Bard Spell Tier List – The Best Bard Spells
This will be a deeper dive and analysis on why spells have their tier ranking on the Bard spell list.
- Cantrips
- 1st Level Spells
- 2nd Level Spells
- 3rd Level Spells
- 4th Level Spells
- 5th Level Spells
- 6th Level Spells
- 7th Level Spells
- 8th Level Spells
- 9th Level Spells
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 overtly 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
None
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.
Minor Illusion – Even if it’s just in a 5 foot cube, the amount of versatility this cantrip can give you is nearly unmatched. Creating a distraction, making a quick hiding spot for free, or pretty much anything else someone creative can think of can be very powerful in the right situations.
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.
Starry Wisp – While not a particularly stand out offensive cantrip, Bards and Druids never had great offensive cantrip options making this a reasonable option that also adds in a bit of utility as well. Not amazing, but the best offensive cantrip available to Bards and Druids.
True Strike* – Completely reworked from 5th edition, this lets you not have a particularly high combat stat (STR or DEX) and still deal reasonable damage with a weapon attack. Crucially, you aren’t limited to melee weapons here so you do have greater versatility on how you use this which is interesting. While using this with a crossbow will technically be the highest damage dealing cantrip you could get up until level 5, it will then get outpaced after that making it good if you want that extra point or so of damage on average (and you wouldn’t have already gotten it without this), but then you should swap this out unless your build is relying on it.
Vicious Mockery – The iconic Bard cantrip. While the damage is low compared to other offensive cantrips, giving disadvantage on the next attack roll is really brutal and Wisdom saving throws may be tough for some enemies to succeed in.
B Tier
Blade Ward* – While much worse for full casters as a minor attack penalty for enemies is likely not going to save you, this is pretty potent on more martial characters where that functional slight AC buff may be the difference between an attack hitting or not. That said, this does cost a whole action which makes this a bit painful on classes that can’t weave cantrips into their attack, so I would probably limit this to just Bladesingers, Eldritch Knights, Sword Bards, and Valor Bards.
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.
C Tier
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.
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.
D Tier
Mending – This spell is pretty low impact and it’s even rarer that you will need to use this, but this does something very unique and can be more impactful in some scenarios/settings.
F Tier
Friends – Advantage on Charisma checks can really smooth over negotiations, but only having a minute, only working against humanoids, doesn’t work against anyone you’re fighting, and the target being instantly hostile to you after the fact really limits the practical applications of this.
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
Silvery Barbs – This spell is messed up. It does so much for so little and it’s just a reaction which isn’t going to be used that much naturally. Forcing functional disadvantage on a roll and granting advantage to someone else (or yourself) on your next roll is crazy powerful for a first level slot. This may be the most banned spell at tables due to its power level and it’s not unreasonable to see why.
A Tier
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.
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.
Healing Word – Healing as a bonus action is excellent for picking up downed allies for a low opportunity cost. A must have.
B Tier
Command – While this can be a bit situational in what you can command of your target, this can still be quite powerful in the right situations. That said, “save or suck” spells are always a dangerous proposition as the target passing their saving throw means you wasted your turn, but the amount of unique things you can command them to do still makes this a relatively appealing options.
Comprehend Languages – As a ritual, you don’t even need to use a spell slot to get value out of it. This won’t matter until it does, but when it does, it’s irreplaceable.
Dissonant Whispers – Ok damage, but great CC as forcing an enemy to run away from you can be extremely powerful with the right team composition. Since this counts as voluntary movement, your melee allies can get attacks on opportunity, and you may be able to force them into difficult terrain or AOE spells.
Heroism* – While the healing granted by this is pretty slow, getting upwards of 20 total hit points is pretty strong in a prolonged fight. Furthermore, immunity to fear could be important depending on the encounter. Slap this on the parties frontline and this will do pretty well for itself. That said, this does not remain a good spell for very long, but it works well enough in the beginning of the game.
Hideous Laughter – A solid “save or suck” spell for lower levels. Taking an enemy out of combat temporarily is very good, and if their Wisdom save is low enough, that can be for awhile. Since you don’t get guaranteed criticals on them like you would for Hold Person, it’s best to let them be until you take out their allies rather than disturb them.
Silent Image – Like how Minor Illusion is a great cantrip, this is a great spell. The practical uses of an illusion in a 15 foot cube are limited only to your creativity as you can do a lot with that much space.
