Coin flip?
Global = Hedgefund (or some derivation thereof)
Not a bad idea. It was tails: /FF. Thanks for the advice.
It's how I make my more important decisions.
My first vill 50 was a Thug/FF. I still like him.
I guess the main other consideration, besides those you listed, is that /Thermal will ultimately be more damaging, as you Forge pets for +Dmg and further increase their damage with Melt Armor's -res.
Still, I don't think there's a right or wrong choice here.
Global = Hedgefund (or some derivation thereof)
I'd say ff. Therm is more than fine for general pve play but the gw guys do split up a lot and can be difficult to heal.
Forcefiled defense stacks with enforcer leadership manuvers. Good flip.
Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
I would have gone the other way.
Thugs/Therm can get a lot of extra defense from IOs and Leadership. 10% from the IOs, then another 5% from your Maneuvers + the stacked Leadership defense from the T2s. That's fairly close to the soft-cap.
Then you stack resistance shields and the resistance IOs. 20% from IOs, ~22% from your shields + the decent damage resistance the thugs already have.
What you get is high resistance, high defense, heals, buffs and debuffs.
With FF all you have is more defense. Not that that's a bad thing, but FF doesn't really bring a lot to the table outside of high defense.
I've got to do one or the other of these, because I just get a kick out of the idea of summoning a gang war and being able to instantly shield all of them with the new change to how shields work.
The question is which one? With /FF I can easily super cap them. Even against enemies like Council that massively def debuff, I can be sure my guys will stay well above the 45% threshold, as long as they stay together. However, the only parts of the /FF set that really appeal to me are the shields themselves, PFF, and Dispersion. The rest of my powers would go to pools I guess (including Medicine, certainly).
With /Therm there are some really awesome side powers, but it's not as strong survivability wise. Most of my henchmens' resistances would reach 40% with procs, but that doesn't guarantee survival like good old fashioned defense does. Also the problem with the set is that every power in it is awesome. There aren't any good "skippable" powers to make room for pools.