The Best Cleric Spells for D&D 2024

Helping you choose the best spells for your cleric.

Considerations

There’s a few things to consider when picking spells for a cleric including:

Party healer

As the most prolific healer in the game, the party will look to you for healing. Make sure you have a decent repertoire of healing spells for just those moments. You don’t have to be all about the healing, but at least grab healing word and a couple of other options to help your party out.

Potent spellcasting

Clerics can choose some options as they level up allowing them to build into a more weapon or spellcasting focus (or a bit of both). Crucially for this article is potent spellcasting at level 7 which grants extra damage to your cantrips.

If you take it, you may want to grab a damage dealing spell or 2 and keep in mind that AoE cantrips like word of radiance will deal the extra damage to each creature you hit, magnifying its impact.

Cantrips

• Guidance (4/5) – Essentially a skill buff you can use at most times to help your bard, rogue or designated skills monkey. Really handy for unpicking locks, spotting traps and the like. You may struggle to always use it for quiet things like stealth or social interactions, but in theory, you can keep casting it every minute to help your rogue spot those traps.
• Light (3/5) – Put down a weapon, cast light on it, then pick it up. Now you’ve got a torch without having to use a spare hand. Good for those without darkvision.
• Mending (2/5) – Useful when something important is broken, those circumstances are rare making this situational at best.
• Resistance (1/5) – This is too limiting to be useful. You have to pick a damage type, use your action, use concentration and only reduce the damage by 1d4. And it only works once per turn. The reduction is too small and it’s not worth your concentration.
• Sacred flame (4/5) – Solid cantrip that removes the benefits of half and three quarter cover. Great if your DM often uses cover, weaker than other cantrips if they don’t. Because it’s a saving throw, you also won’t incur a penalty if you’re using this within melee range of an enemy making it a little more versatile than most cantrips
• Spare the dying (2/5) – Healing word and similar healing abilities are not hard to come by. If you want to sort out someone that’s been dropped to 0hp, it’s a much more effective solution.
• Thaumaturgy (2/5) – If you’re creative, there’s some fun effects you can create here. One of them grants advantage on intimidation effects which is reliable, if situationally useful. For the other effects, their impact will likely depend on the generosity of your DM making it a tad unreliable.
• Toll the dead (4/5) – Normally your highest damage cantrip and with a strong damage type (even if it’s worse against full health enemies). Saving throw cantrips are good against heavily armoured foes and those with poor wisdom.
• Word of radiance (4/5) – If you can catch 2 enemies in this area, it’s total damage becomes more than other cantrips. As you’re a cleric, there’s a decent chance you won’t mind wading into the middle of combat so this is a pretty good option. Grab potent spellcasting to enhance the damage of this against every enemy you hit.

