Mad Grim

While storm is one of my favorite sets, I don't see it pairing very well with Beast. The min function of the set is knockback, and melee pet hate that. They hate it so much in fact, they go on strike until the enemy gets back up and don't spend this time attacking them.

So even if you are skilled at storm and refrain from scattering enemies to the four winds, it seems fairly counter-intuitive for Beast.

Both /Time and /Dark seems like grand sets for it, and though I would recommend /Time, you seem set against it. Some other options:

/Force Field, will keep them on their feet, but offers no significant additional damage. Also has the problem of Force Bubble being nearly useless with melee pets.

/Thermal, Heals and resist shields. Beast doesn't seem to have any natural resist, but who doesn't want flaming wolves? The buffs and debuffs are not to be overlooked either, death is always a fantastic form of mitigation.

/Sonic, while I have never played it, seems rather like a Thermal without the heals and focusing more on buffing/debuffing. Still relying on resist shields, which by themselves will not keep squishy defense oriented pets on their feet.

/Pain Domination, has fantastic healing... this will help you greatly in the early game, but the higher you go the less the healing can contend with incoming damage, until it gets completely outclassed. There is an AoE buff, but it is resistance, and probably not enough to keep them kicking. However, nothing is quite like Painbringer. Also, there is a debuff to help your bests kill the enemy faster.

/Traps, Well, you can never really go wrong with /Traps. Yes, it does require a certain playstyle, but it has quite a bit of help to give your beasts. The Force Field Generator, while it does move slow, it recharges quick enough that you can just resummon it at whichever spot you moved to. You will be restricted to being in melee range with your pets, or you miss out on most of the power, so you will have to build up some self protection... Debuffs galore, some controlling ability when you give Poison Trap the Lockdown proc, One of the best alpha absorbers in the game, and the possibilty of exploding wolves. What's not to love?

However, I still highly recommend /Time.

Personally I thought it should have gone:

Three Wolves
One Lion, one Tiger
A Bear

Tiger second as they are so clearly superior to lions.

I slotted a Blood Mandate into them, so stopped noticing the end problems... without any end redux, they run out nearly every fight. Even with Blood Mandate, a prolonged fight may leave them winded... it also helps that I am /Time. Once you have Chrono Shift perma it solves the end problem completely, and they could fight for hours (assuming you can keep them alive).

If I ever get my hands on the Chance for Build Up, it is going in these guys. More attacks- more build up- more damage- stuff dies faster- genin die less- more attacks- more build up, etc etc.

The circle of life.

On my Ninja/Time/Mace I've yet to meet an AV or GM I cannot solo. Granted, I've not yet tried Lusca, but I'm planning to one of these days.

Yea, I've never posted on these forums (I just stalk them), but this comment has forced my hand, if only because Ninja/Time is my main and I am therefore incredibly biased.

Ninja/Time has great powers for keeping those insane ninjas of yours alive. The two most obvious are Farsight and Time's Juncture. With both of these active and well slotted on just SOs, you are looking at just about 20% defense buff and -15% accuracy debuff on the enemy. Combine this with the small amount of defense the ninjas get (except jounin, those guys have great defense) and they suddenly become nearly tough. Instead of wet tissue paper, they are now wet cardboard.

However, this is not the end. Temporal Mending is a nice initial heal, with an equal amount in a heal over time. It will heal up your ninjas and keep them healthy. Put enough recharge on it and you could have a constant stream of impressive green numbers going off.

Then you have Chrono Shift, which while its main function is lost on MM pets, it still serves as an emergency heal, and a buff towards yourself. As well as this, it will help with endurance problems... your ninjas won't run out of endurance. Distortion Field is great mitigation, cuts down the amount of incoming attacks by a tremendous amount. Last but not least, Slowed Response! Death is mitigation too, and using this will certainly make sure everything dies before your ninjas do.

There is the problem that you have no recharge intensive pets, so you can only slot one 5% enhancement, and the 10% ATO for AoE defense... though if you are going to use a catalyst on anything, this would be it. Increases to 15%, all my pets are soft capped to AoE.

Do apologize for the numerous spelling errors, my keyboard is wonky.