Sleep – No longer relying on enemy HD, this is much more akin to a much smaller scale Hypnotic Pattern that can potentially rid multiple enemies of their actions. The AOE is so small that you’re unlikely to hit more than 1-2 creatures, but for a first level slot, that can still be worthwhile as incapacitating someone on the first failed saving throw is quite nice.
Unseen Servant – This really doesn’t provide much more utility than Mage Hand in the average campaign, but it has more strength so you can have it haul some things or interact with heavier objects as needed. However, you can summon one or a bunch of these, give them Magic Stones, and have them go to town to make this a much more powerful spell.
C Tier
Animal Friendship – This does make being friendly with animals much easier if you’re struggling with your Animal Handling check, but it’s hard to say how often you desperately need to be friendly with an animal.
Bane – While the debuff is minor, sometimes that can make all the difference. Since you get three targets, you have a good chance of hitting at least one of them which isn’t terrible, but you probably have better uses of your Concentration, especially as you progress in levels.
Charm Person – This is like Friends, but actually reasonable. Being charmed is substantially better than just getting advantage on Charisma checks, but similar to Friends, they will know they were charmed at the end of the spell’s duration so there is risk there.
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.
Speak with Animals – A surprisingly good spell. This is good at smoothing over encounters with wildlife or general information gathering. This isn’t the best that a druid can do, but it’s hard to imagine playing as a Druid and not taking this.
Thunderwave – The range is short and Constitution saves tend to be high, but getting some amount of damage even if they pass the save is always welcome. Better yet, if they fail the save, you get 10 feet of forced movement and a decent amount of damage which isn’t a bad deal.
D Tier
Color Spray – Blinding enemies isn’t bad, but only a 15 foot range and a single round of blindness is really bad. You’re spending your whole action and not even necessarily ridding the enemy of theirs, but if you manage to get a lot of enemies within this cone, this can still be decent
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.
Earth Tremor – Creating difficult terrain can be ok, but 1d6 damage and knocking enemies prone is very weak, and that’s if they fail the save. Acceptable if you really need the difficult terrain, but pretty bad otherwise.
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.
F Tier
Illusory Script – If you’re lucky, you may use this literally once in a campaign as it is so specific. This is probably more for DM use than player use.
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.
Suggestion – This spell is pretty nuts. You only get a sentence or two to give your course of action, but a lot of information can be transferred in just a sentence. Whether you’re using this against one lone enemy or one enemy in a group, you’re going to get a lot of mileage out of this.
B Tier
Blindness/Deafness – While Constitution saving throws are generally pretty high, the range is really good and potentially blinding a caster who is unlikely to have a good Constitution saving throw can be devastating as most of their spells will no longer work.
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.
Knock – Laugh at your parties Rogue as you unlock any door blocking your way.
Lesser Restoration – This may not come up often, but curing a good amount of conditions is quite strong, especially with a Bonus Action cast.
Mirror Image – This is a pretty powerful defensive option, especially since this doesn’t take your Concentration up at all. The issue is your images are likely to be destroyed somewhat quickly if you’re being focused down making this potentially riskier than something like Blur, but this pretty reasonable if you think you need a defensive option.
Phantasmal Force – While the damage isn’t very high and pretty slow, using this as a way to lock down an enemy by tricking them that the floor is lava or they’re in an iron maiden is quite strong. While an ally can help them out of this, you’re still eating into opposing actions which can be easily worth it.
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.
Silence – Most spellcasters are reliant on verbal components as most spells require it. If you pop this on a caster and keep them locked in that sphere, they’re going to be pretty helpless.
C Tier
Calm Emotions – This spell can do two things: either you suspend a charmed or frightened effect on all humanoids in a 20 foot radius or you can suspend humanoids being hostile to you for one minute. Both effects are somewhat niche, but surprisingly good. Suspending charmed and frightened effects can definitely let you finish your business before the time elapses. On the other hand, calming down people who are mad at you for a minute can let you heal/buff in the interim if you plan to keep fighting or make a quick escape if you don’t want to fight them anymore.
Cloud of Daggers – Area denial spells are generally pretty strong, but with such a small area of effect and not too much damage, this isn’t that strong. If you can cover an important choke point or force movement into it, this can be reasonably good. Furthermore, you can now move it around which is nice, although it costs you a full action. Pretty decent overall.
