Paladin Spell Tier List – The Best Paladin Spells
This will be a deeper dive and analysis on why spells have their tier ranking on the Paladin spell list.
Like other half-casters, Paladins get their spells later and less frequently than full casters making general utility more important than it would be for full-casters. Furthermore, for Paladins in particular, every spell cast has to be considered in the context of that just being a Divine Smite, so if it’s a damage spell, it has to at minimum beat out the damage of a Divine Smite to realistically be considered.
As a final note, any hyperlinked spell is a spell from the Player’s Handbook while non-linked spells are from supplementary materials.
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.
1st Level Spells
S Tier
None
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.
Divine Smite (Always Prepared) – While it can be Counterspelled and you can only use it once per turn, Divine Smite is still quite the strong option. In a real sense, I think these changes are actually going to help players use it optimally (waiting until you get a critical or when the opponent is low to finish the fight) rather than just spamming it every time they hit and burning through all their spell slots in the first fight or two. Obviously, the changes make this much weaker, but being able to attach this to a critical hit is still going to feel awesome.
B Tier
Compelled Duel – How good this spell is really depends on the composition of your party, but for the most part, you’re the one that wants to be hit so forcing an enemy to do so is reasonably good. This can be difficult to use as positioning matters a lot with the small range and the people you want to protect won’t always be that close to you, but there’s a good chance that you can get good use out of this in most combats.
Detect Magic – A great spell, but with so few prepared spells your team is likely better served by having someone else pick this up
Shield of Faith – Additional AC at this level is no joke and makes hitting you that much harder.
Thunderous Smite – This spell seems really good, but it does come with a few complications. Let’s first talk about the good, you’re only giving up 2 average damage compared to a Divine Smite to knock the enemy prone and give any other melee characters advantage on their attack rolls against it. In this case, the spell is excellent. However, this does mean you need another frontliner to take advantage of this, and you also need to be early in the turn order so your allies can capitalize on an enemy being prone, and you’re hoping that the enemy just took their turn or their turn is much later in the cycle. Since you’re a Paladin, you may have Dexterity as your dump stat so your Initiative is unlikely to be good, making this a harder sell. Furthermore, you could just use a weapon mastery to topple someone instead, but this does give you two chances instead of one. Overall, this is good in the right set ups and team compositions, but it’s not necessarily good in every team composition.
Wrathful Smite – Wisdom is not a high stat for a lot of enemies, so forcing the Frightened condition on one enemy can split up a much tougher encounter and make it a lot easier on your party, even if you’re giving up some damage to do so.
C 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.
Cure Wounds* – While Cure Wounds is not that great itself, it is pretty important that someone in the party can heal. The touch range does limit the applications of this because this can be replaced by using/feeding someone a health potion, but having a rechargeable way to heal is good as health potions can be expensive, especially early. If nobody on your team can heal, this would likely be in the B tier range instead of C.
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.
Divine Favor – With the average damage of a Divine Smite being 9 and the average damage per hit from this at 2.5, you would need to connect four times in a fight to make this better than just Smiting, but in a long fight, that can definitely be possible. Furthermore, now this no longer requires Concentration, you can still have another spell effect active on top of this making this a bit more appealing.
Heroism – This spell is awkward as the buff is quite solid for a first level spell, but it’s a touch range so you’ll want to use this on yourself, but then it may be hard to keep Concentration as you’ll be tanking hits. If you have another frontliner you can use this on, this can be solid, but you still may be taking hits which will hurt the longevity of this.
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.
D Tier
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.
Searing Smite – Personally I find it hard to justify taking this over Divine Favor as the damage is comparable, but it’s easier for most enemies to avoid this versus you hitting on the average attack. Maybe if you’re facing a spellcaster with low Constitution who’s hard to hit this would be better, but that’s pretty niche.
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
Find Steed (Always Prepared starting Level 5)* – If you’re looking to play with a mount, this is by far the easiest way to do so. The steed is a fair bit smarter than your average Bear (literally, 6 Int compared to 2) and shares the effect of any self-targeted spell which is pretty neat. This spell is niche since few parties need a mount, but having a mount is quite the luxury with an extremely low opportunity cost.
