Druid Spell Tier List – The Best Druid Spells
This will be a deeper dive and analysis on why spells have their tier ranking on the Druid 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
Tiers
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 this 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
Magic Stone – For normal uses, this damage isn’t too bad, but does get pretty quickly outclassed once you gain some levels. However, before you level up, this is some solid damage for a cantrip with only a bonus action to initially cast. Furthermore, if you’re able to get some sort of helpers in battle, this turns them into actual threats as most spells that create familiar adjacent things will be able to toss these. This is pretty cheeky, but a powerful interaction if you’re willing to set this up.
Shape Water – Similar to Prestidigitation, you can get really creative in its uses like freezing a pathway across a body of water, freezing a lock, creating a barrier, and many more uses. This is less versatile than Prestidigitation, but that’s an impossible bar to clear and arguably what you can do with this is higher impact.
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.
B Tier
Create Bonfire – The damage on this cantrip is pretty standard, but getting even a small amount of area denial on a cantrip can be really strong. If you have ways to force movement from other creatures or even lock creatures down into a space, this can be very powerful. This would be an A tier cantrip if it didn’t require Concentration to keep going as you will likely have something better to concentrate on than this most of the time.
Mold Earth – More useful than it may appear, being able to manipulate ground quickly lets you build quick holes, trenches, provide cover, and a lot more depending on how creative you can get!
Primal Savagery – Reasonable damage for the early game and some druids won’t mind getting up close and personal with the ability to have better armor and better weapon proficiencies.
Shillelagh – In the early game, this will be the highest damage cantrip you can get as this will be an average of +5 to hit and 9.5 damage on hit (with a 16 Wisdom score). This does get outclassed at level five, but this is your best melee cantrip until then. There is some contention between using this or just using the new martial capabilities of Druids, but this is still solid.
C Tier
Elementalism – Definitely a cute new addition to the Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, and Druidcraft line up, but it’s definitely closer to the latter two than the excellent Prestidigitation. It is still pretty neat, but nothing special.
Frostbite – The range is whatever, the damage isn’t great, and Constitution saves tend to be pretty high, but giving disadvantage on an attack roll is quite powerful if this connects.
Poison Spray – Great damage, but pretty short range and bad damage type. Still, this is a decent cantrip if you’re looking to be somewhat close to enemies.
Produce Flame – While this used to be the bread and butter cantrip for Druids, it got a brutal harsh nerf making it fall well behind your other offensive options.
Thorn Whip – This isn’t the cantrip of choice if you’re looking for damage, but the utility of pulling enemies towards you can be good in the right situations. There is a risk of pulling enemies into melee range if you aren’t tanky, but some Druids may be all about being in melee range anyway.
D Tier
Druidcraft – A much, much worse version of Prestidigitation. This does not do much unfortunately, but isn’t completely terrible.
Infestation – Low range, low damage, a Constitution save, a commonly resisted damage type, and random forced movement does not bode well for this spell, but any forced movement with damage on a cantrip can’t be all bad.
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.
F Tier
Control Flames – I’m unsure in what scenarios you need to mess with flames that doesn’t even include being able to light one. Maybe there’s really creative uses of this, but I haven’t thought of them.
Gust – Really unsure what the use of this spell is as this only gives a tiny bit of forced movement or a situational and pitiful distraction.
Resistance – Even before the changes this cantrip wasn’t good, but did have some niche applications. Now this is functionally worthless as reducing damage by 1d4 is ridiculously bad.
Thunderclap – While this may be an ok distraction, damage only within 5 feet and a Constitution saving throw makes this really, really bad.
1st Level Spells
S Tier
Entangle – This is almost a strictly better Web, which is an incredible second level spell already. The only downgrade to this spell compared to Web is the 1 minute duration, but it’s very rare you’d ever need the full hour duration. This spell is nearly S tier, but the effect isn’t quite strong enough to justify it, no matter how good this is.
Healing Word – Healing as a bonus action is excellent for picking up downed allies for a low opportunity cost. A must have.
A Tier
Absorb Elements – Getting resistance from an elemental type for a round can do a lot of heavy lifting in certain encounters, and if you happen to be making melee attacks too, you get a bit of extra damage on top of it which is a nice bonus.
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.
Goodberry – This is a very powerful spell that doles out ten berries that each satiate someone’s hunger for a full day (no more rations) and heals for 1. While the effect seems small, you’d be surprised how effective this could be.
B 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.