Detect Thoughts – While this is very situational, being able to discover information from those likely to have it without collecting it in a roundabout way can save you a lot of headache, especially if time is of the essence. The major downside of this spell is the target knows you’re doing it to them, so you can only really use this on a target who doesn’t know where/who you are or a restrained target.
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.
Enthrall – This is way better than it used to be, but still pretty situational. This is like a reverse Pass Without Trace, so as long as you only need to sneak past a few people, this is pretty effective.
Locate Object – A decent spell that can help you find something specific, like a precious, or something more general like a tripwire in a dungeon, a hidden door, etc. A bit situational, but solid.
Shatter – Small AOE and Constitution saving throws aren’t great, but this is probably the best AOE damage spell you’re going to get at this level if you can find a group of bunched up enemies.
Warding Wind – Creating difficult terrain around yourself to stop enemies from walking up to you easily and giving disadvantage on ranged attacks can be a decent defensive option if you can space yourself properly, but this can mess with your allies if they need to move close to you and this can also not work if you can’t get perfect spacing.
D Tier
Animal Messenger – A neat spell if you don’t have any party members with Sending. This spell does necessitate knowing where the recipient is which is a major limitation as well as the time requirement needed to get that message there, but for a ritual, this is definitely reasonable. That said, you will learn Sending next level, so this is far from a necessity.
Crown of Madness – In theory, this spell could’ve been great. Turning an enemy and forcing them to attack an ally is very strong. However, everything kind of falls apart after that. You need to use your Action to keep control of the target, the target gets a saving throw every turn, and they have to use their action before their movement which severely limits how much they get to do. If you can target someone in the middle of a group, this should still be reasonably useful, but that’s not going to be easy to set up.
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. For what it’s worth, this is a ritual spell so you can always have it in your back pocket as a Wizard.
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.
Zone of Truth – Not only is this spell very situational, but clever people under the influence of it can answer in such a way to avoid telling the truth anyway. If your DM is nice, this will be more helpful, but you probably shouldn’t count on it.
F Tier
Locate Animals or Plants – Just way too situational to be helpful unless the story calls for finding a very specific animal or plant.
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
None
A Tier
Dispel Magic – An absolute necessity for every party, even if it may not come up too often.
Hypnotic Pattern – While this may not be the easiest to aim if your allies are strewn about, Pattern can absolutely demolish an encounter if you catch enough people with it. Although it’s relatively easy to break with them taken damage or an ally shaking them out, you are trading your one action for a large amount of actions from the enemies.
Tiny Hut – Whether you need to camp out or spring a surprise attack, hut does it all on top of being a ritual! This spell is super powerful for the very low opportunity cost to have it, even with the nerf that higher level spells and all magical abilities can pierce through it.
B Tier
Clairvoyance – One of the better surveillance spells in the game. If you have a party member that can learn Arcane Eye, this does get outclassed relatively quickly, but is quite solid for scouting until then.
Enemies Abound – While this will only be effective facing a group of enemies, turning an enemy in the middle of the group is extremely disrupting. Furthermore, forcing an Intelligence saving throw which is likely to be really bad for most enemies makes this much more likely it will work.
Fear – This is an excellent CC spell with a pretty big AOE, but immunity to being frightened may start being common around this level. Still a great option if you’re looking to heavily disrupt enemies.
Major Image – Since this doesn’t trigger a saving throw, you are pretty much guaranteed to get some value out of this as enemies need to interact with the image or pass an Investigation (Intelligence) check against your save DC. Like other illusions, how good this is will hinge on how creative you are, but this should be useful in a wide variety of scenarios.
Plant Growth – This is pretty crazy as this spell can target any amount of plants you want in an 100 FOOT RADIUS to make them so overgrown that it takes 4 foot of movement to move 1 foot. The average person, while dashing, will only be able to move three squares when they’re stuck in this area. If they don’t want to dash and only have 30 movement speed, they’ll only be able to move a single square as that’s 20 feet of movement, and they’ll have 10 feet they can’t use. Furthermore, this isn’t a concentration spell nor does it have a duration, you just do it and it’s done. On top of that, this doesn’t even count as difficult terrain, so you can technically add difficult terrain on top of this, but it’s very unclear on how that would work in practice. Ask your DM as this can be interpreted as functionally restraining creatures or it’s intended to take the stronger effect rather than stacking both this and difficult terrain. The downside to this spell is that you do need plants to make this work, but as long as you’re outside and not on sand, this should be useful.
Sending – You probably don’t need to send long distance messages often, but this is nearly irreplaceable if you do.
