1.2 Stormcaller Survival Guide

Note: Click on the images to make them a readable size.

This is an in depth look at Static Discharge post 1.2. 

The upcoming 1.2 patch has the following change in the patch notes:

Static Discharge: Fixed an issue causing the damage portion to retain the effect of buffs that were active when the ability was cast but no longer active when the damage portion triggered. Damage is now attributed to the person triggering the damage instead of the caster of the buff. Static Discharge now triggers off of damaging spells and abilities and no longer triggers off of auto-attacks.

This means a few things for us mages who have been enjoying the incredible DPS Static Discharge has been giving us. The damage from SD (Static Discharge) will no longer be attributed to us on the DPS meters, which sucks but worse things have happened to better people.
This also means all our buffs/debuff will only effect our own SD procs. This is potentially a huge DPS loss. This is a parse from a rogue procing SD:

As you can see what used to be close to 400 damage per tic, is now a max of 46.

However, there was a pretty major change that was not mentioned in the patch notes. SD can now crit just like any other spell. It also appears to be correctly accounting for the crit additional bonus damage (Tempest) and chance (High Voltage).
Sorted by Critical true/false:

As you can see when I crit it was for around 500 damage which is a 180% increase, up from 285ish damage. Which means Tempest is working correctly.

Unfortunately the crit chance is based on the Spell Crit of the person causing the proc. Just like the damage.

SC/Ele and SC/Lock are still good specs, even with this change. Post 1.2 to really min/max raids will need to stack all their SCs in 1 party. In the likely case that you don't have 5 SCs stack your mages, followed by your clerics in the party with your SC[s]. It is better to have casters with no pets, then non casters with pets.

Earth Elemental pet SD damage:

Air Elemental pet SD damage:

Damage from a caster with no DPS cooldowns:

(This crit 9/10 times which is rare, the numbers are roughly accurate though)

Non caster pet does 43 non crit damage, non caster does 31. Caster does 105. So again, having a caster in a group with an SC is better then having a non caster pet class.

 If you stack SCs like this you will have to stagger your CDs which means you won't get Intensify Elements or Sacrifice Life: Damage when someone else uses their SD. The crit partially makes up for this but still a substantial loss.

With Intensify Elements:

 Without Intensify Elements:

4,574 vs 3,742 damage from Static Discharge.

Review:
Static Discharge is getting nerfed.
SC is still likely the best DPS spec for end game content.
Stack SCs with other SCs and casters.
Non caster pets are useless for SD.

Sorry this post is kind of a big number dump.. although its not like you people are paying me... cheapskates.

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