Wizard Spell Tier List – The Best Wizard Spells
This will be a deeper dive and analysis on why spells have their tier ranking on the Wizard spell list. Any spell not linked to is not part of the 5e OGL and have to be looked up in their sourcebook.
- Cantrips
- 1st Level Spells
- 2nd Level Spells
- 3rd Level Spells
- 4th Level Spells
- 5th Level Spells
- 6th Level Spells
- 7th Level Spells
- 8th Level Spells
- 9th Level Spells
Tier List Rankings
I do a standard S-F tier ranking and here’s how I categorize them:
S Tier – The absolute best of the best. These options can even broach into unfair territory and may be subject to being banned at certain tables. If you’re looking for power level alone, there’s functionally no reason not to use these.
A Tier – While not as broken as the S Tier options, these are as good as you can get without broaching into unfair territory, although some of them may be strong enough to feel unfair!
B Tier – These will not be as inherently powerful as A Tier options, but are still quite strong in their own right. These are likely a bit more situational or slightly weaker than the A tier options, but still very good.
C Tier – Decent options, but likely not overtly strong. These options don’t offer too much or may just be a bit too situational to be ranked higher, but are still options you should consider as these will be the average power level.
D Tier – While not completely useless, these options are either very weak or very situational so are unlikely to be used, but unlike F tier, these aren’t completely unusable or actively detrimental.
F Tier – Either so weak or so situational that these should functionally never be taken or considered unless in the most niche of circumstances.
Cantrips
S Tier
None
A Tier
Fire Bolt – Great damage, great range. This is an ever so slightly weaker version of Eldritch Blast which is considered the best offensive cantrip in the game.
Mage Hand – Being able to manipulate objects from a distance is quite powerful, especially when it’s free. You’d be surprised how often a low grade telekinesis can come in handy whether it’s to grab something, activate a trap, or anything else a floating hand can accomplish.
Minor Illusion – Even if it’s just in a 5 foot cube, the amount of versatility this cantrip can give you is nearly unmatched. Creating a distraction, making a quick hiding spot for free, or pretty much anything else someone creative can think of can be very powerful in the right situations.
Prestidigitation – This does an exceptional amount of things for one cantrip and is easily the most versatile cantrip in D&D. With six distinct options, there are thousands of things you could with this. None of these effects are high impact, but the versatility is completely unmatched.
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.
Toll the Dead – Half the range of Fire Bolt and sometimes less the damage, but if the target is missing any health, this is a lot of damage for a cantrip.
B Tier
Blade Ward* – While much worse for full casters as a minor attack penalty for enemies is likely not going to save you, this is pretty potent on more martial characters where that functional slight AC buff may be the difference between an attack hitting or not. That said, this does cost a whole action which makes this a bit painful on classes that can’t weave cantrips into their attack, so I would probably limit this to just Bladesingers, Eldritch Knights, and Valor Bards.
Booming Blade* – This is the gold standard for cantrips if you’re getting up close and personal with enemies. Attempting to seal enemy movements by threatening 1d8 damage is pretty good, especially if you can weave in and out of combat with something like the Mobile feat. This cantrip sweetens a lot more once you hit level 5 as you get 1d8 up front and 2d8 if they move which is a solid amount of damage for a cantrip.
Create Bonfire – The damage on this cantrip is pretty standard, but getting even a small amount of area denial on a cantrip can be really strong. If you have ways to force movement from other creatures or even lock creatures down into a space, this can be very powerful. This would be an A tier cantrip if it didn’t require Concentration to keep going as you will likely have something better to concentrate on than this most of the time.
Green-Flame Blade* – Like Booming Blade, you’re only using this if you’re stepping right up to enemies. While Booming Blade is better for single targets, this works best when there’s two enemies close to each other. If you like getting into melee, you’re using Booming Blade or this as your most common cantrips.
Light – Having constant sources of light can be really important if you don’t have many party members with Darkvision. This isn’t a necessity, but is a nice thing to have.
Mind Sliver – The damage is pretty low for a cantrip, but comes with some real upsides. First off, hitting on this is extremely consistent as Intelligence saving throws tend to be terrible for both players and adversaries alike. Second, giving a 1d4 penalty on an enemies next saving throw can make all the difference in them failing an important check or not. If you need consistency, this is king for a cantrip.
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!
True Strike* – Completely reworked from 5th edition, this lets you not have a particularly high combat stat (STR or DEX) and still deal reasonable damage with a weapon attack. Crucially, you aren’t limited to melee weapons here so you do have greater versatility on how you use this which is interesting. While using this with a crossbow will technically be the highest damage dealing cantrip you could get up until level 5, it will then get outpaced after that making it good if you want that extra point or so of damage on average (and you wouldn’t have already gotten it without this), but then you should swap this out unless your build is relying on it.
C Tier
Acid Splash – You won’t be using this very often as Dexterity saves can be pretty good and the damage is low, but if there are a few enemies next to each other, you can get some decent damage out of this.
Chill Touch – Decent damage and a cool effect to prevent healing, but having to be up close and personal with an enemy for this to work is definitely not the easiest proposition for most spellcasters. To make matters worse, if you want to be in melee range, why not just use Booming Blade?
Dancing Lights – A worse distraction than Minor Illusion and a worse light source than Light, but the versatility here can be nice if you don’t want to take either of the aforementioned cantrips.
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.
Lightning Lure* – Like Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade, and Sword Burst, you really do not want to be using this unless you like being in melee range, but pulling enemies towards you can be strong if you need to move them away from your lower health allies and you need to get into melee range.
Message – Considering there is still a verbal component to the spell, it can be hard to be subtle with this, but if you need to communicate with someone telepathically for free, this is your best (and only) option.
Poison Spray – Great damage, but pretty short range and bad damage type. Still, this is a decent cantrip if you’re looking to be somewhat close to enemies.
Ray of Frost – A 60 foot range and less damage than Fire Bolt isn’t a great start, but reducing speed by 10 feet can be useful in theory if you’re looking to kite the enemy.
Shocking Grasp – A touch cantrip is already not great since most casters don’t like being that close and the damage isn’t even that good, but this can be decent if the enemy is wearing armor as you’d get advantage on your roll and potentially stopping them from taking Opportunity Attacks is decent as well.
Sword Burst* – If you are somehow surrounded by enemies (which is a bad place to be unless you’re ok with being in melee range), this is quite powerful as you can dole out a lot of damage on one action.
D Tier
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.
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.
Friends – Advantage on Charisma checks can really smooth over negotiations, but only having a minute, only working against humanoids, doesn’t work against anyone you’re fighting, and the target being instantly hostile to you after the fact really limits the practical applications of this.
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.
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
Find Familiar – This does an incredible amount for a first level spell and a ritual at that. Creating an owl familiar that can fly around to scout, transport items, and provide the Help action in combat is really powerful for a first level spell that’s functionally free to cast. If you are feeling really ambitious, slap a Dragon’s Breath on the familiar and let them fight too as using the breath weapon doesn’t count as attacking.
Shield – A +5 bonus to AC is absolutely massive as this could easily stymie a whole rounds worth of combat against you.
Silvery Barbs – This spell is messed up. It does so much for so little and it’s just a reaction which isn’t going to be used that much naturally. Forcing functional disadvantage on a roll and granting advantage to someone else (or yourself) on your next roll is crazy powerful for a first level slot. This may be the most banned spell at tables due to its power level and it’s not unreasonable to see why.
A Tier
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.
Chromatic Orb – Good damage, good range, and you can pick an element that your enemy isn’t resistant to, or if you’re lucky, something they’re weak to. Furthermore, rolling doubles lets the orb “bounce” potentially giving you even more damage to work with which is super neat. This spell was already strong, and the changes made it even better!
Comprehend Languages – As a ritual, you don’t even need to have this prepared to always have this in your back pocket. This won’t matter until it does, but when it does, it’s irreplaceable.
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.
Feather Fall – Dying from a fall really sucks and this should prevent that from happening. If you expect to be in high places, having this prepared is a great insurance policy.
