Cleric Spell Tier List – The Best Cleric Spells
This will be a deeper dive and analysis on why spells have their tier ranking on the Cleric 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
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 extremely powerful, even if you can’t use this for initiative rolls anymore.
A Tier
Sacred Flame – The Cleric’s bread and butter attack cantrip. Solid radiance damage, forces DEX saves over using an attack roll (which is sometimes better sometimes worse), and hurts undead real bad.
Toll the Dead – Very similar to Sacred Flame in same range, damage, and forces a saving throw rather than you making an attack roll. The difference is that this is necrotic damage and, if the target is missing any health, does 1d12 rather than 1d8 which is quite good.
B Tier
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
Word of Radiance – This is just a worse Sword Burst as this forces Constitution saving throws, which tend to be quite good, compared to other saving throws. Still, if you’re getting surrounded a lot, this can be acceptable.
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.
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.
Thaumaturgy – While this cantrip is super cool, this is no Prestidigitation. The effects here are just not as impactful as you’d want them to be, but a lot of the sound effects can serve to be a Minor Illusion replacement.
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.
1st Level Spells
S Tier
Healing Word – Healing as a bonus action is excellent for picking up downed allies for a low opportunity cost. A must have.
A Tier
Bless – Giving three total party members an extra 1d4 to attacks and saving throws is so much more impactful than it may seem, especially in lower levels. Attacks connecting and saving throws made are how you win encounters, and this making it easier for three people is really strong. This won’t stay strong forever, but it is great early game.
Guiding Bolt – This hurts when you miss as you lose the spell slot, but 4d6 damage is really good for a first level spell and granting advantage on the next attack can make it real easy for your frontline to do some damage on their turn.
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.
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.
C Tier
Detect Evil and Good – While pretty niche, there are situations where this can be helpful like you’re scouting into a dungeon or trying to ascertain if an NPC is an extraplanar being in disguise.
Inflict Wounds – While you have to make an attack roll and be in touch range, this is the highest damage dealing first level spell in the game with 3d10 damage. If you like getting into melee and can get advantage consistently, this can be a solid choice if you want to deal a bunch of damage.
Protection from Evil and Good – If you’re facing any of the mentioned creature types, this is decent protection from them. Depending on your campaign, these creature types may be more or less prevalent, but obviously the more undead and extraplanar beings you’re fighting, the better this gets.
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.
Shield of Faith – With a bonus action to cast and +2 AC for up to ten minutes, this is a solid boost if you’re getting into a fight. That said, just 2 AC to one person isn’t the highest impact effect around, and considering this uses your Concentration, you may have a hard time finding a good opportunity to use this over a different spell.
D Tier
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 (like Bless), especially as you progress in levels.
Ceremony – This spell is weird as hell. Most of the choices are really just for flavor, but the choices that give +2 to ability checks or saving throws is definitely interesting. The best one on the list is actually the Wedding one as giving two of your team members +2 AC for a full week if they’re within 30 feet of each other is extremely strong, especially on your frontline. However, this does come with the condition that this only works once unless the creature was widowed which really limits the capabilities of it, plus a DM may argue you can’t get married for AC reasons exclusively, but if people do it for tax reasons, I don’t personally see the issue. Finally, the 25 gp consumed component does definitely hurt at this level making the option to use this limited as well. Maybe this is something you cast once or twice, but not something you’re looking to do often.
Create or Destroy Water – You would think this isn’t that good, but there’s a surprising amount you can do with this spell. If you combine this with a party member that has Shape Water, you can probably do even more creative things. If you’re in a survival style adventure/campaign, this is obviously much better.
Cure Wounds – Touch healing spells are brutal as they’re often impractical. Just use Healing Word instead.
F Tier
Detect Poison and Disease – It is very hard to say why you would ever need this, but maybe you can find a use for it eventually.
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 per spell level, is very strong.
Augury – Assuming your DM is willing to be helpful, this is an excellent spell that can let you fish for hints from the DM if you’re unsure how a course of action is going to pan out. Furthermore, since this is a ritual, you can technically keep asking questions surrounding every scenario you may need to know about with only a cumulative 25% chance of getting no answer. It is in your best interest to keep asking away each day!
