've missed? I'm sure there's got to be a few things I'm overlooking...

Gaheris

Ya know, i think bots actually out damage thugs, due to the main sources of damage being a higher tier. Assault bot burn patches out damage arsonists burn patches, and the assault bot can take alot more of a beating then the arson can.

On your own subject though, Having played a bot/traps, I'd say theres better debuff senergy with bots/ then with thugs/ so it really depends on what your wanting to do.

For AV/GM soloing, i'd have to vote bots, due to the stacking of seeker drones allowing you to forgo some defense, and the -dmg stacking up pretty high to allow your pets to soak some damage the AV/GMs dish out.

I have both robots and thugs masterminds. I do not know how you are measuring the amount of energy damage your robots are doing, but between flame thrower and incendiary missiles, the assault bot does a _lot_ of fire damage. That said, it's very hard for me to decide whether Bots or Thugs do more damage. I cannot dismiss the benefit of gang war sucking the aggro away from everyone with their swarming attack, especially in AV fights.

Robot because of the damage type they do is less resisted.

You can soft cap your defenses with Traps and a proper IO build. Pets buffs are not needed.

If your gonna go Defense cap, you just might as well go tankermind build. There are plenty of posts and builds on the forums. These pages don't switch too much and its pretty much the same questions. So it's not hard to scroll back 3 or 4 pages and pickup a bunch of decent builds and tactics related to a pet type.

A good question that I've been trying to figure out myself.

At the moment I'm leaning towards bots, because I like the protector's healing the other bots without me having to worry about it (since traps doesn't have its own click heal and it can be tough trying to use aid other in the middle of a fight).

Bots are a lot easier to deal with, as they are all ranged damage dealers and the assault bot is always good to go. Thugs on the other hand have the suicidal arsonist to deal with as well as the bruiser (who is a brute and performs much better with built up rage).

I do, however, vastly prefer gang war to repair (for fun factor). I also get tired of hearing 'CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP' everywhere I go, and thugs don't do that which is nice.

Thugs +1

Bots are good too but as others have mentioned, Thugs are easy to softcap for defense. On my Thugs/Traps MM, me and my pets are all softcapped (or very very close to it) with FFG. As long as you keep FFG up (which is easy with low recharge and fast cast time), that high defense is essentially permanent, short of being defense debuffed of course. Bots on the other hand need to re-bubble every 2-3 minutes (or something like that). Also if I recall correctly, if the bubbles drops in the middle of combat, they have to wait until the fight is over to re-buff. That takes some time too and could drag down your pace a little bit.

As for the healing, I use aid others for the occasional healing my thugs need. That is more than enough since they don't get hit much in the first place. Frankly, you only need to keep your eye on the Arsonist since his AOEs make him a priority target 99% of the time. As for bots, it's true that one of them can heal others but keep in mind that it has a somewhat lengthy animation (3 seconds or so). It can not attack while healing thus that will lower the overall DPS by a smidge. This is not to mention that you can't choose which bot is healed so you'll likely find yourself picking up aid others anyways. Personally, I'd rather have my MM do the healing since she's not the primary DPS to begin with.

Lastly, you can slot more procs into Thugs/Traps. Procs is what makes Traps REALLY shine. You can always use gang war as a mule for all the +def/res IOs so you can slot your pets for maximum damage and accuracy.

Dont forget Bot's resistance to Psiconics!!!!!!