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The Best Wizard Spells of D&D 5e 📖 #1 Arcane Spell Selection by Level
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Oct 2, 2022
Follow along and learn more about the best #Wizard spells of #DND5e: https://www.flutesloot.com/best-wizard-spells-dnd-5e/?utm_source=youtube Wizards of #DND are gifted with the most expansive, inclusive spell list in the game. The sheer vastness of the spell list can be daunting for newer players to navigate. I've identified the Wizard spells that impact the game frequently and creatively. ⏰Time Stamps: 00:00 Intro and article link 00:46 Quick Cantrips 01:49 How I Judge Wizard Spells 02:32 First Level 03:05 Second Level 04:14 Third Level 06:00 Fourth Level 07:07 Fifth Level 07:54 Sixth Level 08:55 Seventh Level 11:15 Eighth Level 11:49 Ninth Level 12:23 Final List 12:48 SubSCRIBE like a proper Wizard!
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0:00
Hey looters, Flutes here. Today I want to talk about what I think are the best wizard spells that every wizard should never leave home without
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Today on FlutesLute. Quick reminder that you can find a link in the description to FlutesLute.com where we have an article that goes along with this video
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So if you're already sick of my voice or you just like to have some notes taken for you ahead of time
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you can open up that article to see my thoughts on what the best wizard spells are
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and then narrow them down to what I think are the best spells by level that every wizard
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probably ought to keep in their pocket. And again, I am flutes and my wife is Opel, and we run this channel together
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She's great, and I'm fun, so hopefully subscribe and like and stick around
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Let's talk about wizard spells now. It's tough to narrow down cantrip to just one that is best for all wizards
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Some would say that it's minor illusion, but depending on your DM, it will be
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be more or less useful. If you've multi-classed with a wizard or you're like a blade singer
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you might be using green flame blade or booming blade as your best cantrip. Other wizards might use
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range attacks like firebolt that just keep them out of harm's way at a distance, but it is
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fire damage. That's not as great. Necronic damage from chill touch and the prevention of healing
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can be really great while still keeping a range. And if someone gets up close to you, or you want to
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prevent a wizard from using something like a counterspell for securing the spell of your ally
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or anything like that, you can use shocking grasp. Even better if they have metal armor
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to get advantage on the zappyzap. Mage hand is really useful if you're creative
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and you don't try to do anything that's more than like 10 pounds of pressure and weight. And also on my radar lately has been Mold Earth
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It can be very handy if your DM isn't too strict on what loose earth is, since the rules for the cantrip
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are kind of vague. But getting the cantrip out of the way, let's talk about spells by level
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You can read the article if you want to see my thoughts on what are like the top 10 spells by level
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broken down by like defense, offense, versatility, utility, all that sort of stuff
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But I'm just going to go over what I think is the best spell for each level on the wizard spell list
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And I want you to know that the way I identify that is by how often the spell can be used, how versatile it is, and how impactful it is
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So if it has great impact often and you can do a lot with it, that makes a case for it being the best spell of that level
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Also, if it doesn't require concentration, that's huge. If they scale really well with upcasting, or they don't really need upcasting to be effective, even better
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At level one is the ritual spell find familiar. You can cast spells through your familiar
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You can use it for the help action to help your allies. You can use it for scouting very effectively
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It's not a very expensive ritual, and you can summon and unsummon you're familiar if you need to
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You can also have fun choosing what form the familiar is in, so it can fit whatever flavor of character you have
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You can give it a name and give it a personality. So it's just all around got good things going on
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If it wasn't going to be fine familiar, I think my honorable mentions would be shield and fog cloud
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Second level spells, I have to give the best to Misty Step
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It's just one of those spells that every single character can benefit from having
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If you need to get across a chasm get through some bars escape from a situation without sacrificing your action all those sorts of things Get over difficult terrain Misty Step can get you where you need to go with only a bonus action cost
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Mobilization is so important for a wizard because if you get locked down, you're going to get focused down in your squishiness, and they're going to make you a little puddle
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Misty Step will get you out of there and put your frontliners between you and them
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so that they will be punished for trying to get to you again if they don't have their own teleportation mobilization
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Honorable mentions for second level would be invisibility, web, Tasha's Mindwhip, Mirror Image, and debatably hold person
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Oh, and suggestion is also an excellent spell. And again, depending on the type of wizard you are
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some of these bests might change. Like Misty Step might pale in comparison to suggestion
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on a 10th level enchanter that can twin cast suggestion anytime they do it
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or hold person, for example. Misty Steb is probably going to still be on that wizard, though, however