Ice Knife – Two different checks to avoid damage is pretty weird for a spell, but being able to hit multiple enemies with a first level spell is very rare. Not the most damage and two chances for the enemy to avoid that damage, but a solid option if you need to hit a lot of enemies.
C Tier
Animal Friendship – This does make being friendly with animals much easier if you’re struggling with your Animal Handling check, but as a Druid, your Animal Handling check is likely to be pretty high.
Charm Person – Charming someone is quite powerful if they fail the save, but they will know they were charmed at the end of the spell’s duration so there is risk there. If you really need to win a social situation, it’s hard to do better than this.
Create or Destroy Water – You would think this isn’t that versatile, but there’s a surprising amount you can do with this spell. If you combine this with Shape Water, you can probably do even more creative things. If you’re in a survival style adventure/campaign, this is obviously much better.
Fog Cloud – If you need a lot of heavy obscurement, this is a fine way to get it. The issue with this spell is keeping enemies inside of the Fog Cloud, but if you/your team have ways to make that more tenable (combining this with other CC like Entangle or Web), then this spell can be quite potent.
Jump – This is substantially stronger than the 2014 version as you now have 20 more feet of movement and it’s much more versatile as it’s a jump rather than just flat movement. The only issue that comes up with this spell is that you may not want to use all 30 feet of jumping movement as that could be inconvenient in some scenarios, but realistically, if you’re casting this spell, you want the big jump.
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.
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
Cure Wounds – Touch healing spells are brutal as they’re often impractical. Just use Healing Word instead.
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.
Longstrider – Unlike Baldur’s Gate 3, Longstrider is not a ritual nor does it last particularly long. May be useful on characters that can really utilize that extra speed, but pretty niche.
Snare – Not bad if you need to spring a trap in a tight hallway or you’re trying to protect yourself a little bit before sleeping, but this will not buy you much time and is pretty situational.
F Tier
Beast Bond – It’s hard to say why you would need a telepathic bond with a creature without charming it as the animal has no reason to necessarily listen to your commands.
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
Pass Without Trace – If you have someone in heavy armor in your party, you pretty much have to give up any hope of ever being stealthy. Even with Invisibility (which is generally the best stealth spell in the game), heavy armor will still make a lot of noise making the Invisibility potentially useless. This spell fixes all of that. A +10 to stealth checks is incredible and even really bad rolls have a solid chance of succeeding. That said, Stealth is not Invisibility, so it’s not like you can walk right past guards in broad daylight with this.
Spike Growth* – A 150 foot range, a large AOE of difficult terrain, and anyone who moves inside of it take 2d4 damage (an average of 5) every FIVE FEET THEY TRAVEL. Not move, travel. While that may seem like there’s no difference, travel means literal space traversed rather than someone actively moving themselves. That means them being pushed or pulled deals additional damage. If you can cast this under a group of enemies (which should be easy to do), you’ll massively stymie their movement and deal a bunch of damage in the process. This spell was already incredible in 5th edition, but with the change to the Grappler feat and all the new ways to forcefully move enemies, this spell is even stronger than it used to be making it not just the best second level spell in the game, but probably one of the best spells in the game.
A Tier
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!
Summon Beast – While this won’t stay the best summon for Druids as you gain levels (although this does scale pretty well anyway), this is really strong for the level. Don’t get caught into the trap of thinking that you summon this to solely attack with it – summons can have a lot of utility in and out of combat.
B Tier
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!
Barkskin – While the previous iteration of this spell was very disappointing, casting this as a Bonus Action, lasting an hour, and getting a flat 17 AC is pretty solid overall. Could be a good defensive buff if enemies are getting a bit too close for your liking.
Darkvision – While a torch or something with Continual Flame is a more permanent solution, getting 150 ft of darkvision is pretty nice as you’ll be able to see further than anyone else in the dark.
Enhance Ability – Unlike using other charming abilities that risk the target getting mad at you afterwards, giving yourself advantage on Charisma checks is substantially better and will make your Charisma caster trivialize any social scenario. That said, you also have FIVE other options for this spell as well making this very versatile for many situations.
Heat Metal – It’s not going to be difficult to find someone or something that has metal on it which can have great combat applications if you make an enemy drop their sword, and everyone’s favorite use, heating up someone’s armor.
Lesser Restoration – This may not come up often, but curing a disease or a good amount of conditions is quite strong, especially with a Bonus Action cast.
C 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.
