The Warlocks Den - WoW Warlock Discussions

Fallenman and Clearly's Guide to BC Raiding as a Warlock

The purpose of this guide is to help the warlock community with the ins and outs of raiding in The Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Much of the information here is a collaboration of information that is found throughout these forums, as well as several others. Credit is certainly due to Elitist Jerks forums (Elitist Jerks) and The Warlock's Den (The Warlocks Den ). There are many individuals who have researched, tested, and discussed the information below, including the two authors. This will hopefully act as a basic guide for that. The "math" involved with much of the information here can be found at length on the aforementioned sites and in the warlock forums. Our intention is merely to create an overview of the collective knowledge of the warlock community with the intention of clarification and enlightenment for our brethren.

This guide is a joint effort composed by Fallenman of Mal'Ganis (Alliance) and Clearly of Cho'gall (Horde). Both authors have extensive end-game raiding experience, up to and including all current content, and are regular contributors to the WoW Warlock forums.


Outline
I. Stats
A. Hit
B. Spell Power
C. Critical Strike
D. Haste
E. Spell Penetration
F. Sta + Int
G. Spirit

II. Specs
A.53/1/17 (Affliction. There are several variants of this spec. See the sticky'd talent guide.)
i. What is a DoT rotation?
ii. Should I drop XYZ DoT from my rotation?

B. 0/13/51 + 7 (Chaos Bolt Destruction)
i. Destro with Conflag
ii. Destro without Conflag

C. 0/41/30 (Felguard Emberstorm)
D. 0/31/40 (Fire and Imp)

III. Gear and Glyph Selection
A. Leulier vs. MaxDPS
B. Evaluating upgrades
C. Enchanting
D. Gemming
E. Gear sets and the merits of their set bonuses
i. Plagueheart

F. Meta gems
G. Trinkets
H. Glyphs

IV. Curses
A. Curse selection
i. CoE
ii. CoR
iii. CoD or Curse of Agony?

V. Consumables
A. Flasks and Elixirs
B. Food buffs
C. Spellstone or Firestone
D. Potions

VI. Particularly useful warlocking addons
A. Big Wigs/Deadly Boss Mods
B. Quartz
C. DoTimer
D. Necrosis
E. Shard Ace
F. Omen
G. SW Stats/Recount

VII. Min/maxing and increasing performance
A. WWS and the evaluation thereof
B. Does this applicant warlock I have suck?
C. How much DPS should I be doing?

Appendix: Raiding 411
A. Threat and Aggro
B. Resistances



I. Stats
A. Hit
The need for hit is a commonly discussed theme for warlocks. No matter the spec, hit is often the highest "weighted" stat. Meaning that per point, you get the most dps increase in return with hit (until cap). What this means, is that you're going to want to try and cap your hit early on. However, and we cannot stress this enough, do NOT make foolish sacrifices to obtain it!! Don't pass on 50 spell power for 20 hit! For more on stat values per point, see our Gear Selection section. Also, note that you will only see "hit rating" on gear. We now refer to spell hit as just "hit". There is no longer a difference between melee hit rating on gear and spell hit rating on gear. There is only "hit rating" on gear now.

1% spell hit is equivalent to 26.23 hit rating.

The hit cap is as follows for a ?? or level 83 boss:

• 17% = 446 spell hit rating (rounded up)
• 14% = 368 spell hit rating (this assumes +3% from talents OR raid buffs)
• 13% (alliance only) = 341 spell hit rating (this assumes +3% from talents OR raid buffs, and +1% from draenei racial)
• 11% = 289 spell hit rating (this assumes +3% from talents AND +3% from raid buffs)
• 10% (alliance only) = 263 spell hit rating (this assumes +3% from talents AND +3% from raid buffs AND +1% from draenei racial)