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.
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!
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.
Lesser Restoration – This may not come up often, but curing a good amount of conditions is quite strong, especially with a Bonus Action cast.
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.
Hold Person – The biggest “save or suck” spell at this level. The problem with “save or suck” spells is how swingy they are – if the target passes their check, you wasted your turn, if they fail, you get incredible value. This looks super tempting as you get auto-criticals on any target hit by this spell, but the risk that you waste your turn if they pass the check or only deprive them of an action is definitely high. Furthermore, enemies that aren’t monsters tend to be really low leveled or really high levels NPCs, so the amount of times you could even use this may be inherently limited by your setting.
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.
Prayer of Healing – A decent healing spell that only works once per day per creature, but it quite powerful as it can refresh short rest abilities for yourself and your party which can be really strong in the right team compositions.
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
Spiritual Weapon – While generally considered to be a great Cleric spell, it has a lot of issues. The damage isn’t that high, it has really low movement making it inconsistent to catching up to enemies, and now it even requires Concentration! Unfortunately, this is just not a great use of your spell slot, but it’s not completely terrible.
Warding Bond – A really strong way to protect an ally, but you have to stick your neck out for them as well as you’ll take damage with them! This spell doesn’t really work as you’d want to protect either the frontliner (who’s most apt to get hit) or backline (lower AC‘s), so it’s hard to come out ahead here.
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
Find Traps – On first reading, this spell seems niche, but reasonable. Knowing the location of any trap within 120 feet can be invaluable in dungeons as, even if you don’t know how to disarm them, you can much more easily avoid them. However, this only tells you if there are traps there, not where they are. Very helpful, thank you.
Gentle Repose – It’s going to be incredibly rare that you’re going to use this, but saving your ally so you can hit them with a Revivify versus letting them decay and require a higher level Resurrection spell can be invaluable in the right scenarios, but it’s going to be rare that you can get to an ally quick enough to cast this on them, but not be able to pick them up.
3rd Level Spells
S Tier
Revivify – An absolute necessity for at least one person in a party to have.
Spirit Guardians – This spell is extremely strong, even when nerfed. A 15 foot radius sphere centered on a character is a lot of squares, there’s no risk of friendly fire, and you have so many opportunities to deal damage. While enemies now only take damage when they enter the spell area for the first time each turn and at the end of their turn (rather than the beginning), the odds of just blending enemies by walking up next to them is much lower. However, if you have allies that can push or pull enemies around, they can help out by getting them inside your spell area to deal a bunch of damage. Considering how much easier it is now for allies to assist in forcibly moving enemies, this may be better than it was in 5e.
A Tier
Dispel Magic – An absolute necessity for every party, even if it may not come up too often.
B Tier
Aura of Vitality – This is a tough healing spell to use in combat as it eats your Concentration and you need to be close enough to your allies to get them to heal, but at least it now no longer uses your Bonus Action so if your allies can stay close, this is much more reliable in combat. If you use this out of combat, though, then there’s no worry that you’ll miss out on potential healing. At this level, you can dole out 20d6 (an average of 70) points of healing split amongst your party. That is a lot of healing.
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.
Sending – You probably don’t need to send long distance messages often, but this is nearly irreplaceable if you do.
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
Animate Dead – Yet another spell to call upon a servant to help you, but this is quite different than normal summon spells. On the bright side, these undead last more or less indefinitely after you use the spell, but you need a corpse to start off with and after 24 hours you lose control of the undead rather than them turning back into a normal corpse. This can be useful if you put them into combat and you know the 24 hour time limit isn’t going to be a problem or you need them to guard something for long periods, but it is risky.
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.
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. This is weaker than Absorb Elements, but since we can’t normally access that, this is a decent alternative.
Remove Curse – Not going to be relevant often, especially as some curses specify that this doesn’t work on them, but this will get the job done if you need it to a decent amount of the time.
D Tier
Daylight – Clerics can already learn Continual Flame, so it’s going to be rare where that’s not good enough and you need to use this, especially since Continual Flame only requires the initial cast to keep going. That said, this now produces sunlight so it’s perfect for incinerating Vampires. While still pretty niche, it at least has a solid use case now.
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.