B 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 second level which increases by five by spell level (so 15 total). Unfortunately for a half-caster, this progression is much slower and more costly, so this isn’t as high impact as it would be on a Cleric, but it’s still decent.
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.
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 in front so likely to get hit) or backline (lower AC‘s so more likely to get hit when threatened), so it’s hard to come out ahead here. That said, if anyone can afford to take some hits, it would be a Paladin, so use if you’re feeling brave.
C Tier
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
Branding Smite – So the best use case of this is to hit an invisible enemy so it’ll be easier to hit, because invisible enemies are really hard to hit. You can see the issue.
Magic Weapon – While this spell no longer requires Concentration, the primary use case of why you’d want to cast this (overcoming non-magical damage resistance/immunity) seems to have been eliminated in One D&D. Without that, this already unexciting spell is even less exciting, but it isn’t completely unusable.
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
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.
A Tier
Dispel Magic – An absolute necessity for every party, even if it may not come up too often. Ideally you’d want a different spellcaster to take this, but if you want it to be safe or you’re the only one who can take it, you’re not going to regret having it.
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.
Blinding Smite – While you’re giving up 1d8 damage compared to the same level Divine Smite, blinding an enemy can be great as all attack rolls against it have advantage (not just melee rolls) while all their attacks have disadvantage. This is similar to Thunderous Smite in that way, but blinding an enemy is much better than knocking them prone. That said, Constitution saving throws are generally quite high for most enemies, so this isn’t going to be the most reliable. Still, when it works, it can be really strong.
Crusader’s Mantle* – This is Divine Favor, but for most if not all of your party! This is hard to rate as this buff is clearly good, but also very team composition dependent. If you are the only frontline, this spell is going to be mediocre. However, if nearly all of your party sticks relatively close, the damage on this can stack up super fast, especially if party members are attacking multiple times a turn.
C Tier
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 end up being pretty strong.
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. Since you can switch spells at a long rest, I’d probably never carry this naturally, but it’s great to switch into.
D Tier
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.
Daylight – Worse than Darkvision or Continual Flame, but this does now count as sunlight to incinerate Vampires. Since Paladins doesn’t naturally learn either of the aforemantioned spells nor do they learn the Light cantrip, this can be a reasonable option if your party is desperate for it.
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.
F Tier
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.
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.
D Tier
Aura of Life – If you know you’re going to be facing enemies that reduce your Hit Point maximum or you have allies going down constantly, then this is a decent counter against that. Otherwise, this spell really doesn’t do anything helpful for you that other spells couldn’t do.
Staggering Smite – Giving up a non-negligible amount of damage for a rather negligible effect is a weird tradeoff. Disadvantage on saving throws can matter a lot if you have a lot of spellcasters behind you in initiative, but this is still not great.
F Tier
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.
5th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Holy Weapon – In a long fight, the extra damage this spell provides is definitely going to add up and end up being the most damage a spell slot can buy you at this point. That said, this spell isn’t that strong realistically since your ninth level spellcasting buddies are going to have options like Meteor Swarm or Wish, but in context with your other spells, this is quite strong (which is pretty sad).
B Tier
Circle of Power – Giving most or all of your allies advantage on saving throws is quite strong, especially since you’re going to fight a lot of enemies that will force saving throws at this point.
C Tier
Banishing Smite – Weirdly you’re capped at a fourth level Divine Smite, so this is technically the most damage you can do with a spell slot. That said, the damage gains are negligible and banishing a creature that’s already almost dead isn’t a particularly exciting proposition. That said, this can be good to split up enemies in an encounter if even a near-dead enemy is going to be a huge pain.
Raise Dead – Not a spell you’re going to need often, but if you need it, it’s really valuable. Since you can sleep to change your spells, if your party member dies outside of Revivify range, you can swap to this.
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. The issue with summons on half-casters in general is that they don’t scale super well as you get them much later, but there is still some use to having an extra body on the battlefield.
D Tier
Destructive Wave – If this spell was introduced earlier, this could be solid, but at a minimum of level 17 this is just not good. The damage isn’t nearly high enough for this level, Constitution saving throws tend to be very high, and knocking enemies prone is generally not a big deal. You do completely avoid friendly fire which is nice, but unless you’re facing swarms of smaller creatures, this is generally a non-issue.
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.
F Tier
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.
