Artificer Spell Tier List – The Best Artificer Spells
This will be a deeper dive and analysis on why spells have their tier ranking on the Artificer spell list.
Like other half-casters, Artificers get their spells later and less frequently than full casters making general utility more important than it would be for full-casters.
Tier List Rankings
I do a standard S-F tier ranking and here’s how I categorize them:
S Tier – The absolute best of the best. These options can even broach into unfair territory and may be subject to being banned at certain tables. If you’re looking for power level alone, there’s functionally no reason not to use these.
A Tier – While not as broken as the S Tier options, these are as good as you can get without broaching into unfair territory, although some of them may be strong enough to feel unfair!
B Tier – These will not be as inherently powerful as A Tier options, but are still quite strong in their own right. These are likely a bit more situational or slightly weaker than the A tier options, but still very good.
C Tier – Decent options, but likely not particularly strong. These options don’t offer too much or may just be a bit too situational to be ranked higher, but are still options you should consider as these will be the average power level.
D Tier – While not completely useless, these options are either very weak or very situational so are unlikely to be used, but unlike F tier, these aren’t completely unusable or actively detrimental.
F Tier – Either so weak or so situational that these should functionally never be taken or considered unless in the most niche of circumstances.
Cantrips
S Tier
Guidance – As long as there isn’t a time crunch and you don’t need your Concentration, your party having a permanent 1d4 to ability checks is incredibly powerful.
A Tier
Mage Hand – Being able to manipulate objects from a distance is quite powerful, especially when it’s free. You’d be surprised how often a low grade telekinesis can come in handy whether it’s to grab something, activate a trap, or anything else a floating hand can accomplish.
Mending – A necessity for Artillerist and Battlesmith as you can repair your constructs, although you can’t use this in combat with the one minute casting time.
Prestidigitation – This does an exceptional amount of things for one cantrip and is easily the most versatile cantrip in D&D. With six distinct options, there are thousands of things you could with this. None of these effects are high impact, but the versatility is completely unmatched.
B Tier
Booming Blade* – This is the gold standard for cantrips if you’re getting up close and personal with enemies. Attempting to seal enemy movements by threatening 1d8 damage is pretty good, especially if you can weave in and out of combat with something like the Mobile feat. This cantrip sweetens a lot more once you hit level 5 as you get 1d8 up front and 2d8 if they move which is a solid amount of damage for a cantrip.
Create Bonfire – The damage on this cantrip is pretty standard, but getting even a small amount of area denial on a cantrip can be really strong. If you have ways to force movement from other creatures or even lock creatures down into a space, this can be very powerful. This would be an A tier cantrip if it didn’t require Concentration to keep going as you will likely have something better to concentrate on than this most of the time.
Fire Bolt – Great damage, great range. This is an ever so slightly weaker version of Eldritch Blast which is considered the best offensive cantrip in the game.
Green-Flame Blade* – Like Booming Blade, you’re only using this if you’re stepping right up to enemies. While Booming Blade is better for single targets, this works best when there’s two enemies close to each other. If you like getting into melee, you’re using Booming Blade or this as your most common cantrips.
Light – Having constant sources of light can be really important if you don’t have many party members with Darkvision. This isn’t a necessity, but is a nice thing to have.
Sword Burst* – If you are somehow surrounded by enemies (which is a bad place to be unless you’re ok with being in melee range), this is quite powerful as you can dole out a lot of damage on one action.
C Tier
Acid Splash – You won’t be using this very often as Dexterity saves can be pretty good and the damage is low, but if there are a few enemies next to each other, you can get some decent damage out of this.
Dancing Lights – A worse distraction than Minor Illusion and a worse light source than Light, but the versatility here can be nice if you don’t want to take either of the aforementioned cantrips.
Frostbite – The range is whatever, the damage isn’t great, and Constitution saves tend to be pretty high, but giving disadvantage on an attack roll is quite powerful if this connects.
Lightning Lure* – Like Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade, and Sword Burst, you really do not want to be using this unless you like being in melee range, but pulling enemies towards you can be strong if you need to move them away from your lower health allies and you need to get into melee range. This has a shorter range than Thorn Whip and uses a Strength check rather than a spell attack (which may or not be better), but this deals more damage so it depends on your preference on which you’d rather use.
Magic Stone – This damage isn’t too bad, but does get pretty quickly outclassed once you gain some levels. However, before you level up, this is some solid damage for a cantrip with only a bonus action to initially cast.
Message – Considering there is still a verbal component to the spell, it can be hard to be subtle with this, but if you need to communicate with someone telepathically for free, this is your best (and only) option.
