Seed of Corruption

Seed of Corruption is an Affliction warlock Shadow-based spell that deals area of effect direct damage after the target receives a specific amount of damage.

Seed of Corruption is a binary spell, so it will either be completely resisted (no explosion) or land for full damage.

Previously, any damage (including that from other party members) could detonate SoC. Since Patch 5.0.4, it can now only be triggered by damage done by the warlock, though if they have all three dots on the target, a couple of ticks is usually sufficient for detonation. Pet damage does not contribute. Furthermore, detonation also counts as damage that triggers other SoCs, leading to a cascade of explosions that contributes to massive burst AoE.

In instances, Seed of Corruption is most effective on large groups of mobs with relatively high health. Detonation will occur more quickly on a mob with full DoTs. If they won't live long enough for a few SoC to detonate, multi-dotting is a better choice.

While soloing, it is difficult to use SoC because of the amount of time required to set up a large cascade, especially when taking spell pushback. If the group of mobs is large enough to warrant the use of SoC, it is probably too large for a single warlock to handle.