Again, no FD=dead SK and very often a dead group if he's pulling. Darkness again is a must, rather than using the pet split method I prefer to use darkness/FD. That way in the off chance there are adds, you can FD and the mob that's snared can be tagged once the others clear out. Also, if you're soloing and doing this, best way to do it is to FD out of agro range of the camp and wait until every mob is back in its original position except the snared mob.
Now, at lower lvls your pet is near useless dps, but any SK that's got to 68 w/ that pet spell knows that it's dang good dps eventually. Generally, I don't bother gearing it, but I do use the pet haste we get as to the 1hr duration. You get a pet for a reason... if a mob is casting AE's and you need to get out, a well timed FD and run like a mad man works great because while the mob will still want you, the pet has more hate built up and will give you and extra couple seconds to get away. Lately I do alot of aa grinding in droga because it's the same aa exp as hoh and easier kills, and my 68 pet can off tank for me if needed, but if you're expecting to need that a pet pack would be a good idea. While our pets are rather annoying early on, high end they become very useful and as sad as this may sound, my pet has probably saved my wart covered buttox lately as much as FD.
Aye to the weapon skills... yet there is one thing I have to rebuke Thalgin on, sorry man... Depending on the situation and the status of your group members, your spells ARE your biggest weapon, and I don't mean dps. Now, here's a double suggestion to clear up a spell slot and for a modest piece of gear, Blood Ember Vampraces... Clicky Vampiric Embrace and like 18ac, not bad, and you need to get used to using your tap/proc spells because they'll be life savers later on. ANY SPELL that weakens the mob offensively or defensively is very nice, VERY friggin nice... You might not out right notice the lower lvl ac/atk/etc type stats doing much, but they do, and they also build hate for when you're tanking.
Now, the Voice line of hate spells... Because of uber monks/rogues I got the 9th spell slot as soon as I could just so I could load two voice spells, and while to some this may appear to be odd or stupid, let me tell you, when a monk or rogue has 4+ lvls on you especially when you're still in the 50's and he's in the 60's, he's going to be going off and drawing more agro than alot of people care to admit. W/ the two Voice spells you can rotate between w/o having to stop, and they use VERY little mana, even the higher end AE ones. Yes, this greatly reduces your dps, but it allows the true dps toons to do their full dps. Another thing you can do, if you want a bit more dps and can't stand the idea of two Voice spells is load one of the disease spells we get. Heart Flutter, Asystole, etc. While the first two in the line will often times be overrode by a shm or necro, the high end ones won't. Those spells generate a good amount of hate, debuff, and add some dps, but often times are not mana efficient in a fast pulling group. Not to go on and on about our pets, but they are the most efficient and reliable dot we have as SK's, and that's where our AC taps come into play, means our pets and ourselves can hit the mobs more and harder, and the mob has a harder time hitting us.
Once you start getting your .5sec cast time nukes, do NOT over look them, but don't over load on them either. They can turn the tide of a battle just as fast and easily as a well timed HT or LT.
Now aa's, defensive are key, but our defensive aa's are some times also our offensive. Crit nukes are nice, means more dmg and more health on taps. Now, we have an aa that is some times overlooked, and that's our aa that causes crit taps. W/ the release of SoF they increased the cost of them, but they are well worth it because even if you don't get a crit blast, it means you may get a crit heal so still double the heal and you do the same dmg. There is also the chance of the two combining, which on say Leech Touch base dmg is like 900 or something, so, that means crit blast for up to 1800, and the possibility of a crit heal for around 3200 w/ max aa's into those areas and not LT that would mean over 3600 easy. Which basically means, if you knock those out at 60-61, that's probably going to be around 50-75% heal.
Now, as far as gear goes, pile up on AC. Alot of people love to see their huge hp's but lack the ac and leave toons such as my rogue tanking when they die because they can't tank light blue mobs in hoh. The higher your ac, the less you get hit, and the smaller the avg hit on your is going to be. You need the hp's to back up the ac, because lets face it, you still are going to take big hits, but don't go for the 20ac 300hp item when you could have the 38ac 190hp item, the ac more than makes up for it. We also don't get the big ac/hp buffs paladins do, which is one reason people often over look SK's for groups, our group taps are weak, and we can't buff that silly shm who slows and debuffs before the mob ever gets to the group. Thankfully, Festering Darkness will take alot of the pain away from having to try to get agro from those type of people, even the psycho overnuking wizards we all know.