Slow – This is a pretty powerful debuff as the targets lose 2 AC and can only make an action or bonus action. While the debuff isn’t as strong as a charm effect like from Hypnotic Pattern, this can be harder to break out of.
Tongues – Depending on the campaign, this and Comprehend Languages can range from excellent to pretty mediocre, but this is the only spell that does this effect so it’s hard to replace.
C Tier
Bestow Curse – This spell is interesting as the target only has one chance to resist it (unless you pick the third option, but them succeeding on the Wisdom check doesn’t end the curse, just postpones the effect) which is obviously very strong compared to spells that force a check every turn. That said, the third option is pretty strong as you can rob the target of multiple actions over the course of a combat or you team up with another spellcaster to give them disadvantage on a saving throw for a spell your ally is going to cast on them. This works best if there’s one big enemy you have to contend with rather than a lot of smaller options.
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.
Mass Healing Word – If you and your allies are all losing health, this can be a solid amount of healing if you can capture everyone in range. That said, it’s rare that your entire party is both going to be injured and within 60 feet of each other, but in that exact scenario, this is great.
Nondetection – It’s rare that you’re going to have to worry about enemies using Divination to discern your location, but if that does happen, then this can be great at catching the enemy by surprise. A really nice example of this is being invisible and countering an opposing See Invisibility as that’s a Divination spell.
D 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.
Speak with Dead – While this may seem helpful, there are a lot of stipulations to make this work to the best of its ability, which even at the best of times can be not great. The corpse still needs a head and can’t be unfriendly towards you, and even then, the answers you get may not be helpful. This spell improves the more helpful your DM wants to be, but that isn’t a reliable metric for a spell.
Speak with Plants – Plants aren’t the most intelligent or well traveled beings around, but this can be helpful in niche scenarios like you need to know what happened there in the past day or you need to change the terrain of plants. It is sad how you can’t ask a very old tree for a lot of history, but you may also be there awhile so it could be for the best.
Stinking Cloud – This is a rather large AOE and making enemies lose their action is pretty strong, but Constitution saving throws are generally pretty high. Since you can’t move the cloud, it’s really easy to escape, especially if enemies are towards the edges of it. This can be useful against large groups as your one action may trade for multiple of theirs, but you need enough enemies to fail their saving throw to make this worthwhile.
F Tier
Feign Death – This is an incredibly niche spell that may get some mileage if you have a very specific or creative usage of it as this is quite unique. This won’t help you much in a combat scenario unless you have enemies with a penchant of not finishing off targets.
4th Level Spells
S Tier
Polymorph – Likely one of the strongest spells in the game, the versatility of this spell is nearly unmatched as you can change an ally into a ferocious creature or change your enemy into a harmless creature. There is some ambiguity on how this works as you gain all the attributes of the chosen creature, but you still retain your memories and personality, so it’s safe to assume allies will remain allies and hostiles will remain hostile.
A Tier
Dimension Door – A really solid teleportation spell when you need it, especially if it’s to a spot you know is there but can’t currently see. Furthermore you get to take a creature along with you which is obviously strong, but they do need to be within 5 feet of you. On the flip side, having a range of 500 feet is massive and an excellent escape mechanism. The issue with this spell is that teleporting to a place you can’t see does come with risk as you can accidentally fail if you try to teleport within an object or creature, but that’s unlikely unless your DM is a real stickler.
Greater Invisibility – Invisibility that doesn’t end when you attack is incredible for sneak attacks, gaining inherent advantage, and making you or your ally extremely hard to hit.
B Tier
None
C Tier
Fount of Moonlight* – Extra damage added to melee attacks and you can use your reaction to sometimes blind enemies for a turn? Not bad! This spell is solid, but you are going to be limited in who’s going to want this as this only works on a melee build in classes that don’t normally opt for them. Still, this is a solid damage buff with a little CC tacked on it so this will be a good option for those getting up close and personal with their enemies.
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 normally hard to predict. That said, since many of your best spells create difficult terrain and this spell doesn’t require Concentration, you can get either yourself or a party member mobile again through that rough terrain. On top of that, this also does work to free someone from non-magical shackles or even move freely underwater, so you have some versatility.
Phantasmal Killer – This is a tough spell to evaluate as, if the target keeps failing the Wisdom save, this spell is incredible as they have disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls as well as taking 4d10 damage per turn. However, if they pass immediately, they only take a little bit of damage. Pretty high risk for reasonable rewards makes this decent, but nothing incredible.