Beast Sense – This isn’t a bad scouting option if you have an animal willing to help you, but you will have to set this up in some way to get that willing animal. That said, if you can find a friendly bird, this is a pretty strong option.
Earthbind – If you have a lot of allies that are mainly melee, being able to pull a flying enemy to the ground can be invaluable. Realistically most characters have ranged options which makes this pretty niche, especially in the early game where flying enemies have low health, but this can be more useful in the later game where dragons may come into play.
Flaming Sphere – While the initial damage isn’t exciting, as long as you’re concentrating on keeping the sphere up, you can move the sphere 30 feet a round as a bonus action to keep the damage rolling. In longer fights this damage can really add up, especially as you can still use your action each turn.
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.
Moonbeam – Despite the AOE isn’t that large, the damage is just ok, Constitution saving throws are generally the easiest to pass, AND moving this requires an action rather than a bonus action, this spell is still pretty good. You will be able to get a lot of hits in with this, and if your party can force movement, this gets even better.
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.
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
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.
Gust of Wind – It’s not going to be often that you’re going to use this, but it is a pretty unique effect if you are trying to lock down a long, enclosed space for whatever reason.
Healing Spirit – This is a bit difficult to use in combat as you can’t guarantee that you can effectively move the spirit into your players or vice versa, you can’t heal multiple people quickly, and this takes up your concentration, so this is mostly going to be out of combat healing. The amount of times it can heal weren’t initially capped, but it got nerfed very shortly after printing so it is limited in how many times it’ll heal someone. Being able to share a bit of healing amongst multiple players isn’t bad, but the amount is so small that this is very hard to justify.
Wither and Bloom – Small AOE, low damage, and Constitution saving throws is like the trifecta of a spell you probably don’t want to be casting. The only saving grace is that you can heal someone in the same area which isn’t too bad, but it does also require the use of a Hit Die instead of the healing occurring naturally via the spell.
F Tier
Dust Devil – A concentration spell that does minimal damage is really not great. The upsides are the forced movement if the target fails the saving throw and you use your bonus action to move it, but you would need multiple casters to set up other area denial effects to get any good use out of this.
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.
Flame Blade – This spell is so strange as it’s only a tiny bit better than Shillelagh which is a cantrip and doesn’t require concentration. It’s also important to note that Shillelagh isn’t even Druid’s best attack cantrip.
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
Revivify – An absolute necessity for at least one person in a party to have.
A Tier
Conjure Animals – With the changes received in the One update, this spell is more like a battering ram as you can move this around the battlefield with your movement and slash enemies from a distance without having to get close to them yourself. This has solid damage and not requiring any additional action to use makes this a reliable spell for tougher combats.
Dispel Magic – An absolute necessity for every party, even if it may not come up too often.
Sleet Storm – This has a pretty massive AOE that does many things including: heavily obscure the area so enemies inside of it can’t see you, make difficult terrain, cause enemies inside to potentially fall prone (which is particularly good against flying enemies), and messes with spellcasters. That is a lot for one spell, and again, the range on this is pretty massive. As long as you have enough party members that can attack at range, you can pepper enemies from afar (advantage and disadvantage cancelling out since neither party can see one another) and have anyone with forced movement keep them in the area.
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.
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.
C Tier
Call Lightning – This spell is interesting as the AOE and duration of the storm cloud are both pretty good, letting you potentially rain down a full 100 lightning bolts across its full duration. That seems excellent, but does come with problems. First, you have to be outside, but you don’t want it to be too much in the open as enemies could just dash out from under the cloud as its immobile. On the other hand, if you’re in an area with structures that may impede movement, enemies may be able to hide out in them which also makes this not work. Lastly, the damage of each individual bolt is not particularly impressive. This isn’t a bad spell as you can start it, Wild Shape the next turn to avoid being focused, and have a blast, but the amount of conditions this comes with does make it hard to use.
Protection from Energy – If you know you’re going into a fight with a lot of elemental damage of one specific type, this isn’t a terrible use of a spell slot, but this isn’t that much better than Absorb Elements which is a first level reaction spell.
Summon Fey – For a third level summon, the health, AC, and damage are all pretty decent, but that’s about all this spell offers. The different options are all pretty much the same power level as none of them have a stand out effect. This isn’t bad if you care about damage over utility, but you likely have better options.
D Tier
Daylight – Druids 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 is really good at absolutely incinerating Vampires, so if you know you’re going to be facing some, this is a decent option.
