I think it will be quite tough in elite / ultimate. I have a pure aether ray battle mage just hitting the expansion, already having some issue standing still to shoot the target without them charging at me.
Unless the pets can draw enough aggro for them not to chase after you, which I doubt they can, if you are pointing an aether ray at them :p, then most likely it is going to be you running around while your pets run after the mobs which are chasing after you. Essentially making aether ray much less useful. At least that's my initial thought.

I thought the same. I also noticed something else: it seems that the skeletons' aggro is really low (if non existant at all).

Already with my conjurer i did the same, running in circle or avoiding enemies while my pets were taking slowly the aggro, only to them spam skills which would proc my devotion skills to power up them.

The same tactic seems less viable with the necromancer though, as the aggro from pets is way lower.

blight fiend will do the trick in pulling aggro, maybe not so much for skele, but blight fiend certainly does a good job :)

Yeah, just got it and seems to pick some aggro :) . It works somewhat like the hellhound, the only shame is that when you make it "explode" your character must be near it :/

get blight burst as soon as you can, I find that skill really useful as it both confuses mobs and create threat, the coverage of the burst is pretty good. Excellent crowd control skill.

I see, I'll try it then, thanks!