Well... this changes who's the Tank, and what is the best equipment. Mana Regen has jumped in value!
Reading this thread in German (with AltaVistaBablefish's help) has been fairly easy. Thanks everybody for the fairly clear writing.
Most comments I would make have been made by others.
1: Walls that stop arrows should also stop this aura, otherwise the BowaZon is suddenly very vulnerable to being killed by opponents that cannot be seen, that don't see the Zon, that can't attack the Zon, and can't be attacked. This from a friend trying her level 9x Zon last night. A Paladin with no mana and Zeal selected will still make a normal attack, a Zon with no mana and anything but normal attack selected (which is almost never) will just stand there.
2: The radius and rate-of-drain comments: I was afraid a few times that taking red potions would not suffice because the rate of drain appeared greater than the rate of recovery after taking the potion. This was from playing a skelimancer.  There are few spare corpses to hork since Corpse Explosion was weakened. If CE regains its effectiveness there will be corpses enough to hork for purples. The trick with the skelliemancer was to stay close enough that my skeletons would stay engaged with the monsters while I ran out of range (OK, I play a chickenmancer).
3: This aura drains clay golems, but not skeletal warriors apparently. Also it appears to affect Hirelings. Since these are all AI (more artificial than intelligent) perhaps the aura should not affect them.
4: The biggest change is to our assumptions and playing skill training: when to move, where to move to, and how to engage a group of opponents. @Chaos: If you intend that we must play in parties, you are making a design-level decision that Single Play is not supported in this mod.
@MyFellowPlayers: When we've played together, generally I've been in the back of the party because everybody else runs at full speed into the slaughter while I shoot from the door or strive to lure opponents into a tactical situation of my advantange. I've NEVER seen Grim Ward used by anybody to break up a pack. Neither Taunt. Neither have my fellow players used Decoy to tease the opponents to come this-a-way (to distract enemy fire by increasing the number of targets, yes; to lure opponents to break up a pack, no). This is part of why I've not been on top of the ladder... I also have few Hard Core casualties. The Blitzkreig may be best thought to be ended.
@all: treat this 7.61 like a new ladder, start new characters and learn the enormous impact of the aura change. Former weakling builds may now be relatively stronger (summoner Durid or melee necro for example). What constitutes Killer Gear may have changed.