D Tier
Charm Monster – Being able to charm monsters is decent as they’ll stop targeting you, but this doesn’t extend to your allies and them being friendly is likely not going to matter unless they’re capable of conversation. If it’s really important for a specific monster to not hit you, this is a solid option, but this can feel weaker than Suggestion which is a second level spell.
Compulsion – This spell was almost awesome as you can force enemies to run in a particular direction, but there are three distinct problems with this. First, you can only choose movement horizontal to you, so they can’t approach nor run from you. Second, the affected enemies can still use their action prior to the movement so you can’t easily rob them of that. Lastly, you can’t run them into dangerous terrain so no compelled movement off the cliff. While this may seem really bad, moving enemies around is still quite powerful, and since this counts as voluntary movement, does provoke attacks of opportunity.
Hallucinatory Terrain – Very much an out of combat spell with a ten minute casting time, you can use this to completely morph an 150 foot cube to fool all common senses (until it’s interacted with or a creature passes an Investigation check). This is a very unique spell, but it’s hard to imagine in what scenario this will be helpful beyond some weird ambush potential.
Locate Creature – If you’re pursuing a creature, this does avoid a litany of ability checks, but this is pretty niche. This also doesn’t work if the creature has changed its form in any way or any amount of lead is blocking a direct path between you and the target making it somewhat easy for targets who don’t want to be found to just wear lead lined clothing.
F Tier
Confusion – Having a spell that has random effects is already not great, but this effects you are looking for you could with lower level spells. Seriously a confusing design.
5th Level Spells
S Tier
Planar Binding* – This spell is really weird and you do need to set this up, but this can be one of the most game breaking spells if you’re willing to go through the motions. You need an inverted Magic Circle to keep summons inside of this, then you can stuff as many summons in that circle as possible, upcast this as much as possible, and have a lot of minions to do your bidding. Technically speaking, there is nothing stopping you from chilling for a week and constantly building up more and more summons to raze the continent with. If your DM allows this and you have the funds, this spell can be absolutely disgusting, however in the average campaign, your DM probably want let you turn this into an army builder.
A Tier
Synaptic Static – The damage isn’t super high as it rivals a third level Fireball, it’s Psychic damage which is functionally never resisted, it’s an Intelligence saving throw which is going to be really low for most enemies, and it even debuffs them on top of it. Definitely a great spell all around if you want an AOE blast spell.
B Tier
Animate Objects – Unfortunately this spell has been pretty heavily nerfed in 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.
Telepathic Bond – A ritual spell that gives group telepathy for a full hour over any amount of distance? Just a fantastic utility spell.
C Tier
Awaken – This spell effect is pretty powerful as charming an animal or plant and making it smarter can do a lot, this comes with a host of restrictions. First of all, this consumes an 1000 gp component which is no small amount of money, even at this level. Second, this requires an 8 hour casting time. Third, the thing you’ve awakened is only charmed, you do not inherently control it. Lastly, the spell lasts 30 days, at which point, it can decide whether or not it will remain friendly towards you. Having an intelligent and potentially powerful ally for a month can definitely be worth the 1000 gold, but the suite of restrictions does make this a bit tough to use.
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. This is solid though, so if you have no other healer, this may be a useful pick eventually.
Hold Monster – Hold Person, but for monsters. You’re going to be fighting monsters much more often than people which gives this a big leg up, but with all other “save or suck” spells, not hitting on this is brutal. High risk, high reward.
Modify Memory – This is a very niche, but very unique effect. You can only modify memories made within the last 24 hours that lasted no more than 10 minutes, but you could do a lot of cute stuff with this if you’re creative.
Raise Dead – Not a spell you’re going to need often, but if you need it, it’s really valuable. More important if you don’t have any Revivify users in your party.
Regal Presence – There are a lot of Spirit Guardians like spells in One D&D, and this is yet another one. For a fifth level spell, the damage is definitely pretty low on top of the range being a bit small as well. However, being able to knock enemies prone or push them around is definitely pretty interesting, but you will need allies to help capitalize on this. Since you’ll need to get close to enemies, I would only ever consider this on gish builds as a regular Bard or Wizard wants to be nowhere near enemies, but it can be ok on those builds, especially since they can capitalize on prone enemies by hitting them with a melee attack.