Magic Missile – A spell that deals a bunch of damage and never misses? Obviously a great deal as this, on average, is the highest damage dealing level one spell in the game (when you factor in miss chance from other spells).
B Tier
Alarm – A nice ritual to give you a bit of a safety net if you’re sleeping somewhere. Not a necessity, but you don’t even need this prepared as a Wizard so it’s good to have.
Catapult – While this isn’t as impressive as other damage spells in terms of pure output, this is unique in that it will keep going if your initial target passes their save, it can hit someone behind them. May not be easy to line multiple targets, but if you can, this gets more and more reliable. Furthermore, if you get cute and lob something like Alchemist’s Fire, you can deal even more damage.
Expeditious Retreat – This is good if you need to chase something or run away, but using your Concentration is quite rough, especially with only a 10 minute duration. That being said, this can be used really effectively to kite enemies on the battlefield and a good portion of enemies will have no real recourse to this strategy, so this can be pretty powerful in the right fights.
False Life – Getting a bit of extra life per spell level is a pretty good use of a spell slot if you think your life may be in danger and you don’t need the slot otherwise.
Hideous Laughter – A solid “save or suck” spell for lower levels. Taking an enemy out of combat temporarily is very good, and if their Wisdom save is low enough, that can be for awhile. Since you don’t get guaranteed criticals on them like you would for Hold Person, it’s best to let them be until you take out their allies rather than disturb them.
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.
Mage Armor – If you or your allies don’t have any armor, this is a +3 to AC for 8 hours which is a pretty sizable buff.
Silent Image – Like how Minor Illusion is a great cantrip, this is a great spell. The practical uses of an illusion in a 15 foot cube are limited only to your creativity as you can do a lot with that much space.
Sleep – No longer relying on enemy HD, this is much more akin to a much smaller scale Hypnotic Pattern that can potentially rid multiple enemies of their actions. The AOE is so small that you’re unlikely to hit more than 1-2 creatures, but for a first level slot, that can still be worthwhile as incapacitating someone on the first failed saving throw is quite nice.
Unseen Servant – This really doesn’t provide much more utility than Mage Hand in the average campaign, but it has more strength so you can have it haul some things or interact with heavier objects as needed. However, you can summon one or a bunch of these, give them Magic Stones, and have them go to town to make this a much more powerful spell.
Witch Bolt – Decent damage and you can keep zapping your target as a bonus action even if you miss? Pretty solid! This won’t keep up at higher levels as only the initial blast gets stronger when upcast, but it is solid early.
C Tier
Cause Fear – Frightening creatures can be pretty solid, especially if you target creatures that like being in melee. Furthermore, you can upcast this to get multiple enemies when needed which is pretty nice. The downside is that the creature is only frightened of you and they can still attack even if you’re in line of sight, albeit at disadvantage.
Charm Person – This is like Friends, but actually reasonable. Being charmed is substantially better than just getting advantage on Charisma checks, but similar to Friends, they will know they were charmed at the end of the spell’s duration so there is risk there.
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.
Ray of Sickness – Decent range, meh damage, and poisoning enemies culminates to a solid spell! This isn’t going to be particularly good for long, but it is solid in earlier levels.
Tasha’s Caustic Brew – The range and damage on this isn’t great, but what this does have is unique utility. You’re using your action to try to deprive your enemy of an action, and if they make that trade turn one, you’re still up an average of 5 damage. If you can hit multiple people in the line, you get to potentially get a lot of damage and actions from multiple people.
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
Burning Hands – Low range and low damage isn’t particularly appealing, but cones can be pretty strong if there are a lot of enemies. The main problem is you need to get very close for this to work which is a pretty big risk for most Wizards.
Color Spray – Blinding enemies isn’t bad, but only a 15 foot range and a single round of blindness is really bad. You’re spending your whole action and not even necessarily ridding the enemy of theirs, but if you manage to get a lot of enemies within this cone, this can still be decent
Disguise Self – There are not many scenarios where this is helpful and the 1 hour duration is definitely problematic. Furthermore, the disguise breaks under any amount of scrutiny which makes this even more unreliable.
Earth Tremor – Creating difficult terrain can be ok, but 1d6 damage and knocking enemies prone is very weak, and that’s if they fail the save. Acceptable if you really need the difficult terrain, but pretty bad otherwise.
Identify – There are just not many scenarios where you will need to identify something, and if you find a magical item, attuning with it will reveal what it does anyway.
Longstrider – Unlike Baldur’s Gate 3, Longstrider is not a ritual nor does it last particularly long. May be useful on characters that can really utilize that extra speed, but pretty niche.
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.
Floating Disk – Good if you’re transporting heavy objects often, but that is a pretty rare use case and there’s no real creative way to use it as it has to trail behind the caster rather than being able to freely manipulate its movement.
F Tier
Grease – Difficult terrain is just ok, but only getting 10 feet of it and the worst thing happening to someone is falling prone (which is not a big deal since it only costs half movement speed to get up), makes for a very weak spell.
Illusory Script – If you’re lucky, you may use this literally once in a campaign as it is so specific. This is probably more for DM use than player use.
2nd Level Spells
S Tier
Magic Aura* – For the average campaign, this spell is really not going to come up. However, once you pick apart what this is capable of, it gets broken extremely quickly. Changing the functional species type of an NPC or monster can cause a lot of weird interactions that many players nor DMs are going to be ready for, so this is in S Tier mostly for how problematic it can be rather than actual power level.
Misty Step – A bonus action to move 30 feet is excellent, especially for casters that need to continue concentrating on a spell or make a quick escape.
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!
Scorching Ray* – Solid range and damage split across three beams means a pretty reasonable spell. It gets better if you can situate yourself in a way to get some advantage or a higher chance to hit. While a solid spell, it is noticeable weaker than the other A tier options; but the reason this is placed a bit higher than normal is how well it synergizes with Conjure Minor Elementals as each beam counts as a separate hit.
Suggestion – This spell is pretty nuts. You only get a sentence or two to give your course of action, but a lot of information can be transferred in just a sentence. Whether you’re using this against one lone enemy or one enemy in a group, you’re going to get a lot of mileage out of this.
Web – You can cover a massive amount of area with Web making that difficult terrain, light obscurement, and anyone who wants to pass through risks being restrained. This is an unbelievable value for just a second level spell and can immobilize a group or make an escape/encounter substantially easier.
B Tier
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.
Blur – Giving disadvantage to attackers can make you nigh untouchable if your armor class is high enough, but it does require you to have a reasonably high armor class and uses your Concentration. If you need to not get hit this is quite good, but a low AC will make this substantially worse.
Continual Flame – Permanent light is real nice and quite helpful if you are frequently caught in dark places without Darkvision. All you need is a second level spell before bed one night!
Darkvision – While a torch or something with Continual Flame is a more permanent solution, getting 150 ft of darkvision is pretty nice as you’ll be able to see further than anyone else in the dark.
Dragon’s Breath – For the most part, Dragon’s Breath is not a terribly strong spell as the damage is pretty low for this level and this uses your Concentration. However, if you put this on your familiar from Find Familiar, they can now attack which is pretty unique! Having your flying familiar pretend to be a dragon is pretty neat, but does make it a target which would necessitate another casting of Find Familiar if it dies.
Invisibility – Being invisible is unmatched for infiltration, surprise attacks, and anything else you may need to be invisible for. While offensive actions will break it, getting a surprise round can easily trivialize an encounter.
Knock – Laugh at your parties Rogue as you unlock any door blocking your way.
Maximillian’s Earthen Grasp – The problem with “save or suck” spells is that if an opponent passes a save, the spell ends, or even worse, doesn’t take effect. Earthen Grasp does not have that problem as you can just keep trying to restrain and then crush enemies. This is excellent CC, alright damage, and you get 10 whole rounds of it.
Mirror Image – This is a pretty powerful defensive option, especially since this doesn’t take your Concentration up at all. The issue is your images are likely to be destroyed somewhat quickly if you’re being focused down making this potentially riskier than something like Blur, but this pretty reasonable if you think you need a defensive option.