Magic Circle – This isn’t that different from Protection from Evil and Good, but this is both two levels higher, requires a minute to cast, and is put into a fixed place. This doesn’t require concentration at least, but this is still incredibly hard to justify.
Mass Healing Word – Unless it’s common for multiple party members to go down during a fight, you should never need this.
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.
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
Beacon of Hope – This spell is very interesting, but ultimately falls flat. It’s very unlikely you can use your action to gain such a minuscule advantage in combat, especially since this also uses your Concentration.
Life Transference – While trading life to heal an ally double the amount taken isn’t a terrible option, you probably won’t have much health as a caster so you should likely not be looking to take any additional damage unless your party is desperate. Furthermore, you should already have better options as a Cleric, making this an even more confusing addition to their spell list.
Meld into Stone – Sometimes you just want to take a stone nap, but it’s hard to know when you’d need to do this.
Spirit Shroud – While you can cast this as a bonus action and it adds 1d8 to all of your attack rolls, this is very low impact for a third level spell. The speed reduction can be nice, but only being able to do that to one creature is pretty lame. There are almost certainly better uses for your Concentration, but if you find an enemy that’s either constantly regenerating or is vulnerable to one of the damage types listed, then this could potentially be alright.
4th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Banishment – Being able to remove an enemy from the fight for a full minute is really powerful, especially if you nab an extraplanar being with this. If they fail the save and you’re able to maintain your concentration for a full minute, that extraplanar creature is sent to a random plane that makes sense for them. No more fight, they’re just gone!
B Tier
Death Ward – While predicting who might die and when is difficult, this spell does offer an 8 hour duration to help mitigate that issue. If you think you’re going to be running into a particularly tough encounter or facing enemies that have instant death abilities, this is solid insurance against it. I wouldn’t just look to cast this at the start of every adventuring day, but when you need it, you really need it.
Divination – Similar to Augury, Divination is a ritual spell that will allow you to fish for information from the DM. While this spell is much stronger as you can get more specific answers, it does eat up 25gp of components with every cast so, despite it being a ritual, it is not free to cast. That said, this is better than it used to be as instead of getting a random answer with each cumulative ask, you get no answer instead which means this can potentially get you multiple questions a day.
C Tier
Aura of Purity – This aura is quite situational, but does handle a diverse range of afflictions which does make it pretty interesting. You’d have to know that you need this before taking it, but preventing conditions is much easier than healing them.
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.
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.
D Tier
Aura of Life – If you know you’re going to be facing enemies that reduce your Hit Point maximum, then this is a decent counter against them. Otherwise, this spell really doesn’t do anything helpful for you that other spells couldn’t do.
Control Water – A lot of pretty unique, but extremely situational effects. Creativity will be king here, but it’s hard to find a lot of good uses for this unless you’re around water constantly and Shape Water won’t do the trick.
Guardian of Faith – This is a really weird spell as it has a super long duration, can only deal a set amount of damage, and can’t move. I’m guessing the intention of this spell is to protect you during a long rest or to help pin down a chokepoint during a fight, but this is so specific it’s hard to imagine how often you would even think to cast this.
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
None
5th Level Spells
S Tier
Commune – The best Divination spell in the game, hands down. Getting three questions and getting non-cryptic answers is excellent, and since this is a Ritual with no consumed components, there’s little reason to not use this often. You do risk getting incorrect information if you use this multiple times in a day, but this is free to do once a day to pretty good effect.
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
None
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. Since you can switch spells on a long rest, I would rarely have this prepared unless you know you’re fighting enemies that may inflict one of these conditions.
Summon Celestial – While not the greatest summon I’ve ever seen, it’s very solid all around. The AC and health are a bit low (unless you pick Defender which gets +2 to AC), but the damage output isn’t bad and being able to grant temp hp with Defender or attack at a range consistently with Avenger is solid. Furthermore, this is a decent upcast as it gets more health, more AC, and 3+ attacks to work with.
C Tier
Flame Strike – While this did get buffed to deal comparable damage to an upcasted Fireball, the AOE is still quite small which limits the usefulness of this. Still, if you have access to this and don’t have access to Fireball, this is now a somewhat reasonable option to consider.
