Elemental Drain vs Radiant Aura?

NinthPrince64

Hello, I am looking for help understanding how these two compare to one another. At first blush it seems like RA would always be preferable, but would RA aggro everything it affected? Not sure I want to do that.
Thanks for your help.

Autolycus

Radiant Aura is a more efficient means by which to proc Minor Magickasteal. Ele Drain (and Siphon Spirit) are both single-target abilities, and while they can certainly be applied to multiple targets, Radiant Aura will hit them all at once with a single cast, if they are in range of course.

In the case with aggro, the answer is both yes and no. Your tank should be taking over that aggro if you generate it by taunting them. If your Radiant Aura is the first thing cast by anyone in your group at the start of a pull, it will immediately get their attention. Other healing and damage that follows very well may take it all away from you and put it on a dps instead. Or, as mentioned, the tank should grab them. I'd suggest that the easiest way to counter this is simply to wait a second or two after the start of the pull, and then cast it.

AcadianPaladin

EleDrain also debuffs mag resist.

I run EleDrain because my healer actually does quite a bit of solo work. EleDrain does not aggro anything. She can 'paint' every foe in a group with EleDrain at her leisure and buff up with Mutagen & ExtRitual before rapid rippling out Blazing Spear, Reflective Light and Purify almost in one motion.

The only thing I don't like about EleDrain is that it is the only ability I use that requires a destr staff. I would prefer to run dual resto staves. So, when it comes to supporting magicka fighters, I don't like Spirit Siphon because it is slow to casts and aggros its targets so you can't really 'pre-debuff' with it. As my healer slowly builds up her Undaunted Skill I'm looking forward to trying Necrotic Orbs as a possible replacement to EleDrain. My concern is that I guess Orbs only goes out to about 12 M and my healer generally is at 20M or more. That is one reason we don't use Repent (short range).

SuperLarrio

It really depends on how high of an end game level you are healing. All I've been running since the change is vmol. RA isnt great there for the first boss or twins fight. The biggest negative of RA is that it CC's, so in a fight where chaining is needed, its a problem.

So as an end game healer, you're probably going to switch RA and Ele depending on the situation. And to the point of needing a destro staff for ele, most end game healers are running lightning destros with wall of elements anyway.

SolarCat02

I have been playing with my Templar healer in veteran dungeons this week. She has the Radiant Aura morph, and while it's awesome for magicka sustain for the group, it also draws a lot of aggro. Last night in Volenfell for example I accidentally pulled bosses when we were fighting the trash mobs leading to the boss. The lion boss with the fear mechanism was a notable example. I also pulled mobs people usually skip into our boss fights.

The CC immunity wasn't a big deal because our tank is a Templar and therefore doesn't have Crowd Control abilities anyway. He did joke that I found the secret AoE taunt and he needs Radiant Aura on his tank now. He taunts everything so the debuff from Puncture was active on everything that needed it. (Some mobs die too fast to AoEs for the debuff to be worth it.)

Overall I still like Radiant Aura, but I am also very glad I set the Templar up to use resto/destro because she will definitely be swapping to Elemental Drain for certain fights.