Phantasmal Force – While the damage isn’t very high and pretty slow, using this as a way to lock down an enemy by tricking them that the floor is lava or they’re in an iron maiden is quite strong. While an ally can help them out of this, you’re still eating into opposing actions which can be easily worth it.
See Invisibility – If you’re facing an invisible enemy, this is going to be invaluable. You do have other options like Faerie Fire or a bag of flour if you’re feeling particularly crafty, but this is definitely the best of the bunch.
Shadow Blade* – This spell is really strong, but this is exclusively for casters who like getting into melee range. A weapon that deals a good amount of damage per hit and can have inherent advantage stapled on is quite strong if you don’t need to use a particular weapon. This will use your Concentration, but this is a pretty good use of it.
Tasha’s Mind Whip – While the damage leaves a bit to be desired, everything else about this spell is quite good. A 90 foot range is no joke and limiting their turn to an action, a bonus action, or their movement if they fail their save can be devastating on the right opponents, like melee enemies. The best part? It’s an intelligence saving throw which the vast majority of enemies will not be good against.
C Tier
Alter Self – This is a substantially better Disguise Self as you can change your appearance all the same, but not only does this not break down upon an Investigation as you do literally change your form, you can also change into a more bestial form where you can get natural weapons to fight or gills if you need to go on an underwater adventure.
Arcane Lock – While this may not be used often, getting a magical lock can be nice to fortify a chest or room.
Cloud of Daggers – Area denial spells are generally pretty strong, but with such a small area of effect and not too much damage, this isn’t that strong. If you can cover an important choke point or force movement into it, this can be reasonably good. Furthermore, you can now move it around which is nice, although it costs you a full action. Pretty decent overall.
Darkness – This isn’t too different than Fog Cloud in terms of obscurement, but if you or a party member have the Devil’s Sight eldritch invocation, then you can do some serious damage in that darkness while the enemies are completely blind. However, without a way to mitigate the downside, the uses of this are very limited.
Detect Thoughts – While this is very situational, being able to discover information from those likely to have it without collecting it in a roundabout way can save you a lot of headache, especially if time is of the essence. For Wizards in particular, the enemy will have to beat you in opposing Intelligence checks to get you to stop which may be hard for them to accomplish. The major downside of this spell is the target knows you’re doing it to them, so you can only really use this on a target who doesn’t know where/who you are or a restrained target.
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.
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.
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.
Levitate – There is some solid versatility here for a second level spell, but the use cases are still pretty limited. You can levitate yourself or an ally 20 feet up to get out of melee range, but that is entirely contingent on the enemies not having an effective way to attack a ranged target. Conversely, you can try to levitate an enemy up, but not only do they get a Constitution saving throw (which is likely to be good as you want to lock out a melee enemy who tend to have high Constitution saves), but you’re of course not guaranteed they will be helpless in that position. The saving grace for levitating enemies is that they only get one chance to resist it otherwise they’re stuck there, so this can be good in those scenarios.
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.
Rope Trick – The most common use of this spell is to give yourself a safe place to short rest which is a fine use of the spell. The more atypical use of this spell is to concentrate on a spell, then use this to hide out in combat. This is a funky application, but can totally work in the right scenarios.
Shatter – Small AOE and Constitution saving throws aren’t great, but this is probably the best AOE damage spell you’re going to get at this level if you can find a group of bunched up enemies.
Spider Climb – A solid spell as you can navigate up and down walls, ceilings, chasms, you name it, but will very quickly be outclassed by Fly. That said, if you’re in an enclosed space, this may be better than Fly.
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
Aganazzer’s Scorcher – This isn’t great damage nor range for the spell level and it’s fire damage which is a pretty common resistance. The issue is this is barely better than Burning Hands which doesn’t justify the higher level spell slot.
Arcane Vigor – Healing on classes that normally can’t is always interesting, especially when the opportunity cost isn’t super high as it’s a lower level spell and a bonus action cast, but I just can’t get behind this spell. The healing is going to be relatively minimal (average of 6 points at level 3 and it doesn’t scale that well) so to cost you a second level slot and your HD when you could just short rest after the fight is really rough. This spell isn’t bad, but I would be hard pressed to pick this over more powerful options that may help avoid getting hurt in the first place.
Crown of Madness – In theory, this spell could’ve been great. Turning an enemy and forcing them to attack an ally is very strong. However, everything kind of falls apart after that. You need to use your Action to keep control of the target, the target gets a saving throw every turn, and they have to use their action before their movement which severely limits how much they get to do. If you can target someone in the middle of a group, this should still be reasonably useful, but that’s not going to be easy to set up.
Enlarge/Reduce – Buffing allies or nerfing enemies is always great, but this doesn’t do either that well. Growing an ally so they deal an additional 1d4 on hit is not that great unless they are dishing out a lot of attacks per turn (like a Monk or higher level Fighter). If you’re trying to reduce an enemy, you are only reducing their damage by 1d4 and it’s difficult to take advantage of the disadvantage on strength checks as a grappled enemy can use their Acrobatics (DEX) instead of Athletics (STR) to worm their way out. Overall, a relatively low impact spell.
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.
Kinetic Jaunt – This is hardly better than Longstrider, requires Concentration, and only lasts a minute. Avoiding attacks of opportunity and moving through enemies can make this more useful in some situations, but this is not great.
Magic Mouth – This spell is really more for story or silly applications, but if you’re really creative, you may find some sort of use for this. For what it’s worth, this is a ritual spell so you can always have it in your back pocket as a Wizard.
Magic Weapon – While this spell no longer requires Concentration, the primary use case of why you’d want to cast this (overcoming non-magical damage resistance/immunity) seems to have been eliminated in One D&D. Without that, this already unexciting spell is even less exciting, but it isn’t completely unusable.
Pyrotechnics – Not useless as this works similarly to Fog Cloud or you have a 10 foot blinding blast that requires a CON saving throw. The issue is that you need a flame in the area already to make this work which is a really annoying prerequisite. It’s probably easier to set up than it seems, but still annoying none the less.
Ray of Enfeeblement – Pretty reasonable against Strength based enemies as, even if they pass, they get disadvantage on their next attack. If they fail, they have disadvantage on all attacks and a damage debuff. A little specific, but I can get behind this.
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
Acid Arrow – Just really low damage for the spell level, even worse than Chromatic Orb which is a spell level lower and lets you choose the damage type versus having to stick with acid damage.
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.
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.
Mind Spike – The same amount of damage as lower level spells with a weird and really not helpful caveat added on top of it. If you really need to keep tabs on someone, I guess this is how you’d do it, but the situations in which this would be relevant seems super rare.
Skywrite – There’s no helpful use of this spell, but there are a lot of funny things you can do with it.
Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm- Decent range, but small AOE and low damage is not a spell you should be interested in.
3rd Level Spells
S Tier
Counterspell – An absolute necessity for every party. Reaction spells are excellent and this is one of the most iconic and powerful ones, even if it technically got nerfed.
A Tier
Dispel Magic – An absolute necessity for every party, even if it may not come up too often.
Fireball – The gold standard for damage on a third level spell. Going from 6d6 damage on hitting all three rays on Scorching Ray to one target to an 8d6 blast that has a huge range and 20ft radius is an incredible upgrade. Fireball won’t always be the best damage source as your progress, but you’re probably going to be preparing it every day for a long time.
Fly – While there is a risk in plummeting to your death if you lose concentration, Fly can absolutely break the game as well as you can swoop around Fireballing people. This is extremely strong, especially if there aren’t many (or any) ranged or flying enemies in your encounter.
Hypnotic Pattern – While this may not be the easiest to aim if your allies are strewn about, Pattern can absolutely demolish an encounter if you catch enough people with it. Although it’s relatively easy to break with them taken damage or an ally shaking them out, you are trading your one action for a large amount of actions from the enemies.
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.
Tiny Hut – Whether you need to camp out or spring a surprise attack, hut does it all on top of being a ritual! This spell is super powerful for the very low opportunity cost to have it, even with the nerf that higher level spells and all magical abilities can pierce through it.
B Tier
Clairvoyance – One of the better surveillance spells in the game, this does get outclassed relatively quickly by Arcane Eye, but is quite solid for scouting until then.