B. Spell Power
This is among the next important stat for warlocks, especially for Affliction. This is largely a result of the fact that, for an Affliction lock, DoTs receive a much larger bonus from +damage than other spells. Spell damage benefits your spells based upon their cast time. Some spells get more damage for every 1 spell power, some get less. For a full list of coefficients, please visit: Spell power coefficient - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

C. Critical Strike
Critical Strike and Haste are 2 stats that are often compared to each other. Generally, haste is better per point, mainly due to the fact that it takes less haste rating for 1% haste than critical strike does for 1% crit. However, that doesn't mean crit should be ignored. See our section on Gear Selection for more on these two stats. Once again, note that there is no longer a spell crit or melee crit. You will only see critical strike rating on gear.

1% crit is equivalent to 45.91 critical strike rating.

D. Haste
Haste affects the "casting speed" of your spells. Or, in the case of instants, it reduces the Global Cooldown. Haste is a decent dps stat after spell power and crit. All specs, even affliction, will see a good amount of benefit from haste. For more on this, see our Gear Selection part of the guide. Once again, note that there is no longer spell haste or melee haste. You will only see haste rating on gear. For more in depth information on this stat, please see Casting speed - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

1% haste is equivalent to 32.79 haste rating.

E. Spell penetration
This stat ultimately serves no purpose for a PVE warlock, and should not be used or geared for. See more on this in the Resistances section of this guide.

F. Sta + Int
There is really no reason to gear for these stats specifically unless you're creating a set of warlock tanking gear for a fight such as Kael'Thas or Illidan. These stats will improve as needed as you gear up through normal raiding. In other words, the gear you obtain while raiding will have the appropriate amount of these stats to prepare you for the next level of content.

F. Spirit
Spirit is a new important stat for warlocks, due to the changes introduced in Wrath of the Lich King. There are 2 main reasons for this. First, Lifetap scales with spirit now. Specifically, you gain (300% spirit + 1490) mana, at the cost of (300% spirit +1490) health. We also gain benefit from spirit for our Fel Armor. Specifically, we gain spell power equivalent to 30% of our spirit. (So if you have 100 spirit, you get another 30 spell power when using Fel Armor)


Final Note: The bottom line with stats is that each stat's value is wholly dependent upon what the rating is of all the other stats. A common misconception is for people to say, for example, "oh, at XXXX spell damage, haste is better than crit". This simply isn't true. If you have 1400 damage, for example, and 0 crit, haste is not worth more per point than crit. While this is extreme, it illustrates the point quite clearly. The value of a stat is dependent upon the whole of all your stats.

II. Specs
A. 53/1/17 (or variants thereof)Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Deep affliction is currently considered the highest dps spec that warlocks have. However, it's also one of the most difficult specs to play, due to the fact that you have to do a lot of micro-managing. An addon to watch your DoTs here is a must. This spec scales extremely well with spell power, more so than any other warlock spec. And, contrary to popular believe, it also scales well with haste. SimCraft shows that deep affliction is also our best scaling build at the moment. For information on the rotation to use, see the next section under "What is a DoT rotation?" You will use the Imp for this build.

i. What is a DoT rotation?
A DoT rotation is a bit of a misnomer, as you will find dots will almost never be refreshed in the same order. The basics are that you want to refresh/recast your DoTs the moment they expire without clipping the last tick. For more information, please see the sticky'd affliction rotation raiding guide here: WOTLK affliction raiding, how-to guide - The Warlocks Den Forums

ii. Should I drop XYZ DoT from my rotation?
In general, as an affliction warlock, you will almost always want to cast ALL of your DoTs. They each have a higher DPCT than shadowbolt at pretty much any level of raiding. Once again see the sticky'd affliction rotation raiding guide.For affliction, you will change from using shadowbolt as your filler to drain soul when the boss is below 25%. You can also consider dropping immolate from your rotation at that time.

