How to necro?!

[Taiku]

Level 8 currently on my Iksar necro, I've got no idea how to play still, I can take stuff by just kind of bashing it with my pet and trying to tank when I can but my pet can easily out DPS me, and seemingly out tank and out regen me, so leveling solo is very slow.

In groups all I really do is send pet, lifetap/dark empathy, I feel like a weird off-healer.

Im sure this changes once I get certain spells and such but I couldn't find anywhere that was actually informative on what spells to use, how to use them, what I should be doing as a necro, the only guides I see are WHERE to farm.

I just hope these early levels are supposed to be difficult because I'm not really enjoying the feeling of this class so far, my snare is too short of duration and doesn't slow enough to get much of a gap between me and the mob, and if it resists then I'm taking a few big hits to the face while I try to recast, fear costs a big chunk of my mana pool, my DoTs aren't terribly effective, and the aggro from the DoTs is just insane (I know it's bugged on this server). So the only way I can see to level properly solo is to just have my pet do all the work and take the 50% xp cut.

Any help would be very appreciated! Also what are some cheap robes that are black or at least some other color than pink, this pink newbie robe is hurting my eyes already [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]