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The Best Spells for Clerics of D&D 5e ☀️ Holy Spell Selection by Level
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Oct 3, 2022
Clerics are front-loaded with powerful spells and a few deceptively underwhelming spells. Their high-level spells need to be amazing to compete with simply upcasting low-level spells like Bless and Spirit Guardians. Let's see how the list shakes out! My full write-up is available for #Cleric spell preparation in #DND5e (#dungeonsanddragons): 👉 https://www.flutesloot.com/cleric-best-spells/?utm_source=youtube ⏰Time Stamps: 00:00 Intro about Clerics 00:34 Cleric cantrips 01:25 1st-level Cleric spells 02:30 2nd-level Cleric spells 03:48 3rd-level Cleric spells 04:58 4th-level Cleric spells 05:57 5th-level Cleric spells 07:08 6th-level Cleric spells 08:49 7th-level Cleric spells 09:40 8th-level Cleric spells 10:42 9th-level Cleric spells 11:21 What do you think are the best Cleric spells? ---------
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0:00
Hey, looters, Flutes here. Today I'm going to talk about the best cleric spells to help you get the most out of your clerical experience. Today on FlutesLoop
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There is an article accompanying this video. You can follow the link to it if you want to read along. I've done all the note-taking for you
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Clerics are very strong, reliable, and consistent. They only have to prepare their spells. They learn all the spells on the cleric list, plus a few others based on their cleric domain
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So you really just got to know what are probably the base spells you want to be preparing
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and then anything else you have room to prepare, you can make room for it
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So cantrips. Clerics don't get tons of cantrips, so we want to make sure to get the most out of them
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You'll probably want to pick up an offensive one, so Sacred Flame or Toll the Dead
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And then I always recommend you get guidance to help out with skill checks for yourself and your allies
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as long as you're not annoying about it, and always saying guidance, guidance, guidance retroactively
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or something like that. And then after that, I recommend Thalmaturgy and Spare the Dying
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of the dying can be life-saving if you're out of spell slots to heal someone. And thaumatoge can just be a lot of fun to play that divine messenger type of cleric to
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shake the earth and do other magical effects that are pretty benign, but fit well into the
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flavor of being a cleric. You could definitely make a case for a few other cleric cantrip, but those are my top picks for a basic cleric. Like if you don't have a lot of dark vision
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in the party, or you just don't want to have disadvantage on perception checks in the dark with
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your dark vision, you could go from dim light to bright light with a light cantrip or a torch
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for first level spells these are the ones that consistently do well in games I play bless healing word
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and shield of faith honorable mention would be for sanctuary because it's a bonus action it can really
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help get someone out of trouble but it's not usually people's top choice because usually the people
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they want to cast it on in my experience are not going to want to be passive in combat and so it can be a
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little iffy to do sanctuary but that's a good one too bless is one of the best spells in the game for
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its level it's level one it adds a d4 to attacks saving throws and ability checks that's a minimum
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plus one and a maximum plus four. And this is relevant even at high levels of play
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So low level or high level, it doesn't matter. Bless is going to be important, especially if you have martial classes that are taking like a minus five to hit
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for Great Weapon Master or sharpshooter in order to get damage boosts. Your Bless can sometimes almost completely offset that minus five to hit
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or at least mitigate it a little bit. Cure Wounds is on my list, but it's not that great
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and I don't recommend upcasting it. A lot of people try to use it in combat. Mm-mm
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It's really not effective that way, because usually you're damaged faster than your healing
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Healing Word is usually better in combat and it's usually best to reserve it for people who are down at zero hit points
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Level 2 spells. These are my top picks that seem to come in handy. Aid, enhanceability, silence, spiritual weapon
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Aid is great because you get to target three characters and you can do this ahead of time because it has a long duration
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You can increase their maximum hit points by 5 with just a level 2 spell slot and you can upcast it to increase that
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And it's useful in combat. If you have one ally that is down or even a few that are down, you can't Healing Word all of them at once
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But you can cast aid and increase their maximum hit points by five and their current hit points also goes up by five So you can actually get them from zero hit points to being no longer making death saving throws and they are up and at them They get their turn again So aid can be a really good healing bomb in combat
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So I love that you can cast it proactively ahead of time or in combat either way
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Enhanceability can be nice if someone needs to make a lot of skill checks, especially charisma-based ones
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You need to convince someone of something. Just give them advantage on whatever checks they're going to be making
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Silence can be great for locking down spellcasters as long as you can keep them in place
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which is sometimes easier said than done, especially because some spells are not verbal
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and so you still got to be careful of, like, the somatic and material spells
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Spiritual weapon is a great way to weaponize your bonus action if you don't already have a way to do that
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It's only a second-level spell slot. Again, no concentration is big. It does force damage, which is premium