Enemies Abound – While this will only be effective facing a group of enemies, turning an enemy in the middle of the group is extremely disrupting. Furthermore, forcing an Intelligence saving throw which is likely to be really bad for most enemies makes this much more likely it will work.
Fear – This is an excellent CC spell with a pretty big AOE, but immunity to being frightened may start being common around this level. Still a great option if you’re looking to heavily disrupt enemies.
Haste – A really powerful buff if you put this on your melee allies. Giving an ally additional movement and an extra attack can be super high impact and can easily add up in damage compared to other offensive options at this level. The big concern with Haste is that losing concentration stuns the hasted person which can be debilitating, but if you can stay safe, this is a powerful buff.
Major Image – Since this doesn’t trigger a saving throw, you are pretty much guaranteed to get some value out of this as enemies need to interact with the image or pass an Investigation (Intelligence) check against your save DC. Like other illusions, how good this is will hinge on how creative you are, but this should be useful in a wide variety of scenarios.
Phantom Steed – Excellent if you need to travel long distances or have an ally that relies on mounted combat, but that may not come up too often. What’s interesting about this is that the steed will begin to fade if it takes damage, but you have a full minute (10 rounds of combat) before it does fade which makes this really reliable.
Sending – You probably don’t need to send long distance messages often, but this is nearly irreplaceable if you do.
Slow – This is a pretty powerful debuff as the targets lose 2 AC and can only make an action or bonus action. While the debuff isn’t as strong as a charm effect like from Hypnotic Pattern, this can be harder to break out of.
Summon Shadowspawn – Not the highest AC for a summon, but a decent health pool and damage output helps make up for that. Furthermore, you have three great options to pick from that can synergize well with a lot of different party compositions. You do have to be careful as the abilities here affect all creatures, not just opposing, but as long as you’re being cognizant with where you’re placing it, you should be fine.
Summon Undead – From a pure stats perspective, Summon Undead can feel a bit middling as the health, AC, and damage are all a tad low for a third level summon. Where this shines though, is its versatility. Having a Flying option with Ghostly form is great as some enemies can’t deal with that (on top of forcing saves for frightened on hit), the skeletal form is a solid ranged damage dealer, and the putrid form is great at getting into melee range with its poisoning aura.
Thunder Step – While it’s very hard to beat Misty Step in terms of low level teleportation as that’s a spell level lower and a bonus action, this does offer a few benefits. First, if you’re surrounded, you get a little bit of damage on your way out which is a nice touch, even if it’s easy to pass the save and it isn’t that much damage. Second, you can teleport up to 90 feet away, triple Misty Step‘s distance. Lastly, you can bring a willing ally with you as long as they’re your size or smaller so you can get both yourself and a friend out of danger. Misty Step is still the gold standard, but this can have some solid applications in a pinch.
Tiny Servant – This is very similar to a Familiar with the downside of an 8 hour duration and the upside of more options in what the servant can do for you. Being able to give one directive as a bonus action and let the servant continue to do that makes this pretty strong, especially as you can cast this at the beginning of the day and let it be ready if/when you need it. Furthermore, you can have your servant deal out some damage for you if you can give them some sort of weaponry, such as pebbles from Magic Stone to give them even more utility!
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.
Gaseous Form – This can be a decent infiltration or escape option, but your other options for scouting or escaping are probably more effective or a lower leveled spell. Still, the versatility here is nice.
Glyph of Warding – This spell is really weird as, depending on how the DM interprets this, this can be a mediocre damage spell that’s conditional to set up or a way to set up a chain reaction of spells that can cause all sorts of mayhem. Realistically you’re probably not going to be able to do too much with this, but creativity can make this spell stronger.
Intellect Fortress – This probably won’t come up often, but this is an excellent defense against enemy spell casters trying to use CC effects on you. A little niche and it requires your concentration, but when it’s relevant, it can be really relevant.
Lightning Bolt – This is just a Fireball that hits way fewer things, but it is a better damage type in case you’re fighting enemies with Fire resistance.
Melf’s Minute Meteors – Like other third level damage options, they have to be compared to Fireball. While this is technically more damage than Fireball (12d6 total versus 8d6), the enemy gets multiple Dexterity saving throws to avoid damage, it’s a much smaller AOE, and it takes multiple turns to get all that damage. In a long fight against a big enemy, this can be better than Fireball, but you likely won’t have too many fights like that.
Nondetection – It’s rare that you’re going to have to worry about enemies using Divination to discern your location, but if that does happen, then this can be great at catching the enemy by surprise. A really nice example of this is being invisible and countering an opposing See Invisibility as that’s a Divination spell.
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.
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.
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 at this level.
D Tier
Blink – A defensive spell that doesn’t always work is a weird way to use you third level spell slot, but when you blink out, this is the most reliable form of defense as you won’t even be in the same plane to get hit. The saving grace of this spell is that it isn’t concentration so you can hold a concentration spell and then poof out of existence so enemies can’t even attempt to break it.
Catnap – Unless time is truly of the essence or you have a DM that likes punishing rests, it’s hard to imagine you’d ever need this spell. However, this is a very unique effect and if it’s going to be good once in your campaign, it’ll probably be good multiple times.
Erupting Earth – Compare this to Fireball and the issue is obvious. If you really need difficult terrain, this can do the job, but it’s probably better to just try to kill them instead.
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.
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.
Stinking Cloud – This is a rather large AOE and making enemies lose their action is pretty strong, but Constitution saving throws are generally pretty high. Since you can’t move the cloud, it’s really easy to escape, especially if enemies are towards the edges of it. This can be useful against large groups as your one action may trade for multiple of theirs, but you need enough enemies to fail their saving throw to make this worthwhile.
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.
Vampiric Touch – This spell is extremely risky as you have to get right up in an enemies business to use this, but being able to heal in any capacity as a Wizard should at least be considered. You can have this in the back pocket to use on a restrained enemy to heal if you feel so compelled, but that’s probably worse than other options.
Wall of Sand – Blocking line of sight can be alright, but enemies can just pass right through this with 30 feet of movement which is far from ideal for a wall spell. If you only need to slow them down for a turn or so, this is an ok option, but nothing amazing.
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.
Water Breathing – Alter Self also grants water breathing and is a spell level lower, but this doesn’t take concentration, lasts longer, and can be cast as a ritual. If you can find a convenient way to learn this, it’s fine to have, but don’t go out of your way to get it unless you’re around water a lot.
Water Walk – If you need to traverse bodies of water often, this will work. That said, since it’s a ritual spell, it will take ten minutes per cast so this may not be effective with big parties.
F Tier
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.
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. That said, healing for Wizard is really rare so it’s something to consider if you find yourself at full health constantly.
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.
Summon Lesser Demons – Why summon a creature that will be hostile to everyone when you can summon a creature that will just obey you instead?
4th Level Spells
S 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. Combine this with any spell that calls for multiple spell attacks (such as Scorching Ray), and you are going to absolutely obliterate enemies. The only saving grace to this spell is to get the most out of it you will need to use a lot of high level spell slots in a row, so it’s not like this is without any cost.
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
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!
Dimension Door – A really solid teleportation spell when you need it, especially if it’s to a spot you know is there but can’t currently see. Furthermore you get to take a creature along with you (as long as they’re the same size or smaller) which is obviously strong, but they do need to be within 5 feet of you. On the flip side, having a range of 500 feet is massive and an excellent escape mechanism. The issue with this spell is that teleporting to a place you can’t see does come with risk as you can accidentally fail if you try to teleport within an object or creature, but that’s unlikely unless your DM is a real stickler.
Greater Invisibility – Invisibility that doesn’t end when you attack is incredible for sneak attacks, gaining inherent advantage, and making you or your ally extremely hard to hit.
Resilient Sphere – Removing an enemy from combat for a full minute can be the difference between having a tough combat and having a trivial combat. While “save or suck” spells are always inherently risky, but the upside here is really high when it works.
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
Arcane Eye – Potentially the best scouting spell in the game. You can move this extremely far away for the full hour duration and really get an idea of what you may be getting yourself into. The main issue with the spell is that it may cost a lot of time to use and you may not always know the best situation in which to use it, but this is still extremely helpful.