Elemental Weapon – This isn’t a terrible spell, but pretty middling for this late in the game. If somehow one of your party members still has a regular weapon and you’re going to face something with resistance, then this could be effective. Better yet, if you’re fighting something that you know will have a damage vulnerability, this could also be alright.
Erupting Earth – The damage is not great for the level, and you have access to substantially better spells that create difficult terrain like Entangle or Spike Growth. The only reason you’d take this is you don’t have another spellcaster with better AOE damage spells as this can be an acceptable replacement need be, but isn’t something to be excited about.
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.
Tidal Wave – This is not a lot of damage or AOE for this level and knocking someone prone isn’t particularly great either. However, since this doesn’t specify where you can spawn the water, you can technically use this to try and knock flying enemies out of the air which can lead to a lot of damage.
Wall of Water – Unlike other wall options, this one doesn’t really stop enemies from going through it, but will more often be used closer to you or your allies to stymie ranged or Fire attacks. There is some cute applications where you can freeze sections of this to create a more solid wall, but this is still a very mediocre option.
Wind Wall – Despite saying it’s a wall, it really isn’t a wall as it can just be walked through (although they’ll take some damage). The best use of this is to block enemy arrows and small flying enemies, but that causes a weird scenario where you want to put this near your enemies for the damage, but near yourself to block arrows or small flying enemies. This makes it pretty situational and just not great all around.
Water Breathing – I would never use this unless you know you’ll have to go on an underwater adventure soon. If you do though, this is hard to replace.
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
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.
Flame Arrows – While technically 12d6 damage is actively good for a third level spell, the fact that this eats your concentration and you’re only getting that damage if you can afford to concentrate the whole time it takes for all 12 arrows to be shot and every arrow you imbued hits its mark.
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.
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
Conjure Minor Elementals – This spell has changed a lot since 5e, and in the playtest, most players considered this spell to be broken as it adds so much damage to your attacks and assumed it would be nerfed. It was not nerfed. While an additional 2d8 damage from your attacks and difficult terrain for 15 feet around you would already be solid, the fact that each level this is upcasted for gives an additional 2d8 damage per attack rather than 1d8 makes this very unreasonable. Unlike Wizards, Druids don’t really have spells that have multiple attacks baked into it limiting the amount of burst damage you can get per turn, but this is still a pretty strong spell if you just decide to cast cantrips after this.
Conjure Woodland Beings – Very similar to a fifth level Spirit Guardians as you get the same damage and you can Disengage as a bonus action, but you get less range, enemies don’t have reduced movement in the area. While a fifth level Spirit Guardians is stronger than this, this is a fourth level spell so you shouldn’t expect it to be as strong as an upcasted version of an excellent spell. All that said, this is quite strong in its new form and tankier Druids will be super interested in using this.
Giant Insect – This spell has received some really nice buffs from the 2024 handbook as now you get to pick between one of three insect forms to summon. The Spider form, in particular, is quite potent as it can really easily lock down enemies from a distance which can be devastating to enemies that lack good ranged options.
Wall of Fire – While this is one of the few walls that doesn’t limit whether people can walk through it easily, the damage it deals whenever it pops up, or when someone ends their turn within 10 feet or inside the wall is quite high. By itself this spell is very strong, but if you and your allies can force people back through the wall, the damage can stack up extremely quickly. Furthermore, obscuring vision can be really nice if you’re facing a lot of enemies who fight at a range.
B Tier
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.
Grasping Vine – Decent damage alongside decent CC and AOE makes this a solid spell all around. This is much better when you’re working with other casters to drag enemies into harmful effects and I would likely not use this unless your team had those effects to synergize with this, but if they do, this can be pretty potent.
C 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 may be hard to use effectively.
Fire Shield – Getting resistance to Fire or Cold damage is definitely decent, especially without requiring Concentration, but you generally want to avoid taking damage rather than tanking it (unless you’re in Wild Shape). You do get a little bit of damage if you are hit which is probably not going to be that consequential, but if you’re in melee range because of Wild Shape, the damage can definitely add up.
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.
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.
Summon Elemental – While the AC and abilities on the elementals leave a bit to be desired, the damage, resistances, condition immunites, and mobility are all solid. It’s not easy to justify using this over upcasting a third level summoning option, but if you need a particular damage resistance or immunity, this can do the trick.