Level 1 spells

• Bane (3/5) – Generally considered inferior to bless which has the opposite kind of impact because this only works on a failed saving throw (bless works automatically). More saving throws are required in the 2024 rules from things like weapon mastery properties and grapples meaning this gets a subtle upgrade in the revision. It remains a solid option, even if bless is still better.
• Bless (4/5) – 1d4 extra for all attack rolls and saving throws for a whole combat for 3 creatures is enough to turn a few failures into successes. Focus it on high attack allies, especially melee combatants (spellcasters may not always be making attack rolls or be in as much danger).
• Command (3/5) – This will essentially nullify an enemy for a turn. You also gain some situational benefit too like dropping the enemy prone or moving them where you want.
• Create or destroy water (3/5) – There’s some decent versatility here. Mainly for out of combat situations, but could be useful.
• Cure wounds (3/5) – Decent healing spell but it requires an action. I’d prefer healing word for emergencies, but if you want to lean more into being a proper healer, this is a solid option.
• Detect evil and good (1/5) – It’s a little too situational (only detects certain creature types) and the range isn’t great. It also doesn’t last long for a spell that might be better used for exploration (10 minutes of in game time will fly by like this) and you can’t cast it as a ritual. Essentially, there are far better spells to be using your spell slots on.
• Detect magic (4/5) – Someone needs this in the party and as it can be cast as a ritual, you don’t need to eat into precious spell slots.
• Detect poison and disease (1/5) – Really situational spell. I’m yet to come across a situation where this would have been useful. At least you can cast it as a ritual I suppose.
• Guiding bolt (4/5) – When you factor in damage and rolling to hit, the damage here is similar to other level 1 spells like inflict wounds. Magic missile as a comparison, will slightly outperform this on average damage and is more reliable, but it won’t grant advantage on the next attack which can be very useful if you coordinate things like sneak attacks or other spells attacks with allies.
• Healing word (5/5) – Healing with a bonus action is really handy. The amount healed is small, but this is mainly for reviving allies reduced to 0hp and this is one of the best ways to tackle that. You should have a few characters that can revive fallen allies and you should be one of them.
• Inflict wounds (3/5) – Slightly lower damage than something like guiding bolt, but will deal damage on a miss making it very similar in actual damage caused. Your choice here may depend on whether you want a spell attack or to cause a saving throw. Constitution is often higher with enemies than other ability scores though.
• Protection from evil and good (4/5) – A little situational, but there’s a wide range of creatures that this protects you from so you’re bound to come across them at some point.
• Purify food and drink (1/5) – Situations where you might need this rarely come up. Far too situational.
• Sanctuary (2/5) – This would be great if it could be maintained while a creature attacked, cast spells or dealt damage, but it doesn’t. The 2014 version was a little more versatile allowing the spell to be maintained when casting spells that didn’t afflict enemies giving you more options. The best things a character can do with this spell enabled are things like the help action, bardic inspiration, sharing paladin auras or using channel divinity but this will be rarely useful enough to make this worthwhile enough. Which is a shame because the lack of concentration and only requiring a bonus action made this great in the 2014 rules.
• Shield of faith (4/5) – +2 AC for a combat is strong, but be aware that it requires concentration. Still, really useful for a tank.

Level 2 spells

• Aid (4/5) – Not only can you spread an extra 15 hit points around your party for a fairly long duration, but these are not temporary hit points so are stackable with temporary hit points from other sources.
• Augury (4/5) – With this being a ritual, you could really use it a lot, like at every important decision you make. The usefulness of this though is primarily on how generous your DM is feeling. It’s still a potentially powerful tool though.