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It's just really great to have, and so it deserves my number one spot for a second level spell
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Third level spells are probably the most difficult to narrow down, and say which one is best. At third level, fireball is super cool. Its damage is great. At higher levels
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hypnotic pattern kind of dwarfs it. Hypnotic pattern, if someone fails their sating throw
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can make them incapacitated so that they're sitting ducks, they lose concentration on spells
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Counter spell is another great one at high levels and low levels. Layleman's Tiny Hut is an excellent ritual spell that can keep you out of harm's way while you
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rest or do something that takes time. Dispell magic is great. Fly. Major image. I even really
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love sleet storm. Heaps of people love the haste spell. Out of all these spells that choose from
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at third level, that I think are best that are the most impactful, commonly used, and versatile
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I got to give it to hypnotic pattern, but later on I was like, you know, I got to give counterspell
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its dues too. So I give this one a tie between counterspell and hypnotic pattern. I think hypnotic
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pattern might inch out over counterspell, but there are a lot of creatures that are immune to hypnotic
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panner and so counterspell is really great. The swinginess of counterspell in the action economy is just
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undeniable and so if you can use it effectively, it's just so great. And spell casting is so common
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in D&D fifth edition, you always want to be having that ready because it can really save your bacon
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It can be annoying for DMs. I've seen it happen on Critical Role where Matt Mercer moves forward
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with a spell happening and Liam playing Caleb says, no, I have counter spell ready. You got to tell
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me in like, so the game slows down and Matt says, okay, yeah, right, you can you can do your
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counter spell attempt. And so you got to be careful as DM when counter spells are going on
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Counter spell also gets better than more you understand the tactics with it, like the range
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and trying to get out of counterspell range. But I digress. Hypnotic pattern and counterspell
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I just think come up way too often to ignore. For fourth level, I have an easier time
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even though there's some great spells here as well, like Dimension Door or Fire Shield, Wall of Fire
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I have to give it to Polymorph. It's just one of the most versatile spells in the game
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and it has such a power boost when you gain this. It's just undeniable
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You can save someone who's in a really tough spot and give them heaps of extra hit points
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You can gain all kinds of new utility, spying abilities, blending in, combat prowess
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You know, your weak little spellcaster can become a giant ape and just wreck house
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Concentration required, so keep that in mind. But polymorph is just undeniably versatile
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I never see it go unused when someone has it there always chances to use it You gotta learn a lot of beast stats so I recommend finding some kind of app or website that has accurate
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beast stats so that you can be ready on your turn when it's time to polymorph and when you're in polymorph forms so that you know what's going on
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And make sure to look at what those creatures are proficient in and what their mental stats are like because you're going to be stuck with those for a little bit
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and your DM may or may not enforce those sorts of things. For fifth level spells, I have to give it to watch
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Wall of Force. It's so easy to lock someone down who's a massive threat. And if they don't have
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disintegrate or they don't counter spell you casting Wall of Force, they're going to be stuck in a dome
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or if you're in a close quarters area where they can easily be cornered with a wall of force without
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having to do the dome option, you can really just negate a lot of your enemies, synergies, and teamwork
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that they could have utilized. Barbarians get shut down by Wall of Force, no problem. And there may or may not be
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certain boss fights in certain modules that wall of force could become a very potent combination
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to end things. Again, there are some great fifth level spells, but wall of force, I got to say
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you really want it on your spell list. Now, sixth level has some great ones as well, and I recommend
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you always have spells like disintegrate ready. Just in case you have an enemy archmage who's going to
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use wall of force or force cage on you, you want to be able to get out of it with a disintegrate
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But I wouldn't say it's the best spell. Contingency is great. Sunbeam is great
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And best of sure of stone can be really cool. I wrote a whole article about Oteluke's freezing spheres
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because I thought it was so cool how it could do the freezing effect, make little beads and its range and area are huge
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But for sixth level, I gotta give it to mass suggestion. No concentration acquired, affect a bunch of enemies
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and for up to a day, you just tell them what to do
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It can be used in combat, and as long as creatures are charmable
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that's the thing. Charm immunity does become more common at higher levels, so you've got to be careful