B. 0/13/51 + 7 (Chaos Bolt Destruction) (see below for build links)
Deep Destro is widely considered the strongest non-Affliction spec available, and a number of locks become pigeonholed into either this spec or one of the Demonology variants listed below because of the currently buggy non-stacking nature of Shadow Embrace, which makes it incredibly unwise to bring multiple Affliction locks to a raid. The Destro spec employs Incinerate as a primary nuke and relies heavily on keeping an Imp alive for additional dps from Empowered Imp. For this reason, taking all of the Imp buffing talents available (Improved Imp, Empowered Imp, Demonic Power) is strongly recommended. There are a number of other points of debate regarding the spec, namely whether Imp Corruption is a good use of points (Clearly thinks it is, and Fallenman disagrees), and whether one should use Conflagrate in the rotation. For this reason, two entirely different deep Destro raid specs are listed.

i. Destro with Conflag Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
For this spec, you rely solely on Curse of Agony to keep up Molten Core, so MC uptime is lower than with the Destro without Conflag build. Immolate and Curse of Agony are to be kept up at all times. Chaos Bolt is used on cooldown, and Incinerate is the filler spell. Conflag is used when there are fewer than three seconds remaining on Immolate. During the three Backdraft charges, you should refresh Immolate if there is not another lock putting the debuff up, use Chaos Bolt if it's on cooldown, and Incinerate, with that order of priority.

ii. Destro without Conflag Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Destro without Conflag has a few small advantages over Destro with Conflag. Namely, it will perform better in some of the extremely laggy conditions many players encounter in current 25 man raiding due to not being reliant on timing a Conflag. It also keeps nearly 100% uptime on Molten Core because it has the chance to proc off of two DoTs, rather than just one. Immolate, Corruption, and Curse of Agony are kept up at all times. Chaos Bolt is used on cooldown. Incinerate is the filler spell. This spec will probably become unviable when Conflagrate is buffed in an upcoming patch. At present, there are difficulties with GCD clipping on Immolate during Backdraft (it reduces your cast time but not your GCD) and with Emberstorm not affecting Conflagrate's damage. Both of these issues are due to be fixed, and they will allow a Conflag build to pull ahead. Please note that while the spec takes Conflag as a talent (it's quite useful on trash and on target switching) it is not used as part of the primary rotation.

C. 0/41/30 (Felguard Emberstorm) Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (note, there are several just as worthy variants to this build)
While this is not one of the highest dps builds, it is a good build if you're struggling with the 2 top dps specs. It's a simple and straightforward build, wtih an easy rotation. This build uses Felguard, along with fire to do its damage. It relies heavily on the Felguard being alive. You'll use your DoTs, along with Immolate and Incinerate for this build. Some of the points here are interchangeable with other talents. This build does have the option of sac'ing a pet if you can't keep it alive. The rotation consists of using Curse of Agony, Corruption, Immolate, and then Incinerate. Refresh dots as needed, and use Demonic Empowerment every cooldown.

D. 0/31/40 (Fire and Imp) Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (once again, there are several variants of this build)
This build is also an equivalent alternative to the FG/Emberstorm build in terms of dps. The build uses the Imp instead of the Felguard, but the rest of the rotation is the same.


A Special Note about Stat "Minimums"
Unlike previous specs in Burning Crusade, there are no stat minimums for any of the above builds. All can be used at even the earliest levels of raiding. While some specs scale better than others, that doesn't mean they can't be used early on when starting at entry level raiding.

III. Gear Selection
A. Leulier vs. MaxDPS
Two common theorycraft sites are WoW Warlock DPS Spreadsheet and MaxDPS.com - World of Warcraft Gear Rankings - News. Leulier's is far superior to maxDPS, as it allows for full and complete customization. Also, maxDPS makes many more incorrect assumptions that can often lead to very inaccurate or misleading numbers. It is our suggestion that you rerun Leulier whenever you receive significant gear upgrades, as the relative utility gained from a given attribute can be altered drastically by even a single piece of gear. Do note that Leulier still has a few bugs here and there to work out, since this is a fairly new expansion yet. Keep track at the official Leulier thread on EJ here: Leulier's Warlock DPS Spreadsheet - Elitist Jerks

