SilverVersion

I like the mastermind idea. Robots definitely sounds well suited to the hands-off approach, as Hedgefund2 said. It looks like Mercenaries and Necromancy are the other minion sets that have some form of self-healing, and Mercenaries are similarly ranged-focused. I've only leveled Thugs myself, though, so I'm not sure how well they survive in practice when mostly ignored.

I've been thinking about a pocket tank. For low-attention tanking, we want toggle auras with damage/taunt and PBAoE click abilities on a shortish cooldown to leave on autofire. The reliance on AoEs and the need for better passive taunting probably means tanker rather than brute. It'd be good to have options for setting either a self-heal or a stronger PBAoE damage to autofire, depending on whether the main toon currently being escorted has support abilities or not. Primaries that caught my eye: Bio Armor. Genetic Contamination: damage aura toggle with -DMG debuff. DNA Siphon: PBAoE damage, taunt, self-heal, & endurance recovery to leave on autofire. Adaptation also lets you shift between better defense/resist, better regen, or better -resist debuffs, which could be nice depending on your much support your main toon can give it. Note that Bio Armor doesn't get its PBAoE damage & self-heal until 18 and its toggle damage aura until 28, which means it can't exemplar to level toons very well. Dark Armor. Dark Shroud: damage aura toggle at level 1. Dark Regeneration: PBAoE damage & self heal for autofire. Cloak of Fear: fear & -acc aura toggle. Cloak of Darkness: If your main toon can stealth, then this gives your pocket tank a better stealth option than celerity without needing to pick up Concealment. Electric Armor. Lightning Field: Damage aura toggle at level 1. Also brings built-in protections against endurance drain and -recharge, which seems particularly deadly to a multibox tank you're not paying attention to. The self heal is unfortunately on a long timer, which might be a problem if you're using the pocket tank to escort a squishy DPS instead of a support toon. Radiation Armor. Beta Decay - Taunt aura toggle, with -To Hit & -Def debuffs instead of damage. Radiation Therapy - PBAoE damage, -regen debuff, self heal, & endurance recovery. Ground Zero: If you don't mind an extra button to push once in awhile, this PBAoE damage, -DEF debuff, and a team heal on a 90s cooldown. Edit: Somehow overlooked Fire Armor. It also has a level 1 damage aura (Blazing Aura), though its self-heal (Healing Flames) and its PBAoE damage (Consume) are on separate abilities, so you can only leave one on autofire. Also comes with Burn to leave a patch of damage on the ground, if you're willing to press an extra button during longer fights. ~ For secondaries, anything with a PBAoE attack on a shortish cooldown will do. These secondaries, though, caught my eye for also having something extra: Fire Melee. Two PBAoE damage powers, if you don't mind pressing an extra button - you get Combustion (dot) early, and fire sword circle later. Radiation Melee. Irradiated Ground: a toggle that leaves patches of damaging ground. Spines. Quills: Damage aura toggle. Pick whichever primary & secondary strike your fancy, throw in some toggles from Fighting & Leadership, then call it a day. I'm going to go make a pocket tanker now to see how this works out.

I have a rad/rad defender I'm leveling on a second account, and it works well so far. Useful things: ~Accelerated Metabolism. Press the button whenever it's up. I also have hasten on autofire; once I slot properly, that should make AM perma. This especially helps when I'm using my defender to level another toon that doesn't have proper recharge & endurance yet. ~PBAoE heal. As long as the defender is following the main, this is a one-button heal without needing to target whichever toon is dying. ~The three AoE debuffs. I only bother with them on hard targets. Two are toggles, so I only have to set those up once per fight, and the third (Lingering Radiation) is mostly there for enemies with regen and can be ignored otherwise. ~PBAoE Hold toggle: Zero-attention mez for the minions and some lieutenants that get near my healer. I don't use the actual attacks much, other than a macro that makes the defender use his basic attack on my current target. But, rad blast has some PBAoEs that would be low-attention damage while on follow. Rad defender is notably squishier than FF, so I have to pay attention to aggro & stray AoEs sometimes to keep the defender alive. Also, a note about my setup: I run the second client on a separate computer, then use a program (Input Director) that lets me send keystrokes from my main computer to the second one. Then, I assign my main computer's keypad to control the second client. This makes it possible to control the second toon more actively, such as mashing the heal button while simultaneously fighting with the main toon, without having to constantly alt-tab.