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You won't regret having spiritual weapon prepared if you just need some extra damage output. Third-level spells I picked are animate dead
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because you can just create a small army around yourself, and you can use them for a variety of different things
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clairvoyans can be extremely useful for scouting things out and it's a much lower level than scrying which is level five spell clairvoyance can get you a lot of information for a level three spell i wrote a whole article about dispell magic so that's one of the great spells to have prepared in a pinch revivify if someone dies you need this spell you got to have it when you need it's one of the best spells in the game especially for upcasting it does great damage it slows enemies and you can choose who it goes after to ignore your allies requires concentration and you need to get kind of close for it to work but it's a great spell
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yells very well. I often weigh my concentration spells against spirit guardians to say what's better
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Spirit guardians or some other concentration spells. So like Bless, for example, if I want to stay out
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of the fight, then I don't want to do spirit guardians. I might just cast bless, honestly. But some of the higher level concentration spells often kind of pale in comparison to bless and
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spirit guardians. And then Tongues is great for when you have those awkward moments where you can't
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communicate with creatures. And if your DM's not just going to hand wave that you end up figuring out
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what they were going to say anyway, or you don't need to know what they're saying because they're just gonna attack you in a minute and they're just trash talking. I don't know. Tungs can be really useful
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No concentration lasts a good while. Fourth level spells. We got banishment right up front because you can make
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tough combat suddenly much easier with this spell. If you're up against two big bruiser enemies
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you can take one of them out of the fight by banishing them, take out the one until it's dead
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and then the other one comes back as you set up a bunch of ready-attacks as soon as it comes back
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So that's a great way to do it. Death Ward is an excellent, no-concentration spell that is just your
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ace in the hole when you think you're going to be in a deadly situation, just give someone the
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ability to drop to one hit point instead of to zero hit points once that can lead to your enemies
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giving up one more round of their action economy to try to deal one more damage when they thought
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they were going to get the person down. And the fact that you casted it proactively before combat
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makes it even better. Divination is an incredible spell where you basically get to meta, ask the DM a question
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Like, what's better than that? Freedom of movement can be an excellent way to protect your
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against certain creatures, skills, and attacks because it's no concentration and it gets you out of so many different things to prevent you from getting locked down
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Fifth level spells. Commune is a great spell because you get to ask gods a bunch of yes or no questions
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It kind of like another squeeze the DM for information type of spell It also a ritual so you don have to use spell slots if you have the time Dawn allows you to turn your enemies into ants under a magnifying glass and it a pretty big area that you move as a bonus action
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I've had a lot of luck using this as long as I'm not in a situation where my allies are all in the area as well
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or I don't need to be moving around too much. If the enemies are all in a closed space and you get the drop on them
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Dawn can be really good. Greater restoration is another one of those spells that's great to have
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if you're dealing with madness or exhaustion, because those things can be devastating to your party's effectiveness
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You still need to have the material component so it can be costly, but it's one of those spells
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If you think you're going up against the right creatures who are going to make you need it, it's critical to have it
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Holy weapon is a great way to make friends with the barbarian or paladin fighter in your party
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who's going to run in with a sword, make their sword a holy avenger effectively
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that does all kinds of radiant damage and you can make it explode in radiant light, and it's not too big of a hindrance on your action economy
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It's great. Since we're talking about clerics, don't forget to subscribe to this channel, We'd love to see you around for future videos
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and please check out our playlist of other videos we've been up to join in the conversation
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and maybe you'll learn something. For sixth level spells, I actually really like blade barrier
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because it gives you three-fourths cover, which is an effective plus five to armor class and dexterity saving throws
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It requires concentration, but it lasts 10 minutes. So you can also set it up preemptively if you're expecting a fight in a certain location
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but even if you put it up during a battle, it'll be extremely useful. The wall isn't very thick, and it doesn't do, like, tons of damage
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So don't put it up and think, oh, it's just a damage spell. Think of it defensively. So if you just need that three-fourths cover
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and you're going to create a punishing wall for your enemies to move through
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blade barrier is really cool. Create undead allows you to make some powerful undead thralls
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including those that can paralyze your opponents, which again will make your martial classes love them
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because they can just go up and auto-crit them. Paladans will love you all day, except the fact that you made a bunch of undead
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Maybe they won't. Depends on the paladin, I guess. Heal is a wonderful healing spell