B. Evaluating upgrades
As you gear up your warlock you will want to plan out gear choices in order to provide you with the biggest benefit in stats. Remember that you will want to get yourself to the hit cap before specifically focusing on other stats. However, this doesn't mean you should make ridiculous sacrifices to obtain it. For example, don't sacrifice 30 spell power for 10 hit. To determine how much of a DPS increase the next point or 10 points of a stat would provide, use Leulier's spreadsheet or an addon such as DrDamage.

C. Enchanting
Enchanting with the best PVE enchants available will lead you to do the following:
-Head: Arcanum of Burning Mysteries (requires Kirin Tor revered-- level this rep first!!!)
-Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Storm (requires Sons of Hodir exalted-- do your dailies!!!)
-Chest: Powerful Stats or Major Spirit
-Legs: Brilliant Spellthread
-Bracer: Superior Spellpower
-Cloak: Greater Speed or Lightweave (your choice)
-Gloves: Exceptional Spellpower
-Boots: Icewalker
-Rings: Greater Spellpower
-Weapon: Mighty Spellpower
-Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle. Adds a gem slot to any belt.

D. Gemming
When gemming your gear, you will want to use gems that provide you with the "prime" stats: spell power, crit, haste, hit, or spirit. A common thing to look at is socket bonuses. When gearing your PVE warlock, do not go for socket bonuses that are not the "prime" stats, such as stamina. For example, if the socket bonus is +4 stamina, there is no need to get the socket bonus, unless the gem color choices happen to work out that way.

Both Clearly and Fallenman advocate seeking B-A-L-A-N-C-E when determining your gemming and gearing. Stacking one stat to the exclusion of others is generally not a good policy. Generally the best way to maximize your attributes is to balance your spell power, crit, and haste. ALWAYS do what you can to maintain hitcap.

E. Gear sets and the merits of their set bonuses
i. Plagueheart
The Plagueheart 2 piece bonus is fantastic. It greatly increases the crit rate of your main nukes, and the proc has no cooldown. It procs off dot ticks, and just about every damaging spell we have. It could make certain dots worth casting when you otherwise might not cast them with certain specs. The 4 piece bonus is not a necessity, but it's basically a temporary spell power increase whenever you lifetap. It does NOT make lifetap worth adding into a rotation solely for the purpose of the spell power increase.

F. Meta gems
Chaotic Skyflare Diamond is the best choice for all Demonology and Destruction warlocks. For Affliction Bracing Earthsiege Diamond and Ember Skyflare Diamond are the best choices. Chaotic Skyflare Diamond should be avoided as affliction.

G. Trinkets
There is still a lot of theorycrafting and math to be done on trinkets, but for now here's the rundown of trinkets that have some usefulness, along with a great discussion thread on EJ.

-[Dying Curse]
-[Embrace of the Spider]
-[Extract of Necromatic Power]
Notes: New Timbal's Focusing Crystal. This trinket is much better for affliction. Has a 15 second internal cooldown. Should proc every 20 seconds for affliction specs.
-[Illustration of the Dragon Soul]
Notes: New Darkmoon Card: Crusade. Considered one of the best trinkets currently in game. Being changed to 18 spell power per stack, down from 26. The stacks proc off of anything you cast, so even before a boss you can cast detect invis on yourself over and over, or health funnel, etc, to build up the stacks or keep them going during downtimes on the boss.
-[Sundial of the Exiled]
Notes: 40 badge trinket.

