Warlock Demonology Rotation & Opener

First ~12 casts of actual top-ranked kills. Trinkets and racials vary by setup; the skill order is what to copy.

1 Demonbolt 2 Call Dreadstalkers 3 Summon Demonic Tyrant 4 Grimoire: Imp Lord 5 Shadow Bolt 6 Empowering VenomOff-GCD 7 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 8 Hand of Gul'dan 9 Shadow Bolt 10 Hand of Gul'dan 11 Shadow Bolt 12 Implosion 13 Shadow Bolt 14 Shadow Bolt 15 Hand of Gul'dan

1 Demonbolt 2 Grimoire: Imp Lord 3 Call Dreadstalkers 4 Shadow Bolt 5 Summon Demonic Tyrant 6 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 7 Freightrunner's FlaskOff-GCD 8 Hand of Gul'dan 9 Hand of Gul'dan 10 Shadow Bolt 11 Implosion 12 Shadow Bolt 13 Shadow Bolt 14 Shadow Bolt 15 Hand of Gul'dan

1 Demonbolt 2 Call Dreadstalkers 3 Summon Demonic Tyrant 4 Grimoire: Imp Lord 5 Shadow Bolt 6 Hand of Gul'dan 7 Hand of Gul'dan 8 Shadow Bolt 9 Empowering VenomOff-GCD 10 Implosion 11 Shadow Bolt 12 Shadow Bolt 13 Shadow Bolt 14 Hand of Gul'dan 15 Hand of Gul'dan

#showtooltip Demonbolt
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Demonbolt

Ability	Top-player CPM
Hand of Gul'dan	13.9
Demonbolt	10.1
Shadow Bolt	9.7
Implosion	3.1
Call Dreadstalkers	2.9
Ruination	1.5
Summon Demonic Tyrant	1.0
Empowering VenomOff-GCD	0.6
Burning Rush	0.6
Dark PactOff-GCD	0.6
Grimoire: Imp Lord	0.6
Mortal Coil	0.4

CPM = median casts per minute across the sampled top kills. If you're far below on a core ability, that's usually the first thing to fix.

First ~12 casts after the pull starts, taken from actual top key runs: the AoE opener is the first pack of the run, the single-target opener is the first boss. Trinkets and racials vary by setup; the skill order is what to copy.

1 Shadow Bolt 2 SoulburnOff-GCD 3 Shadow Bolt 4 Shadow Bolt 5 Demonic Gateway 6 Call Dreadstalkers 7 Implosion 8 Mortal Coil 9 Dark PactOff-GCD 10 Grimoire: Imp Lord 11 Curse of Tongues 12 Unending ResolveOff-GCD 13 Shadow Bolt 14 Spell LockOff-GCD 15 Summon Demonic Tyrant

1 Shadow Bolt 2 Call Dreadstalkers 3 Demonic Gateway 4 Shadow Bolt 5 Hand of Gul'dan 6 Shadow Bolt 7 Burning Rush 8 Curse of Weakness 9 Dark PactOff-GCD 10 Unending ResolveOff-GCD 11 Curse of Tongues 12 Shadow Bolt 13 Shadow Bolt 14 Implosion 15 Grimoire: Imp Lord

1 Call Dreadstalkers 2 Grimoire: Imp Lord 3 Shadow Bolt 4 Shadow Bolt 5 Shadow Bolt 6 Hand of Gul'dan 7 Spell LockOff-GCD 8 Shadow Bolt 9 Implosion 10 Shadow Bolt 11 Shadow Bolt 12 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 13 Summon Demonic Tyrant 14 Empowering VenomOff-GCD 15 Hand of Gul'dan

#showtooltip Shadow Bolt
/cast Soulburn
/cast Spell Lock
/cast Shadow Bolt

Collected from public Patch 12.1 guides and checked for this patch. Spell names follow the language you selected on this site and must match your game client. If a macro does not work on your client, report it with the button on the card.

#showtooltip Demonbolt
/use [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Demonbolt

#showtooltip [known:1276467] Grimoire: Fel Ravager; [known:1276452] Grimoire: Imp Lord
/cast [known:1276467,@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Grimoire: Fel Ravager
/cast [known:1276452,@mouseover,exists,nodead][] Grimoire: Imp Lord

#showtooltip Corruption
/use [@mouseover,harm,nodead][harm] Corruption

#showtooltip Banish
/use [mod:shift,@focus][] Banish

#showtooltip Soulstone
/target [@mouseover] Soulstone
/use Soulstone
/targetlasttarget

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/use [mod:shift] Demonic Circle(Summon); [nomod] Demonic Circle: Teleport(Teleport)

#showtooltip
/use [known:Shadowfury,@cursor] Shadowfury; [known:Howl of Terror] Howl of Terror

/petattack

Keybinds are personal — this is not a layout to copy wholesale. What it does say is which abilities you press most, measured from the same top parses above: the more often an ability is cast, the less effort its key should take. Interrupts, defensives and movement are deliberately left out; they barely register in cast data yet must always be within reach, so choose those yourself.

Rows marked Passive are not pressed at all — they fire on their own (auto-attacks, procs) and get no key, even though they top the casts-per-minute table.

Key	Ability	Top-player CPM
1	Hand of Gul'dan	13.9
2	Demonbolt	10.1
3	Shadow Bolt	9.7
4	Implosion	3.1
5	Call Dreadstalkers	2.9
Z	Light's BlessingOff-GCD	1.6
X	Ruination	1.5
C	Summon Demonic Tyrant	1.0
V	Spell LockOff-GCD	0.8
R	Dark PactOff-GCD	0.7
F	SoulburnOff-GCD	0.7
T	Empowering VenomOff-GCD	0.6
G	Burning Rush	0.6
Shift+1	Grimoire: Imp Lord	0.6
Shift+2	Mortal Coil	0.4