Targeting Question

This was my first play weekend, therefore I recognize that there may be a way around my question that I have not yet discovered. I did try a search but did not find my answer.

When ever I wanted to target a creature in order to find out if I might be able to fight it, I would automatically run to it when I clicked on it. Me and a friend were able to pass through the gate and into the area with the Oakenhearts. When we went to see if it was safe to fight a group of enemies in a castle ruin, we disovered the hard way that they were a group of lv 7 creatures since we auto-ran right up to them when we tried to see what they were by clicking on them.

Is there a way to safely click on something to see how dangerous it is without engaging yourself into combat? Just looking for a safe way to find out the level of a monster without engaging it.

Use tab to cycle through targets. The the easiest way to guage the composition of a mob if you're not in a rush.

I believe you can also hold 'shift' while clicking on an enemy to target them without attacking.

I have a different targeting question: As a necro, how to you target a fallen corpse so you can raise it as your minion? I'd kill something, click the spell, and it would say no target has been selected.

If you hold shift when clicking a target, you won't move to attack them. You can also use some various keys to target enemies such as 'C' or 'Tab'.

As for targetting corpses, you can no longer target corpses. When raising minions, it will automatically rase a minion from the corpse nearest to where you're standing. The same goes with Well of Blood/Power/Suffering/Profane, and I believe Necrotic Traversal uses the corpse closest to whoever you have targeted.

This seems pretty buggy to me. I've had constant problems with being absolutely surrounded by corpses that had not yet been exploited and still getting the "invalid target" complaint.

I get the impression that you only have about 2-3 seconds after a death to use the corpse. Does anyone else have any input?

Most likely explanation is that the corpses have already been exploited by either another player or an enemy. Corpses that have been exploited show as black husks, compared to the more juicy exploitable corpses.

You can raise minions only from fleshy corpses. Skeletons, elementals etc will not yield a minion.