Scrying – A solid surveillance spell if you need to know what a specific creature is doing or need to spy across long distances. The issue is the target gets a saving throw and will likely know they were going to be spied on which is really bad compared to something like Arcane Eye. Still, if keeping tabs on someone in particular is important to you, this is a fine option.
Seeming – In short, this is a mass Disguise Self that lasts for 8 hours. In some adventures/campaigns, this could be helpful, especially if you’re trying to infiltrate somewhere or you’re skirting the law in some capacity. Otherwise, there’s no real good use of this which makes it pretty difficult to use often.
Teleportation Circle – With a one minute casting time and it consuming a 50 gp material component, this is not a spell you’re going to use too often. To make this even tougher to use, this needs to be connected to an established teleportation circle so this may have limited places this can even go, the exact opposite of what you’d want from a long range teleport. If the DM is nice and gives you ample circles to work with (which the spell even recommends, saying that many major temples, guilds, or other important places should have one), then this is good for mass or long distance travel.
D Tier
Dominate Person – The issue with spells that only target humanoids is, generally speaking, humans are only going to be low level or high level enemies which makes this either not helpful or too easy for the targets to resist. If you do manage to get this off, this is a very powerful effect as they only get a retry on the saving throw when they take damage. This is a strong “save or suck” spell when it hits, but the limited targets and classic issue of nothing happening if the target saves makes this very unreliable.
Legend Lore – Unless backstory is a really important part of your campaign, there’s no reason to ever use this. Furthermore, you have to pick someone or something that’s famous which does also give this spell a failure rate. Most campaigns this won’t be necessary, but some campaigns it can be helpful.
Mass Cure Wounds – If you and your allies are all losing health, this can be a solid amount of healing if you can capture everyone in range. That said, it’s rare that your entire party is both going to be injured and within 60 feet of each other, but in that exact scenario, this is great.
Mislead – This spell is really strange as, if you’re invisible, you want to be sneaky, but you have a duplicate that’s perfectly visible. This can be a decent scouting option as you can both see and hear through it or give yourself an alibi if you’re looking to do something nefarious, but the options here are quite limited.
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
Dream – There are some neat things you can do with this, especially if you loved the movie Inception, but viable applications of this spell are going to be very few and far between. It’s substantially more likely your DM will use this spell compared to a player doing so.
Geas – This spell could have been very useful as a very long lasting charm spell, but the fact that a creature can oppose it and only take 5d10 psychic damage once per day really limits the usefulness of this. It’s unclear if that means that the creature is more or less free to do what it pleases after it takes the damage during a day, but there’s just so few scenarios where this would be helpful regardless.
6th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Mass Suggestion – Suggestion is already a great spell, so it stands to reason that more of it would also be great. To make matters better, this doesn’t even require Concentration making this even more effective in combat than it normally would be!
B Tier
Eyebite – Being able to constantly CC enemies with one of three solid effects is pretty strong, even if it does take some time to use this on multiple enemies. The Asleep option is clearly the stand out here as you rob them of their action, and then their you may rob an ally of an action if they choose to wake them up (but they may not even bother). Panicked is also solid if you’re worried about someone waking them or you really need to put distance between you and that target. Finally, you have Sickened which is probably the weakest of the three as the target gets multiple saving throws, but it still has some utility.
C Tier
Irresistible Dance – The obvious upside of this spell is that the target only gets to make the save after spending a whole action dancing, which is really nice to get around Legendary resistances or massive saving throws. The obvious downside, though, is that this only targets one creature, you don’t get inherent criticals like you would with Hold Monster or Hold Person, and they still could get their Bonus Action on a pass. Overall, this is solid if you need to trade your action for someone else’s, like in the case you’re fighting one very strong enemy, but may not be great in every encounter.
Programmed Illusion – Yet another spell that will really rely on your creativity to make this useful, but being a permanent illusion does make this super interesting. The wording is also somewhat ambiguous as it seems like you could cast this on an object that you can have on hand to carry this illusion with you which really increases the possibilities of this spell. However, if the DM isn’t friendly to that idea (which wouldn’t be that unfair), it would be rare that you would need this over a lower leveled illusion spell.
D Tier
Find the Path – This spell can be hard to use as you need to be familiar enough with a location that this spell doesn’t fail, but not familiar enough to know where it is. This isn’t a spell I would ever have prepared ahead of time, but if you need to find a specific place (like the BBEG‘s lair), then this could work quite well to avoid a bunch of sleuthing.