• Blindness/deafness (4/5) – Solid enough saving throw spell with the benefit of not requiring concentration, elevating it a point.
• Calm emotions (3/5) – For giving immunity to the charmed and frightened conditions, this is decent as it affects multiple creatures and these are common conditions. For altering attitudes, this is tricky. It might work for one or 2 enemies, but any more and you’re likely going to see this end by damaging an enemy. Between the 2 functions, I think this is a decent enough option.
• Continual flame (1/5) – There are other ways to create light without using a 2nd level spell slot. Yes I know it lasts forever, no that doesn’t change my opinion.
• Enhance ability (4/5) – Great for tackling high stakes skill checks like those involving stealth or social encounters.
• Find traps (1/5) – This can be useful, but knowing when to cast it is the tricky part, and at the expense of a 2nd level spell slot, is quite a lot. I’d say you’re better off having someone in the part invest in investigation.
• Gentle repose (1/5) – The needs for this is quite situational. If you want to revive someone, just use healing word. This means the main reason for this is if you want someone dead, but able to be raised later or need to harvest someone’s organs for donation 10 days later. Yes, I’ve never actually needed to use something like this before and you probably won’t either.
• Hold person (3/5) – Decent save or suck spell. Just be aware that less creatures are now classified as humanoids in the 2024 Monster Manual. For instance, things like Goblins and Gith are now Fey and Aberrations so this won’t work on them. Having said this, humanoids remain common enemies, especially at lower levels. This does also have the advantage of being upcast to affect multiple foes too.
• Lesser restoration (4/5) – You won’t always need this, but when you do, it can be indispensable. Ending these types of conditions is usually very important and it only requires a bonus action so you can keep attacking when you use this too.
• Locate object (2/5) – It’s possible for this to be very useful in investigations, but it can easily go unused for a long time too. Could make a great tracking beacon if you want to do some subterfuge. It’s not bad, just situational so don’t be afraid to take this if you feel you can engineer situations where this is going to be handy.
• Prayer of healing (2/5) – Depending on how your DM plays and whether your party is comprised of characters like warlocks that need regular short rests, a 10 minute short rest can make a difference. Under normal circumstances though, this isn’t that useful. At level 10 though, you’ll get divine intervention which will let you cast this instantaneously in the heat of battle which can be very valuable!
• Protection from poison (2/5) – Great against poisonous creatures, but too situational to be commonly used. I’d stick with lesser restoration as it will aid you with multiple conditions (including poisoned), even if it doesn’t give long term protection.
• Silence (4/5) – Great for tackling enemy spellcasters. Have someone restrain or grapple them in the area to keep their mouths shut.
• Spiritual weapon (3/5) – Basically an extra attack that can be used at range by using your bonus action. It was much better in the 2014 rules, but now requires your concentration which is a high price to pay for an extra attack’s worth of damage when you could be using something more impactful like spirit guardians (that doesn’t occupy your bonus action). It’s still decent enough, but there are better ways to use your concentration.
• Warding bond (2/5) – This one’s a little tricky. Sharing the pain can be beneficial. It means your ally doesn’t get downed too easily because they’re consistently targeted. The reduction in chances of being damaged though, aren’t that high. +1 to AC and saving throws means they’ll not be hit quite as much.
• Zone of truth (2/5) – Mainly for interrogations, which isn’t your specialty, but could help an ally out. Remember though, that this isn’t “zone of learn everything someone knows”, and an enemy can be clever, or quiet and not really give you any information at all, potentially making this useless.
  

