Concept Thugs/FF advice?

A long long time ago, back in Issue 0, I created an Illusion/Force Field character. He uses the Fighting Power Pool (all four powers), he has the Leadership powers... and he does not have any of the Ally-target bubbles, on purpose. He is certainly a concept character.

Now, thanks to a roleplaying challenge by a friend of mine, I am creating a villainous version of him. I know I can just create an Ill/FF and jump sides, but that's too boring.

Since 'Illusion' is not something that exists on the red side, I'm left with Forcefields. So I was looking at Corruptors and Masterminds trying to figure out the best way to emulate him.

Luckily, he's already supposed to be a former gang member, so the Thugs powerset made sense to me. Thus, I'm considering a Thugs/FF character.

I'll probably drop the Fighting pool, and just pick up the gun skills. 'Cause, well, why not? If he's going to go thug, might as well go full-on thug. Mostly I wanted it for Boxing and Kick, 'cause that's the sort of guy he is. But as a villain, might as well go with the lethal force, right?

Keeping Leadership seems to make sense.

I still want to skip the single-target bubbles. Having zero single-target bubbles wasn't an issue as a Controller; but as a Mastermind, now I'll have pets to take care of. How badly will I be hurting myself if I do this? Any advice on the best way to approach this character, given these stipulations?

I'd imagine Dispersion Bubble + Maneuvers + Enforcer's Maneuvers can still get your pets to the soft cap, maybe with some 5% Def IOs for your pets (I haven't done the math). I assume your concept still allows for Dispersion Bubble.

Thugs is pretty strong; it'd be hard to gimp it with sufficiently protected minions, even with your secondary pulling very little weight. You'll need to slot your personal attacks heavily for EndRdx (2-3 SO's worth) to have any hope of using them regularly, though. Mastermind attacks eat a ton of End.

As for how it'll play, read up on any Thugs guide and follow most of their advice for your primary.Your personal attacks will mostly be for flavor, but by skipping the shields you should have enough power choices to fit them in. You might consider taking Provoke, keeping your pets on Defensive Follow (bodyguard), as the relatively small damage you do from Pistols or Boxing would at least be useful in building threat.

I just checked out my Thugs/FF and I'm seeing:

4.43 Maneuvers
12.68 Dispersion
2 * 11.8 Enforcer Maneuvers

for a total of 40.72. So yeah, with a 5% Def IO they'd be soft-capped w/o bubbles. That's with enhancing the Enforcer Maneuvers.

Just making sure, but you are aware of the recent change to FF single target buffs right? That it's an now aoe effect and if you bubble one pet, they all get it (assuming they're not running around).

Here are cons to not taking the bubbles:
1) If pets leave your line of sight or get out of range, they will no longer get your +Def buffs. With bubbles it doesn't matter where they are.
2) A defeated Enforcer could cause a cascading failure similar to -Def. That is, lose an enforcer, def will go down 10%ish, if the other enforcer goes down, you lose their Maneuvers too. Bubbles would cover the gap while you resummon.
3) Player teammates will not be happy. FF is thought of as a set that brings bubbles to the party and if you don't have that, you'll be regarded as not contributing your weight. I don't want to turn this into a debate on whether this is true or not, there are of course some other considerations but I'm just saying what will be a common perception.

So, based on Thugs soft-capping without bubbles, I'd say you could function fine. If you can live with the 3 points outlined above, then hey, go for it.