Guards and Wards – Unless you really need to lock down an area, it’s hard to imagine any scenario in which you would need this. Even if you could find use for this, it only lasts 24 hours so you’d have to know an attack was imminent and you can’t permanently use this to guard your home.
Heroes’ Feast – If this spell didn’t require losing an 1000 gp component, this is a spell you would do your absolute best to save for the end of every single day. However, considering the expense of this spell, it’s hard to justify when to use this as the effects it helps prevent are more narrow than they used to be. That said, if you have infinite money and your DM will allow you to get any number of the consumable component, this spell is substantially better.
True Seeing – If you are going to find yourself in a scenario where there’s going to be a lot of illusions, invisible creatures, stuff in the ethereal plane, or all of the above, this is invaluable. That said, it’s hard to imagine that’s going to happen often unless your DM really likes utilizing them.
F Tier
None
7th Level Spells
S Tier
Teleport – The titular teleportation spell is unsurprisingly the best of the bunch. While there is a chance of something going wrong when you use it, this is powerful enough and consistent enough to be a staple for any Bard.
A Tier
Power Word: Fortify – This is a lot of temporary hit points to give, even if it is a 7th level spell. Compare this to Aid which would give out 90 temporary hit points at this level (30 for 3 allies) and this is a substantial difference. While this can be split amongst 6 people, the power comes from not having to split it evenly so you can really beef up your allies who tend to be the party punching bags. A 7th level spell slot is a pricey one for sure, but this is a reasonable use of it.
B Tier
Forcecage – While expensive to cast, this spell can not be beat in terms of containing an enemy. There’s no save and the cage can be a solid box so sight based teleportation won’t work. Even if the enemy is a high enough level spellcaster to know teleportation that doesn’t require line of sight (like Dimension Door), they would still need to pass a Charisma saving throw which may not be their stat of choice to successfully escape. That said, consuming a 1500gp component is very painful and now requiring Concentration makes this much less reliable than it used to be. Still, this is a solid spell if you can afford the costly component.
C Tier
Etherealness – This is an interesting spell as this is kind of a combined escape/scouting/infiltration spell as anyone and anything on the material plane won’t be able to interact or perceive you (without some serious magical aid) giving this a lot of utility. The issue is this only affects you, and it’s hard to imagine many scenarios in which you’re escaping or infiltrating by yourself.
Mirage Arcane – Creating massive illusions that even hold up under touch is pretty crazy, but this does require 10 minutes so this can’t be used in combat. The secondary issue is that it has a strange caveat that the illusion can’t conceal any creatures which means you can’t put up anything between a creature and the illusion which may be a hard condition to fulfill. Like all other illusions, this can heavily reward those who are creative with it, and with such a large area, there’s definitely a lot of play here.
Magnificent Mansion – If you want to ensure you have a safe place to sleep, this is a powerful and extravagant option to make that happen. Since this can’t be accessed or detected unless by magical means, you can set this up anywhere with functionally no fear or being discovered which may be the security you need in certain areas. It probably won’t be too often that this is a necessity, but there’s definitely some value there.
D Tier
Project Image – This is a weird take on a surveillance spell as you generally would want those to be stealthy, but a 500 mile range is really large and can be better than Scrying if you don’t have a particular target in mind or there’s no problems if you get seen. This also can help establish an alibi if you’re looking to do nefarious deeds, but any spell that alters your appearance would likely accomplish that much better. Very situational, but could be useful.
Resurrection – While this is technically better than Raise Dead, it’s surprisingly hardly better despite it being two levels higher. The only real differences is that the target comes back with full hit points and it restores missing body parts, but you incur the same penalties and the material component is 1000 gp compared to 500 gp.
F Tier
Dream of the Blue Veil – This spell will only matter if there’s story significance to one of the material planes and is otherwise useless.
Arcane Sword – This requires your concentration just for it to not deal very much damage and also eat up your Bonus Action every turn. Pass.
Prismatic Spray – Even when buffed, the damage and effects just are not strong enough to realistically justify taking this. They could’ve pushed the damage more to make this more reliable as RNG can definitely be fun, but if you’re getting almost exclusively bad choices, then there isn’t much of a point.
Regenerate – Unless your DM plays with rules that can lead to your limbs being chopped off, this is a terrible healing spell.
Symbol – As this is a trap spell, not only is this hard to set up, but most of the effects are just not even worth it beyond the Sleep or Stun traps. Second, this requires 1000 gold to cast, which even at this point, is pretty brutal. Lastly, this is hardly better (if it even is better) than Glyph of Warding which is a third level spell.