Now, the only problem w/ having hybrid alts is they have the worst of both worlds. If he lasts until the 60's you have the high spell costs of casters and the high armor costs of warriors. Now, as a tank, you can't afford to let your gear slip, but neither can you afford to pass up on that 450hp 40ac 26 DS buff along w/ your taps. It's close, but you can always make due w/ lower lvl spells, but you can't tank w/ poop for armor.
At 55 you get your first mana regen spell w/ the skelly illusion, it drops in Chardok, off which mob i can't remember. It's a rare drop off of a rare spawn, BUT it will save your loads of plat on KEI and mana pots, as well as shrink pots as an ogre. I've seen this spell in the baz once and they wanted enough pp to earnestly twink a new toon. Also, this will free up a potion belt slot
As far as stats go, as a hybrid instead of just the 4 melee or 1 caster stat you have to focus on those 5, in our case the caster stat is int. By the 50's, a good goal is to have all five either above or near 200. As an ogre, you're going to have awesome str and sta from the get-go, so watch for and grab as much dex/agi/int gear as you can, and remember, those three have alot to do w/ your skill ups.
As gear effects, I like to have gear or an aug w/ a improved dmg on it because it means more dps and larger taps. Any sort of efficiency item isn't bad either, but don't waste a aug spot or lose ac/hp's on gear to have it. Weapons; pure hate augs, stuns, chaotic strike, and then disease based dots/nukes are good hate generating weapon procs.
Now, as an SK, you need to be very mana efficient. I hate it when I'm in a group and the tank or melee dps says they need to med when it's been going slow. It's one thing if you've just fought 3-5 mobs, but when you're just pulling at a steady pace an SK should try and stay as high mana as possible, thus we've been given the Voice spells for agro, before that it was our first disease spell, think it's Disease Cloud or something, and my first SK used that into the 50's when they reduced the agro on it and started introducing the new lines of hate spells. I know a lot of SK's from lvl 61-80 that still use Festering Darkness because of the mana cost and duration. Yes, it only does 50dmg per tick, but if you've played a necro, you come to understand that our snares aren't meant to be huge dmg, just a little added something. Also, Festering is one of our best hate spells for a long time once you get it.
Here's my usual solo spell set up, which is more often then not my group spell set up as well, Pact of Hate (mana regen), Touch of somethingorother (large tap w/ a recast delay), Tap (no recast delay, slightly smaller but more mana effecient), AC tap, ATK debuff or hate spell, Darkness, 2nd biggest nuke, largest nuke, and then the oh poop button; FD. I'll rotate my smaller nuke out for my fire based dot, which is nearly unresistable (lure) spell. As far as the ATK debuff, the asystole line, atk tap, or Voice spells go here for me. At roughly 7.5k mana my big tap uses roughly 6% while my smaller one uses 3-4%, and if you need to keep yourself alive long enough for a CH to land, the big tap then a bunch of small efficient taps will often times get it done.
Sorry for writing a book, but this is the class I play and love. I've played this class for coming up on 9yrs, nearly since the beginning, and I can't stand to see people play it that can't. Your job 90% of the time is going to be to tank. That means you have agro NOW, before the mob even reaches the group, you don't let that agro slip away, and you do everything in your power to keep yourself alive when tanking, even if it means popping heal pots and tapping like a mad man until you're oom and there's no pots left. As far as pulling goes, we're third rate these days, and even the best of us will get adds at times. A good SK knows that when he can't get a FD off or to work because of stuns/spells cast on him he backs away and dies honorably to save the others. Basically, it means you keep your arse alive as long as possible and you're the first one to die if someone dies, period. This is a rough class and only the rough and devoted last. The toon demands time and devotion if he's going to last. Chain pulling requires a rhythem and music helps me.
When you go to play your SK, tell yourself when you go to pull your the roughest, toughest, baddest sob in the zone and the only reason you bring one at a time is to make their death less painful, 'fore if you wanted to you would decimate the zone w/ one foul glare!
P.S. Sorry bout the book here, SK's are just my class and between lack of sleep and love the of the class i rambled on and on.