Watery Sphere – This is an interesting CC spell as you could hypothetically trap up to four medium or smaller creatures inside the orb and restrain them, and if you can do that, this is quite excellent. Furthermore, you can keep moving the sphere around attempting to capture more enemies or even move it into dangerous territory which is pretty nice. The issue with this spell is that this is pretty ineffective against larger enemies, both in terms of space and Strength likely being a good saving throw for them. Enemies getting a saving throw at the end of each turn is a pain, but you can look to just scoop them back up. Finally, being restrained doesn’t rob them of their action, just their movement, so they may still have impactful turns from inside the sphere. This spell is still solid, but you do have the awkward contention of if you try to trap melee enemies, their Strength saving throw is probably good, and ranged enemies can probably still have effective turns while restrained.
D Tier
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.
Dominate Beast – Charming an animal is not bad, especially as this charm lets you control the animal rather than other charms which may not offer that. That said, there are very few strong beasts that you could even dominate. To make matter worse, the duration is only a minute and they get additional saving throws every time they are damaged which can make the duration of this spell super unreliable.
Elemental Bane – Even if the target fails their Constitution saving throw, the effect on this is very minor. Removing a resistance and adding 2d6 if that elemental damage is used is a very niche effect and would only matter if you come across a creature that has resistances to every damage type you’re throwing at it. The only other scenario you may want to consider this is the vast majority of your team likes using the same elemental damage, and in that case, the damage could add up, but even then this probably won’t compare to the damage of a normal offensive spell. This isn’t completely worthless, but hard to imagine a scenario where you’d want to prepare this.
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.
Ice Storm – This is not a good AOE damage spell, but Druids don’t really get AOE damage spells, so if you’re desperate for one, this can work.
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.
Stoneskin – The buff on this spell is pretty good, but comes with a few issues. First off, a 100gp consumable component is definitely annoying to cast this spell, and while 100 gold may not be a big deal at level 7 (and definitely not at level 11 for half casters), but is still something you have to consider and keep track of as it isn’t cheap either. Second, you probably don’t want to use this spell on yourself as casters should be looking to avoid hits rather than tanking them. Finally, it’s a concentration spell so you lose out on all the other options while this is up (and you’d hate to drop it prematurely as this is both a valuable spell slot and required a component to use). If you can be ok with all that, this is a very solid buff on the team’s tank as they’ll resist all the most common forms of melee damage, and if you’re the tank as a Wild Shaping Druid, this can be ok.
F Tier
Blight – Not nearly enough damage for the level, low range, single target, and a Constitution saving throw. This is really rough and only should be considered if you know you’re facing plants, and even then, this may not be your best option.
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
Transmute Rock – There is going to be a lot of rock and stone in the average campaign and being able to to turn rock into mud is your most common and strongest use. Creatures caught in mud can be pulled deeper into it and restrained, but even if they pass the saving throw, getting out of mud requires 4 feet of movement versus the standard two feet of difficult terrain, but if they can’t make it out of the mud on their turn, they’ll have to make their save again. This is just the most common use of it, but you can also topple a structure by turning it into mud, trap creatures by turning mud into stone, and other fun, creative uses.
B Tier
Antilife Shell – A good amount of creatures only have a melee attack range which can prevent them from hitting you, this lasts a full hour, and doesn’t prompt a saving throw. There is the issue that your party can’t approach you either which may make this spell awkward, but you can drop Concentration if you need. While you may not be able to effectively use this spell often, the ceiling on it is very high.
Commune with Nature – This spell is pretty niche, but as a ritual, it’s pretty free to have and use and can get you more information than it may seem; prevalent people or powerful extraplanar threats covers a large swath of potential enemies that you can now ask a bunch of questions about. Furthermore, unlike other Divination spells, there isn’t a cumulative fail chance so, as long as you have time, you can use this as much as you’d like.
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.
Wall of Stone – A very solid wall spell overall. Being able to cover 100 feet on a battlefield is quite large for a wall, and it being hard to break through makes it even nicer.
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.
Cone of Cold – Medium damage, Constitution saving, and a short range is definitely not great. On the bright side, being a 60 foot cone means you could catch a massive amount of enemies inside the AOE, so if you think you’re going to be facing a lot of enemies, this can be very useful. That said, the cone is a double-edged sword as it won’t be easy to get just your enemies and not your allies with this, so you have to use this carefully.
Reincarnate – If you’re the only party member that can bring back dead members and Revivify is off the table, this can do the job. This is much worse than Raise Dead as the material component is double the price and changing the player’s race may accidentally destroy their build, but it can be better than rerolling a new character.