I did not mention egg of mortal essence as there is talk this may be changed to not proc off of fel armor ticks.
EJ Thread: Trinket Discussion - Elitist Jerks

H. Glyphs
The glyphs you choose will be determined by your spec. However, to start, pretty much no matter what spec you are, you will have glyph of Immolate. That's a must for ANY raiding spec. The rest of the glyphs break down as follows:

Glyph of Immolate: All builds!
Glyph of Imp: Affliction or destro or hybrid using imp
Glyph of Felguard: Any spec using a felguard.
Glyph of siphon life: Affliction must have.
Glyph of corruption: Affliction ONLY if you're using the felhunter! Also can be used by other specs, depending.
Glyph of Curse of Agony: Used by heavy destruction if your shadowbolt's do more than 5000 damage on average. (hits and crits combined)

IV. Curses
A. Curse selection
i. CoE
If your raid contains a Boomkin with Earth and Moon, or a DK with Ebon Plaguebringer, do not use CoE as it does not stack. If your raid lacks a Boomkin (shame on your guild for not having one!) or Unholy DK, CoE must be thrown. This duty, by default, should fall to your guild's Affliction warlock, who will have Malediction. Under the worst of all possible circumstances, a Destro or Demonology lock can throw CoE. However, it nets a very significant dps loss for these specs, due to losing MC uptime, so everything should be done to avoid such a circumstance.

ii. CoR
CoR is almost never used anymore because almost every raid composition will have a warrior throwing Demo Shout, and CoR no longer stacks with Demo Shout.

iii. CoD or Curse of Agony?
For Demonology and Destro specs, Curse of Agony is far and away preferred due to its tremendous contribution to Molten Core uptime, which is a very significant dps boost. For Affliction specs, Curse of Agony is also a better choice, especially given the GCD reduction given to Curses. CoD really should only be used on fights where the boss will be un-dpsable for an extended period of time (think Malygos when he flies off).

V. Consumables
A. Flasks and Elixirs
Flask of the Frost Wyrm is, under all circumstances, the best possible choice. If you *have* to use an elixir instead of a flask, either because you are lazy or it's the end of the night, Elixir of Spirit and Spellpower Elixir should be used. Flask of the Frost Wyrm is dramatically better, though.

B. Food buffs
Firecracker Salmon is the best choice. Start leveling your fishing or be prepared to blow a lot of money on buying it off the AH. Tender Shoveltusk steak is also another option.

C. Spellstone or Firestone
Firestones are widely regarded as the most useful for any of the Destro and Demonology variant specs. Spellstones are superior for Affliction specs. Fairly self-explanatory. You should be using one or the other at all times.

D. Potions
There are several choices available to warlocks: Runic Mana Potions, Potions of Speed, and Potions of Wild Magic. Of the three, especially if you have the 4pc Plagueheart bonus, which makes Life Tapping almost a good use of time, Potions of Speed will yield far and away the greatest dps boost. Especially if one or both of your trinkets are of the sort that have large damage procs (the Badges trinket, the Forge Ember, etc.), Potions of Speed are best used during these procs, rather than during your Bloodlust/Heroism.

VI. Particularly useful warlocking addons
Almost all of the addons below can be obtained from Curse.com - WoW Addons Screenshots Forums Blogs
simply by searching for them by name.

A. Big Wigs/Deadly Boss Mods
Every raider should have one of these two addons. They are invaluable with helping timing of events and abilities. They can be obtained from BigWigs Bossmods - Addons - Curse
for bigwigs, and Deadly Boss Mods :: A World of Warcraft AddOn for Deadly Boss Mods. Fallenman prefers Deadly Boss Mods, whereas Clearly strongly prefers Big Wigs. It is largely a matter of personal preference but generally it is best to use whatever your guild prefers for the sake of consistency.

B. Quartz
While stopcasting macros are no longer needed, this mod still helps you time your next cast. It determines your latency with each cast, and by pressing another cast when the castbar reaches the "red" latency zone, you will start the next cast immediately when the first finishes. Stopcasting used to be necessary for this, but with recent changes, the Warcraft client now does this for you. Another advantage of Quartz is that it allows you to see how spell haste is physically affecting your cast times. Additionally, it has an enemy cast bar and a focus cast bar function built in which are very customizable and extremely useful both in PvP and PvE environments.