Holy Weapon – While the damage is not particularly high for the spell, there are a few advantages. First, a bonus action casting time is obviously much better than an action as you can still Cantrip or use your action otherwise. Second, this lasts a full hour so you may be able to use this in multiple encounters. If you can put this on an ally who gets a bunch of attacks in a turn, this can be useful as the damage can add up, but you may not have that on your party which obviously really hurts the odds of you using this spell.
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.
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.
D Tier
Contagion – A fifth level touch spell is already asking a lot, and you only get the Poisoned condition if you hit, but they do get it guaranteed for a minimum for three turns. Then, if they fail three saves, they get a new disease instead, and these diseases are powerful. The issue is poisoned isn’t such a strong condition that it’s worth a fifth level slot and potentially missing, on top of many creatures having poison immunity as well. This can do some good work, but it is asking a lot as well.
Dispel Evil and Good – This spell is interesting and it has a relatively diverse range of effects, but realistically, the protection half of this spell is worse than Protection from Evil and Good and the banishing part is worse than Banishment, but having the flexibility does make this something to think about.
Hallow – This spell is extremely situational and a big pain to cast with a full day to cast for a very specific effect. If you really need to keep extraplanar threats out of a particular area, this will probably do the trick, but it’s hard to imagine that coming up often if ever.
Insect Plague – This has a good range and decent AOE, but the damage is pretty low and this uses a Constitution saving throw. That said, this does have some advantages like difficult terrain, it lasts a decent amount of time, and it goes around corners which is rare for these effects to do. Definitely not the best area denial spell, especially for the level, but can be acceptable if nobody has a better option.
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.
F Tier
Dawn – This has a large AOE, but the damage is pretty bad, it’s a Constitution saving throw, and creatures have to end their turn there to take more damage. Hard to imagine taking this over the many other AOE damage options.
Gaes – 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
Forbiddance* – This is a really weird spell, but can absolutely obliterate an encounter when used properly. With a long casting time and only a one day duration, this was likely intended to be a spell that fortifies a huge location against a certain creature type if you’re expecting an assault. However, the way you could use this spell is to completely clear out a dungeon. Since creatures of the chosen type take damage at the start of their turn, if you do this in a dungeon where you know there will be a lot of undead for example, they’ll start getting incinerated by radiant damage every 6 seconds which will likely fully wipe the dungeon of them in around a minute. While this spell does require a 1000 gold component, it’s not consumed unless you’re trying to make the spell permanent with 30 days of casting AND this spell is a ritual so it won’t even take up a slot. You’re not going to be able to use this too often, but it can really mess up the encounters for the DM so may be nerfed or outright banned from tables.
A Tier
Heal – While using a sixth level slot for healing isn’t great, this is a massive amount of healing and healing some conditions on top of it is great and can bring an ally back from the brink if you still have adventuring to do.
B Tier
Blade Barrier – Of course this spell is holy, it puts so many holes in people (*crickets*). This wall isn’t completely opaque which is far from ideal, but it does provide three quarters cover which is pretty good. Furthermore, the damage on this is pretty good, especially if you have ways to force movement back into it. This is worse than Wall of Fire, but if you aren’t Forge or Light Domain, this is perfectly acceptable.
C Tier
Word of Recall – While this is not a bad teleportation spell, it comes with a lot of restrictions. First off, you have to set up your “sanctuary” ahead of time, so you better hope that you can find one in an area you’d be happy to teleport to. Second, you’re limited to six total creatures with this teleport which generally should be enough, but won’t always be. Finally, all willing parties have to be within 5 feet of you which may be impossible in the middle of a combat you’re trying to escape. Still, you can only complain so much about a solid teleportation spell, but it is more restrictive than I’d like.
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.
Harm – Single target, Constitution saving throw, and it literally can’t kill the target. This spell is just a walking red flag, but it can be helpful if you need to keep the enemy alive for some reason and don’t want to risk accidentally dealing too much damage.
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.
Sunbeam – While this would not be good on other spellcasters with more offensive options, this is technically acceptable for Clerics. This does require Constitution saving throws which is definitely not great, but it is ok-ish damage and blinding enemies can be good. Lastly, this does count as sunlight which may be particularly good against a subset of creatures like undead, oozes, or Drow. That said, Clerics likely will have a better offensive option, but if you’re really hurting for one, this is usable.
