My arcane sorcerer's familiar just died a gruesome death on my way to 11th level. Now I have spells to pick and, after waiting a week, a new familiar to attract and replace the dust mephit.
Looking at both spell and familiar options I was wondering if anyone had played around with Elemental Aura on familiars? It seems you could use one of the several invisible at-will familiars to do some scouting, return, and have Elemental Aura applied. They can then fly back to the group of bad guys around the corner, and what then? The familiar is invisible and not attacking, but has say an acid aura surrounding it that will damage the bad guys at the beginning of the next turn. Does it count as an attack at that stage, negating the invisibility, and allowing them to move away?
If the familiar could sneak up there it would be a nice aura burst with a stagger, sicken, or fatigue effect. Maybe persistent applied as well. I think it likely counts as an attack however.