Poison Spray – Great damage, but pretty short range and bad damage type. Still, this is a decent cantrip if you’re looking to be somewhat close to enemies.
Ray of Frost – A 60 foot range and less damage than Fire Bolt isn’t a great start, but reducing speed by 10 feet can be useful in theory if you’re looking to kite the enemy.
Shocking Grasp – A touch cantrip is already not great since most casters don’t like being that close and the damage isn’t even that good, but this can be decent if the enemy is wearing armor as you’d get advantage on your roll and potentially stopping them from taking Opportunity Attacks is decent as well.
Thorn Whip* – Like Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade, and Sword Burst, you really do not want to be using this unless you like being in melee range, but pulling enemies towards you can be strong if you need to move them away from your lower health allies and you need to get into melee range. This has a longer range than Lightning Lure and does a melee spell attack rather than a Strength check, but it has less damage so it depends on your preference on which you’d rather use.
D Tier
Spare the Dying – This is much better now that this has 15 feet of range this is a bit more reliable, but using your whole action to stabilize is brutal in a fight where the enemy could just easily kill a downed ally.
F Tier
Resistance – Even before the changes this cantrip wasn’t good, but did have some niche applications. Now this is functionally worthless as reducing damage by 1d4 is ridiculously bad.
Thunderclap – While this may be an ok distraction, damage only within 5 feet and a Constitution saving throw makes this really, really bad.
1st Level Spells
S Tier
Absorb Elements – Getting resistance from an elemental type for a round can do a lot of heavy lifting in certain encounters, and if you happen to be making melee attacks too, you get a bit of extra damage on top of it which is a nice bonus.
A Tier
Faerie Fire – This has a decent AOE and gives advantage on attacks and negates invisibility which is great if you have a lot of members who make attack rolls or you’re facing invisible foes.
Feather Fall – Dying from a fall really sucks and this should prevent that from happening. If you expect to be in high places, having this prepared is a great insurance policy.
B Tier
Catapult – While this isn’t as impressive as other damage spells in terms of pure output, this is unique in that it will keep going if your initial target passes their save, it can hit someone behind them. May not be easy to line multiple targets, but if you can, this gets more and more reliable. Furthermore, if you get cute and lob something like Alchemist’s Fire, you can deal even more damage.
Detect Magic – Not always the most impactful, but having this is really important in a lot of scenarios. and it being a ritual makes it easy to have on hand.
Expeditious Retreat – This is good if you need to chase something or run away, but using your Concentration is quite rough, especially with only a 10 minute duration. That being said, this can be used really effectively to kite enemies on the battlefield and a good portion of enemies will have no real recourse to this strategy, so this can be pretty powerful in the right fights.
Tasha’s Caustic Brew – The range and damage on this isn’t great, but what this does have is unique utility. You’re using your action to try to deprive your enemy of an action, and if they make that trade turn one, you’re still up an average of 5 damage. If you can hit multiple people in the line, you get to potentially get a lot of damage and actions from multiple people.
C Tier
False Life – Getting a bit of extra life per spell level is a pretty good use of a spell slot if you think your life may be in danger and you don’t need the slot otherwise.
Cure Wounds* – While Cure Wounds is not that great itself, it is pretty important that someone in the party can heal. The touch range does limit the applications of this because this can be replaced by using/feeding someone a health potion, but having a rechargeable way to heal is good as health potions can be expensive, especially early. If nobody on your team can heal, this would likely be in the B tier range instead of C.
Sanctuary – If you put this on a party member who likes being separated from party members, you can potentially negate attacks if the attacker fails their saving throw which is excellent for a spell that’s both a bonus action and doesn’t require Concentration.
D Tier
Alarm – A nice ritual to give you a bit of a safety net if you’re sleeping somewhere. Not a necessity, but you don’t even need this prepared as a Wizard so it’s good to have.
Disguise Self – There are not many scenarios where this is helpful and the 1 hour duration is definitely problematic. Furthermore, the disguise breaks under any amount of scrutiny which makes this even more unreliable.
Identify – There are just not many scenarios where you will need to identify something, and if you find a magical item, attuning with it will reveal what it does anyway.
Longstrider – Unlike Baldur’s Gate 3, Longstrider is not a ritual nor does it last particularly long. May be useful on characters that can really utilize that extra speed, but pretty niche.
Snare – Not bad if you need to spring a trap in a tight hallway or you’re trying to protect yourself a little bit before sleeping, but this will not buy you much time and is pretty situational.
F Tier
Grease – Difficult terrain is just ok, but only getting 10 feet of it and the worst thing happening to someone is falling prone (which is not a big deal since it only costs half movement speed to get up), makes for a very weak spell.