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
Create Undead – Even though this makes multiple summons for a good amount of time, the creatures created are just not strong enough to really justify it. Furthermore, you have to either keep recasting this to not lose control over the undead created or have them get destroyed so they don’t turn on you. Just not nearly impactful enough for a sixth level slot.
Planar Ally – That’s what I play games for, to negotiate contracts. If you haven’t felt alive since you had to go to the auto dealership last, this spell may be for you. In seriousness, this spell is so ambiguous and is completely dependent on the DM doing exactly what you’d want without it bankrupting you.
7th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Conjure Celestial – Being able to have an AOE spell that both heals allies and damages enemies in definitely nice, even if it doesn’t necessarily do either super well. That said, the power of this spell is getting those effects over and over again making it really good in prolonged fights where these effects will keep adding up.
Plane Shift – If you need to get real far away from something, this definitely does the job by bringing you to a different plane without any chance of mishap. The downside though is that all the creatures have to be touching in order for this to work which may not make this viable as an escape spell.
B 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.
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.
C Tier
Divine Word – This spell is weird as it’s clearly there to handle absolute waves of weak enemies, but it also functions as a Banishment spell as well which does give this extra utility. If your DM likes having one big bad with waves of auxiliary units, this is a great spell, but if they like bigger single fights, this is probably not the spell for you.
D Tier
Fire Storm – If you are fighting a massive amount of enemies, this can do a good job hitting a lot of them all at once. The issues are that the damage isn’t that much higher than a third level Fireball and the 10 foot cubes all have to be touching making the shapes possible much more awkward.
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
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.
Temple of the Gods – It is so unclear what this spell is designed for, and unless you’re RPing like crazy, it’s hard to imagine you’d ever want this.
8th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Holy Aura – As long as your allies are near you when you cast this, they are very difficult to hurt via magical or physical means which is great. Furthermore, a 30 ft radius is quite large so it’s not that hard to get your party within that area, and then split afterwards.
B Tier
None
C Tier
Antimagic Field – This spell does as advertised, it’s just hard to say when you would want or need this effect. If you need to wade through a bunch of magic, this is how you’d look to do it.
D Tier
Earthquake – Unless your enemies are hiding in a building you’re looking to potentially destroy, this spell isn’t that helpful. The AOE of huge and if you could consistently make the fissures extremely deep so enemies take maximum falling damage, this would be pretty solid, but as is, it’s very niche in application.
Sunburst – This has a large AOE, but the damage is low for the level and uses Constitution saving throws on the initial damage and followup blindness, so this is far from ideal for a damage spell.
F Tier
Control Weather – While you can do some visually impressive stuff with this, it’s hard to imagine the practical applications of this.
9th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Mass Heal – As the spell says, this is a MASSIVE amount of healing at SEVEN HUNDRED POINTS. That will almost always be enough to full heal everyone in your party from 0 which is insane and can make a hard fight way easier by giving everyone a fresh tank. The only downside about this spell is that, in most parties, damage is not split evenly which may make timing this difficult, but it’s still excellent.
B Tier
True Resurrection – This is extremely pricey, but getting a perfect resurrection can definitely be worth it.
C Tier
Gate – This is a very weird spell that has a lot of uses. The classic use of this spell is to teleport yourself to a different plane of existence, but it has a lot of other implications as well. You can forcibly summon a creature that’s on a different plane and it doesn’t even get a saving throw – you can use this to set up traps beforehand and absolutely obliterate it if you please. You could even use this to transport a lot of stuff to do a different plane, like water or lava. Although this has a lot of uses, they are all still fairly niche making this spell somewhat hard to use.
Power Word: Heal – The second best healing spell in the game (right behind Mass Heal). If you have a party member who both gets hurt a lot and has a massive health pool, this can be nice, but it’s very weird to have this and Mass Heal on the same class and same spell level.
D Tier
Astral Projection – This is a weird spell that’s helpful if you need to go into the Astral plane or other planes for some reason, but it doesn’t have much utility beyond that.
F Tier
None