C. DoTimer
Written by a warlock for warlocks, this mod is a must have. Its ability to keep track of dots on mobs and your cooldowns is useful for just about any class. For warlocks, it's pure gold!

D. Necrosis
This mod is popular for keeping track of shards, soulstones, summoned demons, and a plethora of other warlock abilities. All warlocks should have either this or Shard Ace.

E. Shard Ace
This is a Wowace mod and therefore updatable via the Wowace Updater. This mod performs the same functions as Necrosis.

F. Omen
Every raider should be using Omen. It has revolutionized how threat is managed, long surpassing the days of KLH Threat meter. It works best if everyone in the raid uses the addon, as it communicates with other player's Omens.

G. SW Stats/Recount
These are used for the sole purpose of keeping track of damage done, dps, healing done, etc. They are very useful for seeing your crit rate, miss/resist rate, and many other useful statistics. Keep in mind, however, that the DPS these addons show is not your TRUE dps. It does not account for downtime, so it will only show your dps when you're actually considered to be doing damage. Nevertheless, they are almost invaluable for observing your performance and determining where there is room for improvement. A definite must have to help tune your performance!

VII. Min/maxing and increasing performance
A. WWS and the evaluation thereof
WWS is a fantastic tool for evaluating raid and individual performance, whether it's tanking, dps'ing, or healing. It can also help determine where a raid is failing on a certain boss, and why people are wiping. For a warlock, WWS can be used to determine DoT uptime, critical strike rating, missed spells, and resistance mitigation. To create a WWS report, simply follow the instructions here: Wow Web Stats . If you don't know how to tell what's going on in your WWS report, post it on the warlock forums for help, or ask guild mates who might have experience with it.

B. Does this applicant warlock I have suck?
This is a difficult question to answer. Since we can't speak for the personality side of your recruitment process, all we can give you is general advice and questions to ask yourself or your applicant. For warlocks, you want to determine their stance on their spec. Are they using one of the specs outlined in this guide? Does the applicant look like they have put time and effort into their gear, enchants, gems, etc? Is the warlock willing to respec as needed to improve themselves and the raid? Do their gear choices make sense for their level of raiding? Have they focused on the correct stats in their gear and gems? Have they taken the time and effort to get the right enchants and obtain at least blue item-level gems?

C. How much DPS should I be doing?
This is an often asked question, but difficult to answer. Your dps will obviously vary completely dependent upon gear level, skill, raid composition, and fight dynamics. Generally, the best "benchmark" fights are fights where no class is particularly favored over any other class (read: not AoE fights) and there is relatively uninterrupted DPS and no weird gimmicks that inflate your damage output. Right now the current "benchmark" fight is Patchwerk in Naxx. These fights are ideal dps checks because their circumstances emulate as closely as possible the circumstances under which Leulier operates-- that is, very little movement and no interruption in dps. Your dps will be inflated on fights where there is substantial AoEing, and your dps will suffer on encounters during which there is a great deal of movement. If your guild uses WWS, you can chart your progress from week to week and determine any shortcomings that may be holding you back.


Appendix: Raiding 411
A. Threat and Aggro
Threat is what is caused when you do damage or take certain actions that put you "on the radar," so to speak, of a boss or mob. Threat is directly translated into a numerical value. The first thing to know is that 1 point of damage = 1 point of threat. Crits do NOT cause "extra" threat. If you crit a mob for 8000 damage, that's 8000 threat. There are exceptions to this rule, one of them being Searing Pain, which causes 2 points of threat for every 1 point of damage. This is why Searing Pain is used in warlock tanking situations. "Pulling aggro" means you have overcome the amount of threat done by the highest threat player (usually a tank) and therefore the mob is now focusing on attacking you.