Jump – Not sure why you may need your jump distance to be tripled for a minute, but could be useful if you need to cross a large gap. The problem is the rest of your party may not have the same benefit so they’ll be stuck unless you spend the most, if not all your first level spell slots to buff your whole team.
Purify Food and Drink – This spell will never come up unless your DM has a campaign where this may matter.
2nd Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Aid – A spell that can be cast well before an encounter, doesn’t require concentration, and has a pretty solid effect of five hit points for three people at level two which increases by five by spell level (so 15 total) which is pretty strong.
Web – You can cover a massive amount of area with Web making that difficult terrain, light obscurement, and anyone who wants to pass through risks being restrained. This is an unbelievable value for just a second level spell and can immobilize a group or make an escape/encounter substantially easier.
B Tier
Blur – Giving disadvantage to attackers can make you nigh untouchable if your armor class is high enough, but it does require you to have a reasonably high armor class and uses your Concentration. If you need to not get hit this is quite good, but a low AC will make this substantially worse.
Continual Flame – Permanent light is real nice and quite helpful if you are frequently caught in dark places without Darkvision. All you need is a second level spell before bed one night!
Darkvision – While a torch or something with Continual Flame is a more permanent solution, getting 150 ft of darkvision is a good amount better as you’ll match most other races that have darkvision naturally.
Enhance Ability – Unlike using other charming abilities that risk the target getting mad at you afterwards, giving yourself advantage on Charisma checks is substantially better and will make your Charisma caster trivialize any social scenario. That said, you also have FIVE other options for this spell as well making this very versatile for many situations.
Heat Metal – It’s not going to be difficult to find someone or something that has metal on it which can have great combat applications if you make an enemy drop their sword, and everyone’s favorite use, heating up someone’s armor.
Invisibility – Being invisible is unmatched for infiltration, surprise attacks, and anything else you may need to be invisible for. While offensive actions will break it, getting a surprise round can easily trivialize an encounter.
Lesser Restoration – This may not come up often, but curing a disease or a good amount of conditions is quite strong.
See Invisibility – If you’re facing an invisible enemy, this is going to be invaluable. You do have other options like Faerie Fire or a bag of flour if you’re feeling particularly crafty, but this is definitely the best of the bunch.
Spider Climb – A solid spell as you can navigate up and down walls, ceilings, chasms, you name it, but will very quickly be outclassed by Fly. That said, if you’re in an enclosed space, this may be better than Fly.
C Tier
Alter Self – This is a substantially better Disguise Self as you can change your appearance all the same, but not only does this not break down upon an Investigation as you do literally change your form, you can also change into a more bestial form where you can get natural weapons to fight or gills if you need to go on an underwater adventure.
Arcane Lock – While this may not be used often, getting a magical lock can be nice to fortify a chest or room.
Levitate – There is some solid versatility here for a second level spell, but the use cases are still pretty limited. You can levitate yourself or an ally 20 feet up to get out of melee range, but that is entirely contingent on the enemies not having an effective way to attack a ranged target. Conversely, you can try to levitate an enemy up, but not only do they get a Constitution saving throw (which is likely to be good as you want to lock out a melee enemy who tend to have high Constitution saves), but you’re of course not guaranteed they will be helpless in that position. The saving grace for levitating enemies is that they only get one chance to resist it otherwise they’re stuck there, so this can be good in those scenarios.
Protection from Poison – If you believe you’re going to be fighting a lot of poison enemies, this will be good. Furthermore, despite the name, this also cures poisons so it can be relevant after the fact as well.
D Tier
Enlarge/Reduce – Buffing allies or nerfing enemies is always great, but this doesn’t do either that well. Growing an ally so they deal an additional 1d4 on hit is not that great unless they are dishing out a lot of attacks per turn (like a Monk or higher level Fighter). If you’re trying to reduce an enemy, you are only reducing their damage by 1d4 and it’s difficult to take advantage of the disadvantage on strength checks as a grappled enemy can use their Acrobatics (DEX) instead of Athletics (STR) to worm their way out. Overall, a relatively low impact spell.
Kinetic Jaunt – This is hardly better than Longstrider, requires Concentration, and only lasts a minute. Avoiding attacks of opportunity and moving through enemies can make this more useful in some situations, but this is not great.
Magic Mouth – This spell is really more for story or silly applications, but if you’re really creative, you may find some sort of use for this.
Magic Weapon – While this spell no longer requires Concentration, the primary use case of why you’d want to cast this (overcoming non-magical damage resistance/immunity) seems to have been eliminated in One D&D. Without that, this already unexciting spell is even less exciting, but it isn’t completely unusable.