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.
Black Tentacles – 20 feet of difficult terrain, a constant threat of being restrained, and some damage to go on top of it is pretty solid overall. This is like a higher level Web spell which is a good baseline to compare to.
Summon Greater Demon – Unlike Summon Lesser Demons, this spell is actually pretty solid. First of all, you can get a CR 5 demon or lower which is pretty strong. Second, you can control it (at least until it passes a Charisma save) which is much better than letting demons run wild. When you use this, you generally have two options: make it fight for you immediately and risk losing control of it (less important if you can summon it near a group of enemies) or use its action to make it tell you its true name so it gets disadvantage on the saving throw to break your control. Either way, this should be a pretty useful summon to you, even if you lose control of it quickly as that just frees you up for another concentration spell.
C Tier
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. 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 a build that likes getting into melee range, the damage can definitely add up.
Phantasmal Killer – This is a tough spell to evaluate as, if the target keeps failing the Wisdom save, this spell is incredible as they have disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls as well as taking 4d10 damage per turn. However, if they pass immediately, they only take a little bit of damage. Pretty high risk for reasonable rewards makes this decent, but nothing incredible.
Sickening Radiance – While the save being Constitution based is always a negative, the AOE of this spell is absolutely massive with a radius of 30 feet that even moves around corners. Furthermore, for anyone who moves into the area or starts their turn there, they take 4d10 damage, gain no advantage from being invisible, and get a level of exhaustion (exhaustion is more crippling now than it used to be)! The massive AOE is also a double-edged sword as your allies may get caught up in the area as well which can obviously be problematic. If you think you may be fighting hordes of enemies or you need to help cut off a large choke point, this could be a solid choice as you’ll get a much greater area from this compared to Wall of Fire and you get the additional CC of exhaustion on top of it.
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 Aberration – You have a trio of ok options here that are all pretty different which helps you have the right creature for each encounter. The Slaad form is interesting with its health regeneration, but non-magical damage and very little health regen on a creature that doesn’t have the highest AC, have the most health, or deal the most damage isn’t too exciting. The Star Spawn is a bit better with attacks and an aura that deals psychic damage which is a pretty rare resistance, and finally a Beholderkin which is just your ranged option, also with psychic damage. Not a bad summon, but nothing special either.
Summon Construct – A solid summon for the level, all the options here are pretty good and don’t vary much so it’s hard to pick the “wrong” one for the occasion. While the damage isn’t great both by pure numbers and it being non-magical, it makes it up with a good AC, a lot of neat abilities in the different forms, and a range of condition immunities.
Vitriolic Sphere – If this were a third level spell, this would give Fireball a run for its money, but unfortunately it’s a fourth level spell that is extremely similar to Fireball. The damage type is better and you get more average damage if the enemies fail their saving throw, but it’s spread over two turns, has a smaller radius, and of course, is a spell level higher. Not bad, but likely not worth it compared to just a regular Fireball.
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.
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.
D Tier
Charm Monster – Being able to charm monsters is decent as they’ll stop targeting you, but this doesn’t extend to your allies and them being friendly is likely not going to matter unless they’re capable of conversation. If it’s really important for a specific monster to not hit you, this is a solid option, but this can feel weaker than Suggestion which is a second level spell.
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.
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.
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.
Faithful Hound – A strange take on the Alarm spell that does have minor combat applications. The Hound can alert you when invisible enemies are nearby, but so can other spells at lower levels. The 4d8 bite attack isn’t bad, but the hound can’t move from the spot it was summoned unless it’s moved with a Magic action making it really tough for it to consistently deal damage. Maybe useful if you can synergize this with spells that restrain as this doesn’t require your concentration and you won’t have to keep using your action to chase the enemy, but this is just very situational.
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.
Storm Sphere – While the AOE nor damage or too impressive, being able to shoot lightning bolts as a bonus action is decent. This allows you to split up damage when you need to and gives multiple chances to get damage versus single turn blasts. Also with each level this is upcast, you get d6s on both of the damage types which isn’t bad. This may be hard to justify versus other AOE damage spells, but it’s not terrible.
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.
Fabricate – This is another spell that really requires your creativity to be useful, but it’s very hard to imagine scenarios where this would be useful as you need raw material to work with and you can’t change the form of stuff you may actually want to alter like doors or walls.
Ice Storm – Just a weird spell overall as the damage is bad for the level, even worse than lower level options, and two different damage types is not ideal as you may run into resistances.
Secret Chest – Unless you really need to protect some sort of item from potential thieves, this has really no practical applications.
Private Sanctum – If you’re in a campaign where you’re under constant risk of being spied on, this can be useful, but this really doesn’t do much otherwise.
5th Level Spells
S Tier
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.
Wall of Force – This is absolutely incredible as this can completely trivialize a combat by cutting an important foe out from the fight. This is similar to Resilient Sphere, but doesn’t give a saving throw so it’s extremely difficult to overcome once it’s out. You’ll probably be using the dome/sphere option more often to completely lock down 1-2 threats, but the wall can be very useful in bisecting a battlefield as well. This works less well against casters as they can either teleport out of it or use Disintegrate on it, but this is still incredible and a must have.
A Tier
Arcane Hand – The versatility on this spell is just incredible. Decent damage, forced movement, grappling creatures, or giving someone cover is a lot of options for a single spell. Not any single effect is super high impact, but being able to change its objective with just a bonus action is great.
Synaptic Static – The damage isn’t super high as it rivals a third level Fireball, it’s Psychic damage which is functionally never resisted, it’s an Intelligence saving throw which is going to be really low for most enemies, and it even debuffs them on top of it. Definitely a solid spell all around if you want an AOE blast spell.
B Tier
Animate Objects – Unfortunately this spell has been pretty heavily nerfed in quality compared to the 2014 version, but it’s still solid! You can make between 2-5 objects (I would still recommend making a bunch of small or even tiny objects) to skitter along the battlefield and whacking everyone in sight. The damage potential is a bit lower and the objects are substantially more frail, but this is still a reasonable option.
Steel Wind Strike* – While you do need a weapon and the range is pretty short, this is a solid damage option that will always avoid friendly fire and can give you some teleportation as needed. You’ll probably only be using this if you like getting into melee, but this is great if you do.
Storm of Radiance – If you are just using this spell by itself, this is a not so great blast spell that enemies can simply walk out of after you cast it. However, if your party can coordinate in order to keep enemies in the area of effect, this will be brutal for spellcasters and non-casters alike. I generally don’t love spells that require help to make good, but the upside here is high enough that this should be a consideration for most team compositions.
Telekinesis – While this has a little less versatility than Arcane Hand , you do get some interesting options like restraining creatures versus grappling them and being able to make platforms with floating objects. Since the most common use case of both this and Arcane Hand is to lock down creatures, you probably shouldn’t be taking/preparing both of them.
Telepathic Bond – A ritual spell that gives group telepathy for a full hour over any amount of distance? Just a fantastic utility spell.
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.
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
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.
Contact Other Plane – A medium risk/high reward Divination spell is super interesting, especially as it’s a ritual that doesn’t have a consumable component. For Wizards, the DC 15 Intelligence check shouldn’t be too hard to clear, but this is obviously a bigger problem for Warlocks. Furthermore, failing this once makes you useless for the rest of the day, so you are kind of limited to using this at night lest you may lose a whole day of adventuring.
Danse Macabre* – This spell is very weird as it just specifies that you reanimate five medium or small creatures, not necessarily humanoids, so that does lead to ambiguity on what stat block you use. None the less, the most common use case of this is to reanimate five humanoids into skeletons, give them bows, and let them go to town at a distance. If you are a Necromancer in particular, those skeletons will get a bonus equal to your Intelligence modifier to both attack and damage making this substantially more effective. For everyone else, this spell is solid, but nothing crazy.
Hold Monster – Hold Person, but for monsters. You’re going to be fighting monsters much more often than people which gives this a big leg up, but with all other “save or suck” spells, not hitting on this is brutal. High risk, high reward.