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But if you're just dealing with a lot of humanoid and a lot of political intrigue, mass suggestion can trivialize so many social and combat encounters
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It's kind of unbelievable. Mass suggestion, premium spell. For seventh level wizard spells, I got to give it to two different spells
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One is simulacrum, because it can totally change the game to have a duplicate of yourself that can cast your spells and do combinations with you
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that's insane what you can do with that. A lot of DMs kind of do gatekeeping for that spell
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and so that shows how powerful it is. But aside from that, force cage is an excellent spell
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Force cage shuts down an enemy or a group of enemies without your concentration, so it's different than Wall of Force in that way
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You have the option to do a form of it, where they can have holes in the cage so you could do effects that go through it
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like a cloud kill, and they're just sitting ducks in there. If they have a teleport mechanism, they can try to escape by making a check or a save, I forget which it is
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but they can try to get out with a teleportation ability. If you use the whole cage version, if they can turn into like a gaseous form, then they could escape that way
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So be careful. But usually you just want to pick an enemy, and they can be pretty big that can fit in a force cage
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and you can just shut them down and take them out of the fight. You have to wait like an hour before the force cage goes awake because there no concentration unless you want to use like a disintegrate to end it early I also with these force cage and wall of force spells I rule that there no audible sound coming out of them
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when they're complete enclosures because wall of force says that like it doesn't shake
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it's like immovable and penetrable. So I believe sound waves would not go through
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So you couldn't communicate with someone audibly while in a force cage or a wall force
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unless you were using a version that had sound waves able to reach you through holes or through over the force wall
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that sort of thing. Force cage can also be used to create a bridge over an area because it's not just
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about trapping things inside. It's you create a one hour edifice block, whatever, to block an
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entrance to a cave and maybe trap everyone inside while there's a cave in, really dark stuff. And you
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don't have to concentrate. A lot of versatility to these force cage wall of force spells and force
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cage does not require concentration and that's very cool. As long as you have the material components
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which are not expended when you use the spell. You can use the ruby dust over and over again
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I like to picture that the ruby dust floats into the air and then creates a force between all the flex of ruby dust personally
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So yeah, force cage and simulacrum. I'm going to give them the tie for seventh level best wizard spell
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Eighth level, we want to pick a spell that's very reliable. One of my favorites is Dominate Monster
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but it's not necessarily a reliable spell unless I'm an enchanter or something where I can twin cast it
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So I have to give the best eighth level spell to mindblank. This is a spell that doesn't always come up in what it's useful for, but it's easy to just say I cast it every day
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It makes it so people can't read your thoughts. You're immune to psychic damage, and there's just a lot of benefits that come from that, especially at high level play
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It's surprising to me how much mind blank can be important and how much your thoughts being guarded are super important
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And then at ninth level, I'm kind of required to make this the best is Wish
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Wish is the spell that you can be any spell of lower than level 9
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That's huge. But you could also warp reality and make wishes at the risk of maybe not being able to cast
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Wish again, so make sure it counts. And there's some competition here. Ninth level spells are dangerous because if used them incorrectly, you could basically
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be wasting your ninth level spell slots. Using them wisely, many of them are so amazing to use
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But Wish is their king, and I cannot deny that. So best ninth level wizard spell, got to be Wish
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So what do you think about my number one picks? Would you change any of them? Do you think they were fair
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Do you think that some of the spells I've picked as number one are not even close to number one
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and they'd be dwarfed by some other choice? I would love to hear about that because I often hear cool ways to use different spells
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that can really change the way I play the game, and so I'd love to become better players of D&D together
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Hopefully I helped you, and hopefully you'll help me. Go ahead and leave a comment down below to cast message to me
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Don't forget to subscribe to catch our next videos and hit like so that YouTube knows that we can find other people
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that will probably like this video. And if you share your video with your friends, even better. I'd love that
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I'd love to become part of the conversation for you and your friends who love D&D together
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So again, I'm Flutes, but you can also check out Opel's videos. She has a very different style than I do
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I think between the two of us, you'll find some great videos that you'll enjoy, and especially some excellent articles that you'll be able to bookmark and share with your friends
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So I'll catch you in the next video. Have a good adventure this weekend. I'll see you later. Bye
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