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 if they pass it. Still, if keeping tabs on someone in particular is important to you, this is a fine option.
D Tier
Conjure Elemental – Now a spell reserved for blocking off a key area, this spell is pretty disappointing. The damage is decent, but not being able to move the elemental is such a bummer for this spell which could’ve been pretty interesting otherwise. Not unusable, but if the enemy isn’t restrained by this the first time you cast this, you may get literally nothing out of your fifth level spell slot.
Contagion – A fifth level touch spell is already asking a lot for a Druid, 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.
Insect Plague – This has a good range and decent AOE, but the damage is kind of low and this uses a Constitution saving throw. You’re rarely going to want to use this over Wall of Fire, but this does have some advantages like difficult terrain, it lasts longer, and it goes around corners.
Maelstrom – This is a massive AOE that is both difficult terrain and can pull enemies towards the center which makes this a pretty difficult spell to escape. The issue is, that’s where the good ends. Unlike other similar spells, the effect only takes place if a creature starts their turn there rather than if they move into that space. The damage isn’t good for the spell level either. Finally, if the creature in the affected area passes the Strength saving throw, they suffer ZERO adverse effects which is really bad. If you really need a large amount of difficult terrain and you can’t use Plant Growth, this can have some use.
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.
Wrath of Nature – This is an incredible spell if you’re in a forest, but this won’t do anything unless you’re in a forest making this really difficult to use. If you are constantly in the wilderness or you know you will be for an extended period, this can be a great pickup, but I would never use it otherwise.
F Tier
Control Winds – This spell feels like it should be versatile, but ends up being a really bad wall-adjacent effect that doesn’t do anything exciting, especially for a fifth level spell.
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.
Tree Stride – Not terrible if you’re in a forest, but this is so specific that it’s very hard to use.
6th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Heal – Just a great healing spell that not only heals a massive amount, but also cures diseases, blindness, and/or deafness.
B Tier
Transport via Plants – While this will not be an effective teleportation spell in combat as you can’t control who goes into the plant, this does work very well out of combat as nearly every place in a DM‘s world will have a tree there.
C Tier
Bones of the Earth – This spell is interesting as you have a few cool uses for this. The first use is, in enclosed spaces, you can try to pin Medium or smaller enemies to the ceiling if they fail their Dexterity saving throw. The second use is moving your allies away from enemies if they need a quick escape, but the enemies could just destroy the pillar instead which is not particularly hard to do which will cause them to fall. The final use is to make this into a wall or prison that will force its occupants to use their attack to get through this and then give them difficult terrain to contend with. This is some pretty solid versatility for a spell, but it is a bit hard to justify using this over a Wall of Stone in most scenarios.
Conjure Fey – While the damage isn’t particularly high, the Fey being a constant applier of frightened to enemies is definitely somewhat interesting, especially since that enemy will be afraid of both the Fey and you. Higher level enemies may be immune to frightened which does hurt the viability of this spell, but it’s still a decent option all around.
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 one of the better options for Druids. 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.
Wall of Thorns – This doesn’t do a terrible job as a wall spell as it does block sight, but most enemies can walk right through at the cost of some damage and most of their movement. This isn’t bad, but if you want a damaging wall, you probably will just want Wall of Fire and if you want a true wall, you probably want Wall of Stone. That said, the versatility does make this an interesting option.
Wind Walk – A Fly spell that targets a lot of creatures, has a fast Fly speed, and doesn’t require Concentration is pretty strong. This can be useful for scouting and infiltration, but those scenarios may be more niche than you may expect. Furthermore, you can’t use this in combat with a one minute casting time which eliminates this as an escape mechanism unless you can somehow block your enemies off for long enough.
D Tier
Druid Grove – This spell is super neat, but hard to imagine when you’d use this on an adventure.
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.
Investiture of Flame – The damage on this is not really not great for the level, but getting pure immunity to Fire can be good if you know you’re going to be dealing with a lot of it soon.
Investiture of Ice – The damage on this is not really not great for the level, but getting pure immunity to Frost can be good if you know you’re going to be dealing with a lot of it soon.
Investiture of Stone – Unlike Investiture of Flame or Investiture of Ice, you don’t gain a damage immunity but instead get resistance to piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning attacks. This is not a worthy tradeoff as spellcasters should be staying out of the way of attacks, not tanking them, and the earthquake action and difficult terrain mobility don’t even come close to justifying this spell. All that said, this can persist in your Wild Shape, so if you’re the parties tank, this can be an alright buff to consider.