Modify Memory – This is a very niche, but very unique effect. You can only modify memories made within the last 24 hours that lasted no more than 10 minutes, but you could do a lot of cute stuff with this if you’re creative.
Regal Presence – There are a lot of Spirit Guardians like spells in One D&D, and this is yet another one. For a fifth level spell, the damage is definitely pretty low on top of the range being a bit small as well. However, being able to knock enemies prone or push them around is definitely pretty interesting, but you will need allies to help capitalize on this. Since you’ll need to get close to enemies, I would only ever consider this on gish builds as a regular Bard or Wizard wants to be nowhere near enemies, but it can be ok on those builds, especially since they can capitalize on prone enemies by hitting them with a melee attack.
Scrying – A solid surveillance spell if you need to know what a specific creature is doing or need to spy across long distances. The issue is the target gets a saving throw and will likely know they were going to be spied on which is really bad compared to something like Arcane Eye. Still, if keeping tabs on someone in particular is important to you, this is a fine option.
Seeming – In short, this is a mass Disguise Self that lasts for 8 hours. In some adventures/campaigns, this could be helpful, especially if you’re trying to infiltrate somewhere or you’re skirting the law in some capacity. Otherwise, there’s no real good use of this which makes it pretty difficult to use often.
Teleportation Circle – With a one minute casting time and it consuming a 50 gp material component, this is not a spell you’re going to use too often. To make this even tougher to use, this needs to be connected to an established teleportation circle so this may have limited places this can even go, the exact opposite of what you’d want from a long range teleport. If the DM is nice and gives you ample circles to work with (which the spell even recommends, saying that many major temples, guilds, or other important places should have one), then this is good for mass or long distance travel.
D Tier
Cloudkill – A solid AOE, but this being poison damage (a common resistance), a Constitution saving throw (generally the easiest to pass for most enemies), and you can’t even control how it moves makes this a rough proposition. The main saving grace is that the area of effect is large and you can count on the cloud rolling away from you, so with really nice positioning you may get a lot of value out of this, but that’s a pretty niche scenario.
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.
Creation – This is a unique utility spell in which you can create a diverse amount of objects, but having this be a limited amount of time really limits the utility of it. If you’re desperate for food, this can create vegetable matter for a day, or if you’re planning on skipping town, you can create precious objects to sell and scam merchants, but these feel pretty corner case.
Dominate Person – The issue with spells that only target humanoids is, generally speaking, humans are only going to be low level or high level enemies which makes this either not helpful or too easy for the targets to resist. If you do manage to get this off, this is a very powerful effect as they only get a retry on the saving throw when they take damage. This is a strong “save or suck” spell when it hits, but the limited targets and classic issue of nothing happening if the target saves makes this very unreliable.
Far Step – If you need a lot of mobility during a fight, this can technically do the job as it let’s you use a better Misty Step every turn, but this needs your Concentration and it’s hard to imagine a scenario where this would be necessary versus a much lower leveled spell that can help you move around or escape.
Infernal Calling – While you can summon a pretty strong creature for the spell level, you have next to no control over it, especially if you aren’t evil. Unless you’re planning on doing something particularly evil, this may actually hurt you more than help you. Even if you aren’t evil, you may be able to sufficiently convince the demon to kill your enemies before trying to kill you.
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.
Mislead – This spell is really strange as, if you’re invisible, you want to be sneaky, but you have a duplicate that’s perfectly visible. This can be a decent scouting option as you can both see and hear through it or give yourself an alibi if you’re looking to do something nefarious, but the options here are quite limited.
Passwall – Good if you need to create passages through thick walls and Stone Shape can’t do the job. How often will this come up? Very hard to say which is why this is ranked low, but if are frequently in scenarios where this would be helpful, then it can be considered.
Skill Empowerment – The main issue with this spell is that it’s hardly better than Enhance Ability which is a second level spell. Gaining proficiency in a skill isn’t bad and this does actually synergize well with Enhance Ability, but spending a fifth level slot on this ability is rough.
F Tier
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.
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.
Dream – There are some neat things you can do with this, especially if you loved the movie Inception, but viable applications of this spell are going to be very few and far between. It’s substantially more likely your DM will use this spell compared to a player doing so.
Enervation – Witch Bolt is a first level spell and will average 6.5 damage per turn if it’s successful where this is fifth level spell that will deal an average on 18 damage per turn if it’s successful, or just an average of nine damage on a successful save from the target. That is just plain terrible.
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.
Immolation – A single target Fireball that does less damage on the first turn, and only deals more damage if the target fails multiple saves. Just bad.
Negative Energy Flood – Ok-ish damage for the level, but single target and a Constitution saving throw makes this spell super rough.
Wall of Light – This is really rough for a wall spell as it’s not a physical wall, doesn’t deal much damage, uses a Constitution saving throw to resist, and creatures have to end their turns there to be damaged rather than getting pushed into it. Blinded is a decent status condition to inflict, but getting multiple Constitution saving throws to end it makes it tough for it be consistent. The only use case I would consider using this is against a group of spellcasters who can stand in convenient spots for you, but that’s about it.
6th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Contingency – This is a spell that’s going to require some creativity, but having a 10 day spell effect that’ll trigger on a certain action is very powerful in a lot of scenarios. You can only use spells that have the Self targeting requirement, but there’s still plenty that would be helpful to have in a pinch.
Mass Suggestion – Suggestion is already a great spell, so it stands to reason that more of it would also be great. To make matters better, this doesn’t even require Concentration making this even more effective in combat than it normally would be!
B Tier
Eyebite – Being able to constantly CC enemies with one of three solid effects is pretty strong, even if it does take some time to use this on multiple enemies. The Asleep option is clearly the stand out here as you rob them of their action, and then their you may rob an ally of an action if they choose to wake them up (but they may not even bother). Panicked is also solid if you’re worried about someone waking them or you really need to put distance between you and that target. Finally, you have Sickened which is probably the weakest of the three as the target gets multiple saving throws, but it still has some utility.
Globe of Invulnerability – If for some reason you need some reprieve for a minute, this will do a pretty good job at granting that.
Mental Prison – “Save or suck” spells are generally rough as a passed save means you wasted your turn, but Mental Prison has a few unique advantages. First off, even if the target passes their save, you still get 5d10 damage which is better than nothing. The second interesting difference is they only get the one chance to resist this spell or they take the damage and imagine themselves being trapped in some sort of hazardous conditions, can’t see or hear anything outside of that area, and are restrained. There is no further check they can do to save themselves from this and their only option is to stay put or walk through which will yield 10d10 damage which is pretty crazy. This is excellent against single, big enemies as you can wail on them while they’re trapped or just deal 15d10 damage to them if they escape quickly.
Scatter – This teleportation spell is super versatile as you can use this against allies or enemies alike and move them 120 feet whichever way you feel. You’ll most often use this to help you and your party escape, but being able to target enemies and put them into a hazardous area can be really powerful. You can even mix and match enemies and allies to make this even more versatile.
Soul Cage – A very strange, but extremely versatile spell. You can get healing, get some answers as a much better Speak with Dead, you can get advantage on an attack, ability check, or saving throw, or get a scouting spell in an any area that creature has ever been. All these abilities are solid, but the versatility of it and getting six charges really pushes the power level of the spell.
C Tier
Bubbling Cauldron – First off, this spell is just super cool. Being able to cook up a bunch of different potions that most, if not all of your party can use is just a cool concept, even if the spell slot is kind of high. While no common or uncommon potion is going to be super high impact, having the versatility to create a potion that would be helpful on the fly makes this spell better than it looks. Since the potential use cases here are incredibly varied, it is hard to give this an accurate rating as it’s nearly impossible to say when a potion is really going to help your party out. While how niche these situations are would make me personally shy away from this spell a bit, this is cool enough that many players should consider taking it.
Chain Lightning – The damage is a little disappointing for the spell level, but being able to target four creatures and not have to worry about friendly fire is pretty nice, especially if you have allies that liking getting into the fray.
Create Homunculus – Pretty similar to Find Familiar, but with some nice upgrades (as you’d hope from a sixth level spell). The Homunculus can speak, you can see and hear through them, and can even attack need be. Is this worth the sixth level slot? Depends how much value you can get from another familiar, but if you can find ways to make this useful, then it’s solid.