Pyrotechnics – Not useless as this works similarly to Fog Cloud or you have a 10 foot blinding blast that requires a CON saving throw. The issue is that you need a flame in the area already to make this work which is a really annoying prerequisite. It’s probably easier to set up than it seems, but still annoying none the less.
Rope Trick – If you need to hide for an hour for a Short Rest or need an hour of recon, this can be helpful, but how often are you going to need that?
F Tier
Skywrite – There’s no helpful use of this spell, but there are a lot of funny things you can do with it.
3rd Level Spells
S Tier
Dispel Magic – An absolute necessity for every party, even if it may not come up too often.
Revivify – An absolute necessity for at least one person in a party to have.
A Tier
Fly – While there is a risk in plummeting to your death if you lose concentration, Fly can absolutely break the game as well as you can load this up on an ally to swoop around Fireballing people. This is extremely strong, especially if there aren’t many (or any) ranged or flying enemies in your encounter.
B Tier
Haste – A really powerful buff if you put this on your melee allies. Giving an ally additional movement and an extra attack can be super high impact and can easily add up in damage compared to other offensive options at this level. The big concern with Haste is that losing concentration stuns the hasted person which can be debilitating, but if you can stay safe, this is a powerful buff.
Tiny Servant – This is very similar to a Familiar with the downside of an 8 hour duration and the upside of more options in what the servant can do for you. Being able to give one directive as a bonus action and let the servant continue to do that makes this pretty strong, especially as you can cast this at the beginning of the day and let it be ready if/when you need it.
C Tier
Glyph of Warding – This spell is really weird as, depending on how the DM interprets this, this can be a mediocre damage spell that’s conditional to set up or a way to set up a chain reaction of spells that can cause all sorts of mayhem. Realistically you’re probably not going to be able to do too much with this, but creativity can make this spell stronger.
Intellect Fortress – This probably won’t come up often, but this is an excellent defense against enemy spell casters trying to use CC effects on you. A little niche and it requires your concentration, but when it’s relevant, it can be really relevant.
D Tier
Blink – A defensive spell that doesn’t always work is a weird way to use you third level spell slot, but when you blink out, this is the most reliable form of defense as you won’t even be in the same plane to get hit. The saving grace of this spell is that it isn’t concentration so you can hold a concentration spell and then poof out of existence so enemies can’t even attempt to break it.
Create Food and Water – Unless you’re in a survival-oriented campaign, this will probably never come up. If you are in that style of campaign though, this will likely be invaluable.
Elemental Weapon – This isn’t a terrible spell, but pretty middling for this late in the game. If somehow one of your party members still has a regular weapon and you’re going to face something with resistance, then this could be effective. Better yet, if you’re fighting something that you know will have a damage vulnerability, this could also be alright.
Protection from Energy – If you know you’re going into a fight with a lot of elemental damage of one specific type, this isn’t a terrible use of a spell slot, but this isn’t that much better than Absorb Elements which is a first level reaction spell.
Water Breathing – Alter Self also grants water breathing and is a spell level lower, but this doesn’t take concentration, lasts longer, and can be cast as a ritual. If you can find a convenient way to learn this, it’s fine to have, but don’t go out of your way to get it unless you’re around water a lot.
Water Walk – If you need to traverse bodies of water often, this will work. That said, since it’s a ritual spell, it will take ten minutes per cast so this may not be effective with big parties.
F Tier
Catnap – Unless time is truly of the essence or you have a DM that likes punishing rests, it’s hard to imagine you’d ever need this spell. However, this is a very unique effect and if it’s going to be good once in your campaign, it’ll probably be good multiple times.
Flame Arrows – While technically 12d6 damage is actively good for a third level spell, the fact that this eats your concentration and you’re only getting that damage if you can afford to concentrate the whole time it takes for all 12 arrows to be shot and every arrow you imbued hits its mark.
4th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Resilient Sphere – Removing an enemy from combat for a full minute can be the difference between having a tough combat and having a trivial combat. While “save or suck” spells are always inherently risky, but the upside here is really high when it works.
B Tier
Arcane Eye – Potentially the best scouting spell in the game. You can move this extremely far away for the full hour duration and really get an idea of what you may be getting yourself into. The main issue with the spell is that it may cost a lot of time to use and you may not always know the best situation in which to use it, but this is still extremely helpful.
Stone Shape – Generally speaking, there is a lot of stone in a typical campaign and the most common use cases of this is to either put a hole in stone or close a hole in stone, both of which are fine abilities. If you’re really creative you may be able to do some cute things like destabilizing a structure, but that would probably require multiple casts to get the full effect and there’s likely a more effective use of multiple fourth level spell slots.