Move Earth – If you need to move a lot of earth, this is your spell. You’ll at least have a promising career as a gravedigger if the adventuring thing doesn’t work out.
F Tier
Flesh to Stone – A single target restrained spell that gives the target a myriad of chances with a Constitution saving throw to resist is terrible.
Investiture of Wind – Unlike Investiture of Flame or Investiture of Ice, you don’t gain a damage immunity, but you do get a Fly speed of 60 and ranged attacks have disadvantage to hit you which can be interesting. The rough part is that, if you really need to fly, you could just Wild Shape into a bird.
Primordial Ward – So you can only cast this if you know you’re fighting an enemy with only one elemental damage type, but you can only gain immunity to it once in a minute for a sixth level spell slot? I’ll stick with Absorb Elements.
7th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
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
Reverse Gravity – This is a massive AOE effect with a 50 foot radius and a really powerful effect as those who fail the save will helplessly float up. There is ambiguity in what happens with those who pass the save as it’s described as them holding onto an object to prevent them from flying upwards. Does this require them to have a free hand? Are they restrained? Incapacitated? It’s unclear if there is a negative effect to passing the save, so there is DM interpretation involved. Besides that, there is the issue that, at this point in the campaign, a good amount of enemies will have movement other than walking which does invalidate this spell. However, against the right group, this can end an encounter nearly immediately.
C Tier
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.
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 issue is that the damage isn’t that much higher than a third level Fireball, and considering it’s going to be pretty rare you’re going to face enough enemies to effectively use this, it’s not easy to justify preparing this.
Whirlwind – This is similar to Watery Sphere as a CC spell that can move around and restrain targets. Just that effect is definitely a bit weak for a seventh level spell, but this may be a better CC option than Reverse Gravity if you’re finding yourself fighting against a lot of flying enemies. The additional damage is a nice touch, but not great for this spell level. Not a terrible spell, but nothing about it stands out much either.
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.
8th Level Spells
S Tier
Animal Shapes* – This is pretty much a Mass Polymorph, but with a greater limitation on what you can pick. On the flip side, the targets keep their Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma which could be really important. Even more interestingly, you can use your action to turn the affected creatures into other creatures. The wording on this spell is kind of ambiguous, but if your DM allows shenanigans, you can potentially befriend an egregious amount of tiny creatures, carry them on you, and have them be the targets of this spell to turn them all into CR 4 creatures. If you can do this to like 20+ creatures, you’re likely trivializing a combat.
How this spell works is going to massively depend on DM interpretation, so if there is a limit on the amount of creatures the DM will count as friendly, this spell would be around a B or C tier spell as there isn’t a lot of great uses on transforming you and your friends into low level animals. However, if the DM has a more open-minded interpretation, you can randomly summon an army whenever you please! All that said, the creatures losing all their temporary HP will force them to revert, so even if you summon a bunch of CR 4 creatures, a really powerful AOE spell could potentially all knock them out of their new form.
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.
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.
Incendiary Cloud – For other casters, this would not be a particularly effective damage spell as they would have better options. That said, Druids do not normally have access to good AOE damage spells, so this is one of the best ones you’re going to get. This isn’t the best AOE nor damage, but if you can keep creatures or push creatures in the cloud, this can be relatively strong.
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.
Tsunami – This is a very weird spell that’s tough to utilize properly as the 1 minute casting time stops this from being used in combat. However, the range on this is sight so you can do this on the ground, in the air, a mile away, etc. If you need to push a lot of creatures away, you can’t do better than this, but the casting time is so long and the duration is short enough that this is very hard to use.
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
Shapechange – While you can’t make the transformation semi-permanent like you can with True Polymorph, changing forms resets the temporary HP the form grants you making this better in combat than True Polymorph, but with worse utility as you can’t get “permanent transformation: or target anyone but yourself. All that being said, this is still the best ninth level option that Druids are going to get.
A Tier
None
B Tier
Foresight – The best buff in the game. Not necessarily the strongest thing that a ninth level spellcaster should be capable of, but this is still quite strong.
C Tier
True Resurrection – This is extremely pricey, but getting a perfect resurrection can definitely be worth it.
D Tier
None
F Tier
Storm of Vengeance – This spell is super cool, but just terrible for a ninth level spell.