Disintegrate – While this is a good amount of damage to a single target for the level, it’s not enough damage to be super exciting even if they fail the saving throw, and if the target passes, this does NOTHING (which is more likely when creatures start getting Legendary Resistances and such). That is a big risk when using this in combat. That said, this does work to destroy some spells which does give some additional amount of utility.
Freezing Sphere – 10d6 damage and a Constitution save do not initially bode well for this spell, but this does have some interesting other applications. First off, if you hit a body of water, this would freeze it and not grant any kind of saving throw so you could potentially trap enemies with it. Second, you can cast this and not use it immediately, instead turning it into a small globe the size of a stone. Then someone can throw it or use it in a sling to gain the same effect as the spell. While this isn’t super strong, the versatility does make it interesting.
Irresistible Dance – The obvious upside of this spell is that the target only gets to make the save after spending a whole action dancing, which is really nice to get around Legendary resistances or massive saving throws. The obvious downside, though, is that this only targets one creature, you don’t get inherent criticals like you would with Hold Monster or Hold Person, and they still could get their Bonus Action on a pass. Overall, this is solid if you need to trade your action for someone else’s, like in the case you’re fighting one very strong enemy, but may not be great in every encounter.
Programmed Illusion – Yet another spell that will really rely on your creativity to make this useful, but being a permanent illusion does make this super interesting. The wording is also somewhat ambiguous as it seems like you could cast this on an object that you can have on hand to carry this illusion with you which really increases the possibilities of this spell. However, if the DM isn’t friendly to that idea (which wouldn’t be that unfair), it would be rare that you would need this over a lower leveled illusion spell.
Summon Fiend – The health and abilities on the summon definitely leave a bit to be desired, but the Demon and Devil form are solid whether you want a melee summon that will explode upon death or a flying devil that will hurl fire at enemies. Not a bad summon, but a little lacking for a sixth level spell.
D Tier
Arcane Gate – Mass teleportation, even if it’s only 500 feet is generally very helpful, but this comes with a lot of caveats. The first issue is that you have to pick a point within 10 feet of you to set up the first gate. If your allies aren’t all around you, some people may be left out of the teleportation or you’ll have to hold it open longer, which in that time, enemies can follow you which is a problem. The second issue is you have to see the point where you want the second gate, so if you’re in an enclosed space, you’re out of luck. Not completely useless, but a bit tough to use.
Guards and Wards – Unless you really need to lock down an area, it’s hard to imagine any scenario in which you would need this. Even if you could find use for this, it only lasts 24 hours so you’d have to know an attack was imminent and you can’t permanently use this to guard your home.
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.
Magic Jar – This spell can be super high impact in theory, but requires a pretty elaborate set up to make this work. It’s hard to imagine the scenarios in which you come out really ahead when you use this and this feels more like a campaign plot point, but clever people can likely find interesting uses for this.
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.
Tasha’s Otherworldly Guise – An interesting set of buffs for a Wizard that seem more geared toward melee combat. This probably wouldn’t be worthwhile to most spellcasters, but if you typically get into melee range, this could end up being useful. Even still, this is not the highest impact use of a sixth level slot, and Concentration spells that invite you to get into an enemies range obviously comes with a lot of inherent risk.
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.
Wall of Ice – Wall spells are good in general, but this one is a bit lacking. The damage is ok, but the sections of the wall are individually easy to break and even vulnerable to fire. Thankfully, if a section breaks, it does leave a hazardous area for one turn that deals damage, but it’s only 5d6 and uses Constitution to resist which is never ideal. Not a terrible wall, but less versatile than other options.
F Tier
Circle of Death – A massive AOE, but poor damage and a Constitution saving throw is just terrible.
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.
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.
Instant Summons – All you need to make a modestly sized object is a sixth level spell slot and one thousand gold. A real bargain.
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.
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 this is barely better than Fly, and that’s three levels lower.
Sunbeam – While you can use this as a continuous beam, not only is this a Constitution saving throw, but this is less damage than your standard third level Fireball on any given turn which is ridiculous. Toss in that this is just a beam which can be hard to get multiple enemies with and you have a pretty awful damage spell.
Tenser’s Transformation – If you’re looking to get into melee, this does offer a nice suite of benefits like a very solid damage boost, but has a lot of drawbacks as well. First off, any Concentration spell that asks you to get into melee is inviting you to lose Concentration at some point which you’d hate for any spell, but this is even more punishing as you gain a level of exhaustion. Furthermore, say you don armor you are now proficient in and you lose concentration, not only are you exhausted and likely in melee range, you now can’t cast spells as you are wearing armor you aren’t proficient in. Maybe acceptable on a spellcaster that wants to enter the fray, but seems needlessly dangerous.
7th Level Spells
S Tier
Teleport – The titular teleportation spell is unsurprisingly the best of the bunch. While there is a chance of something going wrong when you use it, this is powerful enough and consistent enough to be a staple for any Wizard.
A Tier
Crown of Stars – Although this does take a few turns to get its full effect, this is just an effective damage spell that doesn’t need Concentration, can be set up ahead of time, and may even last over multiple fights.
Simulacrum – While this isn’t as strong as it used to be as it can’t refresh abilities that have a limited number of uses per day, being able to create a slightly weaker version of yourself is still incredibly powerful if you know you’re going into a tough fight or you need this to cast ritual spells/perform other downtime activities. While this used to be a must-pick for every Wizard, you definitely don’t need this anymore as you need a more concrete plan of what to do with it.
B Tier
Forcecage – While expensive to cast, this spell can not be beat in terms of containing an enemy. There’s no save and the cage can be a solid box so sight based teleportation won’t work. Even if the enemy is a high enough level spellcaster to know teleportation that doesn’t require line of sight (like Dimension Door), they would still need to pass a Charisma saving throw which may not be their stat of choice to successfully escape. That said, consuming a 1500gp component is very painful and now requiring Concentration makes this much less reliable than it used to be. Still, this is a solid spell if you can afford the costly component.
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.
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
Etherealness – This is an interesting spell as this is kind of a combined escape/scouting/infiltration spell as anyone and anything on the material plane won’t be able to interact or perceive you (without some serious magical aid) giving this a lot of utility. The issue is this only affects you, and it’s hard to imagine many scenarios in which you’re escaping or infiltrating by yourself.
Mirage Arcane – Creating massive illusions that even hold up under touch is pretty crazy, but this does require 10 minutes so this can’t be used in combat. The secondary issue is that it has a strange caveat that the illusion can’t conceal any creatures which means you can’t put up anything between a creature and the illusion which may be a hard condition to fulfill. Like all other illusions, this can heavily reward those who are creative with it, and with such a large area, there’s definitely a lot of play here.
Magnificent Mansion – If you want to ensure you have a safe place to sleep, this is a powerful and extravagant option to make that happen. Since this can’t be accessed or detected unless by magical means, you can set this up anywhere with functionally no fear or being discovered which may be the security you need in certain areas. It probably won’t be too often that this is a necessity, but there’s definitely some value there.
D Tier
Delayed Blast Fireball – On an initial look, this is just an upcast Fireball that also requires Concentration which is obviously terrible. Obviously though, you’d only cast this spell if you can charge it up to get that extra damage. The issue is how many scenarios will you have the knowledge that you’ll be in a fight within a minute and can start charging this up, as you obviously can’t afford to wait too long in combat. This is simply much too situational.
Finger of Death – A single target and Constitution based saving throw is pretty rough and it being barely better than Disintegrate , which is a whole spell level lower, is not great. The one upside is that any creature that gets killed by this becomes a permanent zombie for you, so you could hypothetically slaughter a town with this and have an undead army at your disposal, but be sure to clear that with your DM first if you plan on trying that out.
Project Image – This is a weird take on a surveillance spell as you generally would want those to be stealthy, but a 500 mile range is really large and can be better than Scrying if you don’t have a particular target in mind or there’s no problems if you get seen. This also can help establish an alibi if you’re looking to do nefarious deeds, but any spell that alters your appearance would likely accomplish that much better. Very situational, but could be useful.
