I played several years ago and have a level 75 necro. The game has changed so much that I decided to start over. My tank pets on both necromancers fight at range. The tank pets dont run up to the mobs now. Anyone else notice this? Should you solo with melee type pets now?
Not sure if it's UI based (I'm one of the few that use Profit still), but there should be an option on the left side of the pet window to toggle melee or ranged. Regardless though, pets do more spell casting than melee and the animations were just recently updated to show that. As far as soloing, especially at lower levels, any of the pets should be fine to use
Honestly, on a summoner you do best to use your highest DPS pet instead of the tank pet except in rare circumstances. Right now, that's the scout pet. The idea is to kill the foe before it gets a chance to hit you. On a difficult mob, usually root the thing, throw the pet at it, then root, nuke, root, nuke etc. until dead.
When I played several years ago the melee pets always ran into melee. It thru me off when they didn't do that when I came back, it has been about 3 or 4 years. Back then I always used the pet tank to solo, the scouts would die very easily. I guess I will change my tactics. Also I changed the range/melee toggle to melee and it didn't seem to help ;P. Thanks all ;D!
As Sig has recommended, stick with the scout pet and you won't be disappointed. What was true years ago no longer applies to the Necro in today's combat environment.
In a group, always set your pet to be passive until you choose to throw it at a target. this helps keep them from scarfing up mobs your group wasn't ready for or didn't intend to pull. Also, the pet tends to stop the mob before it gets to the group and positioned, so wait a sec to toss it into combat.
You can set any pet to use melee vs. ranged. Just use /pet melee or /pet ranged -- you can set this in a macro, have the macro do the pet summon then set the combat style.