C Tier
Freedom of Movement – This is a unique spell as you have to anticipate coming across difficult terrain or effects that may paralyze or restrain which can be hard to predict. However, this also does work to free someone from non-magical shackles or even move freely underwater, so if any of these situations come up often, this isn’t a bad spell to have on hand.
Stoneskin – The buff on this spell is pretty good, but comes with a few issues. First off, a 100gp consumable component is definitely annoying to cast this spell, and while 100 gold may not be a big deal at level 7 (and definitely not at level 11 for half casters), but is still something you have to consider and keep track of. Second, you probably don’t want to use this spell on yourself as casters should be looking to avoid hits rather than tanking them. Finally, it’s a concentration spell so you lose out on all the other options while this is up (and you’d hate to drop it prematurely as this is both a valuable spell slot and required a component to use). If you can be ok with all that, this is a very solid buff on the team’s tank as you’ll resist all the most common forms of melee damage.
Summon Construct – A solid summon for the level, all the options here are pretty good and don’t vary much so it’s hard to pick the “wrong” one for the occasion. While the damage isn’t great both by pure numbers and it being non-magical, it makes it up with a good AC, a lot of neat abilities in the different forms, and a range of condition immunities.
D Tier
Elemental Bane – Even if the target fails their Constitution saving throw, the effect on this is very minor. Removing a resistance and adding 2d6 if that elemental damage is used is a very niche effect and would only matter if you come across a creature that has resistances to every damage type you’re throwing at it. The only other scenario you may want to consider this is the vast majority of your team likes using the same elemental damage, and in that case, the damage could add up, but even then this probably won’t compare to the damage of a normal offensive spell. This isn’t completely worthless, but hard to imagine a scenario where you’d want to prepare this.
Fabricate – This is another spell that really requires your creativity to be useful, but it’s very hard to imagine scenarios where this would be useful as you need raw material to work with and you can’t change the form of stuff you may actually want to alter like doors or walls.
Faithful Hound – A strange take on the Alarm spell that does have minor combat applications. The Hound can alert you when invisible enemies are nearby, but so can other spells at lower levels. The 4d8 bite attack isn’t bad, but the hound can’t move from the spot it was summoned unless it’s moved with a Magic action making it really tough for it to consistently deal damage. Maybe useful if you can synergize this with spells that restrain as this doesn’t require your concentration and you won’t have to keep using your action to chase the enemy, but this is just very situational.
F Tier
Leomund’s Secret Chest – Unless you really need to protect some sort of item from potential thieves, this has really no practical applications.
Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum – If you’re in a campaign where you’re under constant risk of being spied on, this can be useful, but this really doesn’t do much otherwise.
5th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Arcane Hand – The versatility on this spell is just incredible. Decent damage, forced movement, grappling creatures, or giving someone cover is a lot of options for a single spell. Not any single effect is super high impact, but being able to change its objective with just a bonus action is great.
Wall of Stone – A very solid wall spell overall. Being able to cover 100 feet on a battlefield is quite large for a wall, and it being hard to break through makes it even nicer.
B Tier
Greater Restoration – This is a solid healing spell, but what it heals can be a bit situational and consuming 100 gp worth of components is a bit annoying as well. Not mandatory to have, but definitely pretty nice.
Transmute Rock – There is going to be a lot of rock and stone in the average campaign and being able to to turn rock into mud is your most common and strongest use. Creatures caught in mud can be pulled deeper into it and restrained, but even if they pass the saving throw, getting out of mud requires 4 feet of movement versus the standard two feet of difficult terrain. This is just the most common use of it, but you can also topple a structure by turning it into mud, trap creatures by turning mud into stone, and other fun, creative uses.
C Tier
Animate Objects – Unfortunately this spell has been absolutely cratered in terms of quality compared to the 2014 version, but it’s still solid! You can make between 2-5 objects (I would still recommend making a bunch of small or even tiny objects) to skitter along the battlefield and whacking everyone in sight. The damage potential is a bit lower and the objects are substantially more frail, but this is still a reasonable option.
D Tier
Creation – This is a unique utility spell in which you can create a diverse amount of objects, but having this be a limited amount of time really limits the utility of it. If you’re desperate for food, this can create vegetable matter for a day, or if you’re planning on skipping town, you can create precious objects to sell and scam merchants, but these feel pretty corner case.
Skill Empowerment – The main issue with this spell is that it’s hardly better than Enhance Ability which is a second level spell. Gaining proficiency in a skill isn’t bad and this does actually synergize well with Enhance Ability, but spending a fifth level slot on this ability is rough.
F Tier
None