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
Arcane Sword – This requires your concentration just for it to not deal very much damage and also eat up your Bonus Action every turn. Pass.
Dream of the Blue Veil – This spell will only matter if there’s story significance to one of the material planes and is otherwise useless.
Power Word: Pain – The Power Word spells are hard to use as you won’t always know when an enemy is below 100 health, but can have pretty strong effects if you guess right. This is not a strong effect. Just giving the creature disadvantage on checks and also multiple Constitution saving throws to break out of its effects is really weak.
Prismatic Spray – Even when buffed, the damage and effects just are not strong enough to realistically justify taking this. They could’ve pushed the damage more to make this more reliable as RNG can definitely be fun, but if you’re getting almost exclusively bad choices, then there isn’t much of a point.
Sequester – It’s tough to imagine a scenario where you need to hide a willing person or object, but it may come up as some sort of plot point in the story.
Symbol – As this is a trap spell, not only is this hard to set up, but most of the effects are just not even worth it beyond the Sleep or Stun traps. Second, this requires 1000 gold to cast, which even at this point, is pretty brutal. Lastly, this is hardly better (if it even is better) than Glyph of Warding which is a third level spell.
8th Level Spells
S Tier
None
A Tier
Maze – Spells that can separate creatures in combat are very powerful, and this is no exception. Like Forcecage, the target doesn’t even get a saving throw to resist it, but instead needs to make a DC 20 Investigation check (which may literally be impossible for characters that have a negative modifier to their intelligence) to come back before the spell ends. This is so important as Legendary Resistances are going to be common at this level of play, and this completely bypasses that as Legendary Resistance only works on spells that force saving throws, not ability checks. At absolute worst, you’re trading one action and an eighth level spell slot for one action which wouldn’t be ideal, but you should almost always get way more out of it.
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.
Clone – If you have a Clone available after a 120 day maturation, you simply can’t die! This can be helpful if you are particularly afraid of dying, but does come with some downsides. First, this is somewhat costly to do, but a few thousand gold at this level probably isn’t a big deal. Second, you may not necessarily want the clone to activate if you have someone in your party that can pick up dead party members, but you can’t control that happening. This is especially problematic if your clone is extremely far from the original body as it’s not like it’s bringing all the equipment along with it. This is a cool spell and definitely a spell DMs are likely to explore.
Dominate Monster – A “save or suck” spell at eighth level is definitely a big risk as using and failing is terrible value, and there is the other issue of targets in combat with you have advantage on the Wisdom saving throw to resist this. While that may seem too risky, if you get this to work, the effect could be devastating. Imagine dominating a dragon or any similarly terrifying creature (you’ll have to work through their legendary resistance first more than likely, but still)? This can easily trivialize an encounter if this works making it the very definition of high risk, high reward.
Illusory Dragon – This spell has three unique traits: the mass frighten on arrival, the ability to move, and a breath attack that works even if the enemies discern it to be an illusion. That is a lot of value packed onto one spell, so if you’re facing a group of enemies, this can be absolutely devastating in that combat and quite reliable as well.
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.
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.
Demiplane – This is a weird spell as you can create an indefinite and mobile safe area or store house on demand as you can keep going back to the same plane if you so desire. You don’t necessarily need to be too creative to get good use out of this, but it’s hard to say how often you’d need to use this.
Incendiary Cloud – While this is a juiced up Cloudkill, this still isn’t that impressive. It is better damage, a better save, and a better damage type, but is still pretty weak for an eighth level spell. Worst of all, creatures only take additional damage if they end their turn there versus whenever they enter or start a turn there. There is still use to this, but it’s not exciting.
Maddening Darkness – This is a huge AOE damage spell that also blankets the area in darkness which is obviously powerful in any confined area or against any enemy who requires sight to do stuff (which is most people). The damage isn’t particularly high and it only deals damage if a creature starts their turn there rather then when they enter for the first time which does limit its usefulness.
Power Word: Stun – The Power Word spells are hard to use as you won’t always know when an enemy is below 150 health, but can have pretty strong effects if you guess right. Stunning an enemy is pretty strong as you get auto-crits which is clearly strong if they are already low on health. The issue is that they get a Constitution save at the end of each turn which makes this pretty easy to beat, but you will get a turn with it.
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.
D Tier
Mighty Fortress – This is a super unique and interesting spell that may be cool to use if you’re expecting to be sieged, but this will have no practical application otherwise.
Mind Blank – What this does in completely unique, but insanely niche which makes this incredibly hard to use. If you’re about to raid a Mind Flayer fortress, then this could be useful, but beyond that, it’s hard to say how else you could use this.
F Tier
Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting – Small AOE, Constitution saving throw, and very low damage for the level.
Control Weather – While you can do some visually impressive stuff with this, it’s hard to imagine the practical applications of this.
Telepathy – Telepathic Bond is just better.
9th Level Spells
S Tier
Wish* – Just the best spell in the game, hands down. You can do a lot of crazy stuff with this as you are calling on the power of gods to make stuff happen. This even has an asterisk as putting it just in S tier feels like I’m doing the spell a disservice.
A Tier
Prismatic Wall – This spell is egregiously good at walling stuff off and is so ridiculously difficult at taking down that this is pretty much always going to do what you need.
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.
True Polymorph – The amount of stuff you can do with this spell is nearly unparalled, whether you’re looking to transform something scary into something harmless, harmless into scary, or scary into scarier. I won’t go into all the use cases as there’s too many to explain, but consider turning yourself or others into a Dragon or similarly terrifying creature and go nuts. Unfortunately, losing the temporary HP granted to you by this form does undo the spell when it didn’t before so it’s not as strong as it used to be, but it’s still very strong.
B Tier
Foresight – Likely the strongest buff spell in the game, lasts a long time, and doesn’t require Concentration. This is good on anyone, but unbelievable on a melee character. The only reason this isn’t ranked higher is because the power level of ninth level spells are just that high.
Meteor Swarm – The highest damage dealing spell in the game. Despite that, there’s still better so, relatively speaking, this is only a B tier spell.
Time Stop – You’d think getting between 2-5 turns would be better, but that’s still just ok compared to what you can do at this level.
C Tier
Blade of Disaster – Like I’ll keep repeating, this spell is definitely very strong, but not necessarily compared to what other ninth level spells can do. That being said, a bonus action spell that attacks twice, crits on 18s (and deals triple damage on crits instead of double), and deals 4d12 force damage per hit is still a really strong spell.
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.
Invulnerability – Being invulnerable is pretty neat, but you can only be so for 10 minutes. There’s a lot of interesting applications in which being invulnerable is helpful, but not so many to make this explicitly powerful compared to other options.
Mass Polymorph – Instead of getting one creature that’s equivalent to the target’s level or CR, you get up to 10 targets, but only get half the CR per level if you’re targeting yourself and allies. If you’re using this against enemies, you have better offensive options, and if you’re using this on allies, you’d be better off with True Polymorph. Still, this effect has its use and is quite powerful.
Psychic Scream – As a damage spell, this pales in comparison to Meteor Swarm which deals 26d6 more damage, or an average of 91 more damage, for a much greater area. That said, this is an Intelligence saving throw which is likely to be low for most people and stuns anyone who fails it. If you believe you’re going to be in a longer fight, stunning can definitely be more helpful than the extra damage as you’ll get auto-criticals, and a melee class can definitely deal some stupid damage if they always critical.
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.
Imprisonment – It’s hard to imagine a player casting this spell unless there’s an enemy they can’t beat without binding them (but of course, you need to set a freedom condition as well). This spell reads like a DM spell rather than something players should actually consider.
Power Word: Kill – This spell realistically exists just so a DM can strike fear in player’s hearts when they’re still lower level. If you already have an enemy at 100 health or below, you can probably just kill them with something else rather than banking on being right on how much health they have left. That said, this does at least deal some damage if they are above 100 health, but again, you may as well just use something else.
F Tier
Weird – The weirdest thing about this is how it got to be a ninth level spell. The strength of this is nowhere near the other options and I would never consider taking it.
