What's the best 100 talent for affliction warlock and why?

[carnicide]

It's not that I don't know how to use soul effigy, but I just don't like the game play of it. I prefer Phantom singularity, because it does good burst dps and is easy to manage. I was just wondering what was the math behind Soul effigy and why everyone says it's better. I can't really do the testing at the moment, but if you think about it logically is it really more damage than Phantom? The test I would do is on a dummy where I apply the 3 dots not including UA, because each additional application of UA does more damage so why waste a shard on Effigy when that only transfers 35% of the damage and the main target gets increased damage with the extra application. Wait a minute and then take those 3 dots dps and times it by 35%. Then take the same dummy apply the 3 dots and Phantom, wait a minute and see what the dps is. If I'm not mistaken that's the best way to get the difference in results right? What's the math that the theory crafters use to determine this? Is effigy better at 110 as well?

[Raxle]

Why not just actively use Soul Effigy in your test? In your scenario the global CDs used to cast the DoTs on the effigy are not taken into account, among other things.

Also, only going by a 1 min parse skews the results quite a bit due to a higher percentage up-time for PS.

I don't have any math in front of me to prove it, but Soul Effigy is better in certain scenarios and PS in others. It depends on the fight. If you're looking for single target only, Soul Effigy will always win.

[carnicide]

Thanks for the reply I've never mained a caster always a melee and I want to really change things up this expansion. I was reading a guide and in AOE sections they say to put soul effigy in melee, but effigy reads that it only damages the one target its attached to, why would that be the better way to do this? BC seed would hit it too?

[Raxle]

For extra seed damage with Sew the Seeds.

[Jessicka]

For extra seed damage with Sew the Seeds.

Also the Artefact traits, when things deal damage on death and it hits the Effigy, it transfers to the boss as well.

[xpose]

While PS is on cooldown SE is still doing damage. Longer the fight the more damage SE does.

PS will be good in dungeons and multiple mob instances where it can actually hit more than one target because you can clump it all together, otherwise SE will always win..

[Coils]

Its really no contest. Your sim was way too short.

On any sort of prolonged single target fight, SE will win by a significant margin. PS will realistically only useful in dungeons, while leveling or in PvP as targets are either short-lived or its not practical to set-up and maintain SE. Perhaps will have a breakpoint in very AoE raid encounters as well.