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because you just get a flat rate. You don't have to roll dice and have a bunch of variants and how much you're going to heal
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you just get 70 hit points, and if your enemies aren't doing more than like 30 damage in a round
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think of all the rounds you just undid with heel. When you do a really big heel during combat
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it can really swing the action economy in your favor. True seeing doesn't require concentration
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and it's a great spell to just front load your cleric with at the beginning of an adventuring day
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so that if anyone's skulking about invisible or otherwise ethereal, you can perceive them and be the tattletail of the party
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And then if you don't have other, mechanisms for this to pull the parachute and get your party back to safety, word of recall can be
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big for you. It's like your scroll of town portal that gets you out of combat when things are going
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badly. Obviously, that's not ideal to be in such dire straits, but when you're going to get TPC'd
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you're going to be glad word of recall was on your list. For seventh level spells, I really like
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regenerate because of its long-term healing being about 600 HP. So if you're going to have a lot of
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gauntlet-type combats where you don't just have like one big fight where you just have, like, one big fight where you
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Nova everything, then regenerate can be really great. Especially if you have a DM like me who
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likes to enforce like long injuries where a character really could if it bad enough lose an arm or a leg or an eye not because just like every hit you take is doing that but if something really grievous happens to you and you like were down and failed like two death saves and you were like on death
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door and but you got saved, maybe it cost you an arm or a leg and regenerate cannot get that
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back. And I love that. Temple of the Gods is another really cool spell because you can basically
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long term cast it to create your own stronghold out of nowhere, which is pretty nuts. But you could also
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do a temporary fortress in a location where you need to make defensible. For eighth level spells
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anti-magic field can be great for shutting down certain enemies as long as you can get close to them
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Holy aura is a deceptively powerful spell that I don't really see people talk about. It's almost like
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the ninth level spell force site, as in it's like a powerful buff spell, but it applies to
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you and your allies like multiple people while you concentrate. So it's like not the same thing
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but it's pretty comparable and it's like a party booster. Is it better than blessed
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level one spell, that's up to you. But it's pretty potent to use holy aura. If you're fighting
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undead creatures or fiends, they might even become blinded, which gives you even more of an
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advantage in battle. And it's not like your allies have to stay in the aura when you have the
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spell active, just when you cast the spell if they're present, they get empowered and then they can
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run away from you to go into battle. They don't have to stay next to you the whole time. The problem
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with it, I'll be honest, is that some optimized builds, they often find their own ways to gain
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advantage. But if you're in a party who doesn't have a lot of subclasses or spells picked
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that already give them all advantage or they don't have magic items to do that, think, oh, maybe
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I'll just give us all advantage on a bunch of stuff with Holyora. Then for ninth level, I believe
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the best spells for a cleric are mass heel and true resurrection. True resurrection is your top
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of the line resurrection spell. It's very costly, but it can do so much. It can bring back people
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that your DM will sweat about that they talked about a long time ago. They never thought you'd
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actually meet because they were long dead and all of a sudden you can make them come back to life
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and your DM will have to deal with that. And then mass heal just gives you so much healing
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so much healing that it can bring back your whole party from the brink the brink of death. It's almost
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like you fully restore your party while your enemies are still being whittled down and so it
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massively increases the survivability of your party. Don't let this one get counterspelled because
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you need it. So that's my list of what I like the best from the cleric spell lists as I played
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clerics to high levels. Are there other cases for other certain spells? Oh yeah, certainly. Like
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it's all subjective to say what's best, right? But these are the spells that I found were consistently
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the most useful and often made my allies go, oh, wow, that's really cool. Oh, you saved us. Oh
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thank goodness. Oh, saints be praised. That's usually good feedback that, oh, that's a good spell. That was
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useful. So what do you think of this list? Is there anything that you think, oh, you should take that
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off your list? I don't think that deserves to be called one of the best, or is there anything that
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you think should be added to it. Let me know your thoughts. And if you made it through the whole video and you don't really have any thoughts on the
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spells, but you just want to say thanks and leave a comment, then say, bless you, sir
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Good luck with your cleric this weekend and your adventure. I hope it's a good one. And I'll see you in the next video
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Bye
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