The threat you generate can be reduced by several things, such as Blessing of Salvation, Subtlety enchant to cloak, and even talents such as Destructive Reach (5/10% threat reduced from destruction spells per talent point spent). Keep in mind that threat reduction modifiers are multiplicative, not additive. This means you take the threat reductions and multiply them to obtain your true threat reduction. (example. 2% from cloak enchant and 10% from talents = 0.98 * 0.90 = 0.882 reduction, a total of 11.8% threat reduction)

The limits for when you will pull aggro are as follows. If you are in Melee range of a boss/mob, you will pull aggro once you exceed 110% of the current tank's threat (generally a tank). If you are outside of Melee range, you will pull aggro once you exceed 130% of the current tank's threat.

When determining to use your Soul Shatter, keep in mind that when you drop your threat that the boss/mob will go to its next highest target, regardless whether that is the official "tank." If you and one of your other warlock buddies are riding the 130% threat line and you happen to pull aggro and then shatter, you will drop the boss onto your comrade. Please be extremely responsible about using your threat drop and do not use it as an "oh crap" button.

Here is more "threat" info:

-Do our "health/mana modifying" spells generate extra threat from healing?
Dark Pact - Yes (.5 threat per mana gained)
Death Coil - No
Demon Armor - No
Drain Life - No
Drain Mana - No
Fel Stamina (from DS Voidwalker) - Yes (.5 threat per health gained)
Fel Energy (from DS Fel Hunter) - Yes (.5 threat per mana gained)
Health Funnel - No
Life Tap - No
Siphon Life - No
Fel Armor - Yes. (.5 threat per health gained)

-Which spells have a "cast threat" associated with them?
Most of our non-damage debuff spells have extra threat upon cast. So, for example, if someone pulls a mob with an arrow and does 25 damage, if you cast CoE you'll pull aggro since CoE has a "cast threat" of more than 25 threat. Here's a list of spells and their cast threat:

None: 0 threat upon cast
Corruption
Curse of Agony
Unending Breath

Low: around 75 threat upon cast
Demon Armor
Fel Armor
Detect Invisibility
Shadow Ward

High: around 115 threat upon cast
Curse of Doom
Curse of the Elements
Curse of Recklessness
Curse of Tongues
Curse of Weakness
Siphon Life

As you can see, none of our DoTs have an associated cast threat, except for Siphon Life. Also, it seems that the threat can change based on rank. For example, Siphon Life (Rank 1) has a "low" cast threat (around 60 as opposed to 115 for Rank 2). Thanks to Pentjak for his intial tests on this subject.

B. Resistances and Miss
There are 2 different kinds of resistances spell casters face when attacking, level based miss, and magical based resistance. In addition to this, there are 2 kinds of spells we cast, binary and non-binary. Binary spells are ONLY affected by the level based miss, and therefore will either fully hit or fully miss. They suffer from no partial resists. An example of a binary spell is mage's frostbolt. Non-binary spells go through both miss and resistance checks to determine their outcome.
Level based miss is determined by the target's level compared to your own level. The BASE chance to miss is as follows:
vs +0 level mob (same level): 4%
vs +1 level mob: 5%
vs +2 level mob: 6%
vs +3 level mob: 17%

The other aspect of this, magical resistance, is determined by the mob's resistance to schools of magic. This can be countered by spell penetration, curse of shadows, etc. However, there are 2 special things to note: The first is that there is a level based magical resistance that CANNOT be mitigated. Specifically 8 resistance to all schools per level the mob is above you. So, ?? boss mobs have 24 magical resistance to all schools that cannot be mitigated. The 2nd is that almost all PVE mobs in Wrath of the Lich King do not have anything above and beyond this resistance. The only current exception I am aware of is frost resistance from Sapphiron. That said, this resistance check can cause a partial (25%, 50%, 75%) or full (100%) resist.

One special note, DoTs are binary on the initial cast, but the damage they do is non-binary, and each tick can be partially resisted.

For more on resistances, visit: WoW - Resistances