8th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
None
B Tier
Antipathy/Sympathy – There are a lot of interesting applications of this spell as it doesn’t require Concentration and is active for 10 days, but does also necessitate you choosing one specific creature which can make this difficult to use. If you know what creatures you may be running into, you can use Antipathy on yourself so they’ll avoid you or Sympathy on your melee party member so they’re drawn to them instead which is fun. You can also cast this on an area or object rather than a person which can let you be even more creative in its uses.
Dominate Monster – A “save or suck” spell at eighth level is definitely a big risk as using and failing is terrible value, and there is the other issue of targets in combat with you have advantage on the Wisdom saving throw to resist this. While that may seem too risky, if you get this to work, the effect could be devastating. Imagine dominating a dragon or any similarly terrifying creature (you’ll have to work through legendary resistance first more than likely, but still)? This can easily trivialize an encounter if this works making it the very definition of high risk, high reward.
C Tier
Befuddlement – A dangerous spell that can completely devastate spellcasters, but it’s really only useful against spellcasters that don’t have a great Intelligence score. Since this doesn’t wipe memories as the target will still defend itself and its friends, you can’t effectively use this against creatures that don’t rely on their Intelligence or Charisma.
Power Word: Stun – The Power Word spells are hard to use as you won’t always know when an enemy is below 150 health, but can have pretty strong effects if you guess right. Stunning an enemy is pretty strong as you get auto-crits which is clearly strong if they are already low on health. The issue is that they get a Constitution save at the end of each turn which makes this pretty easy to beat, but you will get a turn with it.
D Tier
Glibness – While there are some scenarios where this can be very helpful, those scenarios seem very few and far between. For skill checks involving Charisma, a 15 is likely going to be lower than your average roll anyway, so this doesn’t help. Circumventing lie detection magic like Zone of Truth only works if you can cast this without the other party seeing you do it. This does help with ability checks that require your Charisma, but 15 may not even cut it anymore unless we’re talking about auto-succeeding a Dispel Magic on a fifth level spell or lower, but is that really worth an eighth level slot?
Mind Blank – What this does in completely unique, but insanely niche which makes this incredibly hard to use. If you’re about to raid a Mind Flayer fortress, then this could be useful, but beyond that, it’s hard to say how else you could use this.
F Tier
None
9th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Prismatic Wall – This spell is egregiously good at walling stuff off and is so ridiculously difficult at taking down that this is pretty much always going to do what you need.
True Polymorph – The amount of stuff you can do with this spell is nearly unparalled, whether you’re looking to transform something scary into something harmless, harmless into scary, or scary into scarier. I won’t go into all the use cases as there’s too many to explain, but consider turning yourself or others into a Dragon or similarly terrifying creature and go nuts. Unfortunately, losing the temporary HP granted to you by this form does undo the spell when it didn’t before so it’s not as strong as it used to be, but it’s still very strong.
B Tier
Foresight – Likely the strongest buff spell in the game, lasts a long time, and doesn’t require Concentration. This is good on anyone, but unbelievable on a melee character. The only reason this isn’t ranked higher is because the power level of ninth level spells are just that high.
Psychic Scream – As a damage spell, this is surprisingly low for a ninth level spell. That said, this is an Intelligence saving throw which is likely to be low for most people and stuns anyone who fails it. If whoever you’re happening to be fighting happens to have low Intelligence scores (which most of them will), they can be stunned for a decent numbers of turns which can be excellent.
C Tier
Mass Polymorph – Instead of getting one creature that’s equivalent to the target’s level or CR, you get up to 10 targets, but only get half the CR per level if you’re targeting yourself and allies. If you’re using this against enemies, you have better offensive options, and if you’re using this on allies, you’d be better off with True Polymorph. Still, this effect has its use and is quite powerful.
Power Word: Heal – The second best healing spell in the game (right behind Mass Heal). If you have a Cleric or Druid who knows Heal, this is likely not necessary, but if not, this can be solid despite the Touch range being pretty brutal.
D Tier
Power Word: Kill – This spell realistically exists just so a DM can strike fear in player’s hearts when they’re still lower level. If you already have an enemy at 100 health or below, you can probably just kill them with something else rather than banking on being right on how much health they have left. That said, this does at least deal some damage if they are above 100 health, but again, you may as well just use something else.
F Tier
None