Level 3 spells

• Animate dead (2/5) – Zombies and skeletons aren’t that great and probably won’t survive the whole 24hrs. Plus you lose your bonus action commanding them.
• Aura of vitality (3/5) – Decent continuous healing spell if your allies are getting a bit of a beating and you don’t want to keep using actions on healing.
• Beacon of hope (2/5) – My main problem with this spell is it requires setup. You want it when maximum healing will be most needed, but need to anticipate that otherwise you’re casting it when your party looks haggard already and needs healing immediately. Advantage on 2 common saving throw types is at least pretty good if potentially situational. This does get a subtle buff in the 2024 rules as healing spells do more healing now, which means the maximum healing is higher. My best advice would be to cast this at the beginning of a tricky fight and focus on healing spells throughout. But that’s only going to work for a very dedicated healer.
• Bestow curse (2/5) – None of these effects are particularly strong. Yes, some of them will work continuously without future saving throws, but I’d still prefer something like blindness.
• Clairvoyance (4/5) – There’s quite a lot of potential for information gathering with this spell, especially if you want to be privy to conversations not meant for your ears! It’s a bit situational though so you may not get loads of use out of it (then again, you could end up using it a lot depending on the campaign).
• Create food and water (1/5) – Not many tables play rations all that much, and for those that do, simply being prepared feels like a better option than expending a 3rd level spell slot! As impressive as this would be in real life, I’d struggle to recommend this as a 1st level spell, let alone a 3rd level spell.
• Daylight (2/5) – While this has its uses for tackling things like the darkness spell and creatures that hate sunlight, it’s far too situational to recommend under normal circumstances.
• Dispel magic (5/5) – Really useful for ending nasty spell effects.
• Feign death (1/5) – It’s hard to understand under what niche circumstances this spell would be useful… Perhaps if you need to infiltrate a morgue…
• Glyph of warding (3/5) – This is a tricky one to rate. With preparation time, it’s a really great way to cause damage to an enemy without using up your action in combat. I believe there’s an exploit here, as concentration spells just last for the duration, without consuming your concentration it seems. So you could cast hold person using the glyph and then still have space to concentrate on hypnotic pattern or something similar. However, this spell is fairly situational as it relies on prep time and knowing an enemy is coming.
• Magic circle (2/5) – This is generally quite challenging to use as it requires a 1 minute casting time. It also requires certain types of creatures making it far too situational.
• Mass healing word (3/5) – This is the spell to use of you need to recover multiple allies from reaching 0HP simultaneously. The problem is, you should rarely get to this point, and if you have, you’re likely already in big trouble. Still, it only requires a bonus action and the healing is bigger in the 2024 rules. It also means recovering an ally can also grant some healing to others allies which is no bad thing.
• Meld into stone (1/5) – It’s possible to do interesting things with this under very unusual circumstances, but these feel very rare. The lack of sight is a major issue for the limited uses you might have made with this spell anyway.
• Protection from energy (2/5) – A single resistance can be bypassed easily (by using a different damage type or targeting another character). The options of damage types are quite limited too. Situationally useful against certain creatures but that’s all.
• Remove curse (2/5) – You may want this as a backup in case you face a werewolf or similar cursing creature, but curses tend to be rare. You can also naturally protect yourself by not using magic items you don’t know about. Often, you can also pay for a service like this when cursed too so may not need it in your repertoire.
• Revivify (3/5) – This is a weird one as in most situations you should avoid having allies dying anyway by using something like healing word when they start taking death saving throws. But if you do ever need it, you’ll really hope you have it.
• Sending (3/5) – A little too situational for regular usage. You only get one message too so it can be used for one piece of communication with others. But communicating over long distances and even to creatures that don’t understand your language can be very useful.
• Speak with dead (4/5) – Really useful information gathering spell. How well it works partially depends on your DM. I find many players are quite trigger happy in killing rather than knocking unconscious enemies, this is some kind of insurance against that behaviour.
• Spirit guardians (5/5) – Really strong damage dealing spell that got even better in the 2024 rules as the damage can now be caused when the emanation comes into contact with an enemy as well as on the enemy’s turn. This means more times the damage can affect a creature. It also won’t affect allies. This is one of your best spells available.
• Tongues (2/5) – It’s unlikely that this will be useful very often so not usually worth taking.
• Water walk (1/5) – Too situational, especially when effects like flight will often work better which other spellcasters could have at this stage.

Level 4 spells

• Aura of life (2/5) – While good in certain circumstances (against certain undead), this is far too situational to be broadly useful. Healing downed allies to 1hp is alright, but you might as well go with aura of vitality if you want the healing.
• Aura of purity (4/5) – This is much more likely to come into play with many conditions covered and resistance for a very common damage type.
• Banishment (5/5) – Take an enemy or 2 out of combat for the duration while you deal with it’s friends. Hold person accomplishes a similar thing but this is better as there aren’t any repeat saving throws and many creatures have poor charisma.
• Control water (2/5) – You can do some fun, creative stuff with this spell, but your opportunities to do so are pretty rare so ends up too situational.
• Death ward (3/5) – 8hr protection from dropping to 0HP once is solid, but leaves the character vulnerable to follow up attacks. Still, if you want to be a buff specialist and layer buffs on your allies, this is one that doesn’t require concentration which just about justifies its level 4 price tag.
• Divination (3/5) – Can be a very useful information gathering spell and isn’t particularly situational. But its mileage depends on the generosity of your DM.
• Freedom of movement (2/5) – While technically situational, it is possible to contrive useful situations for using this like creating difficult terrain. You can even cast this ahead of combat if you know that this will be your strategy. The other situations for using this may be situational, but are common enough together that it can just about be worth having, but you can also go without this spell.
• Guardian of faith (3/5) – 60 damage is decent from a level 4 spell. The problem is ensuring it’s dealt out to someone. With a static effect that’s not that large, this could very well go unused. In an enclosed space though, this could become an imposing obstacle for enemies to overcome. With an 8hr duration, you could also use it as protection while you sleep.
• Locate creature (2/5) – This one’s difficult to rate as it depends a lot on your DM and the kind of things you can expect to do. If there’s going to be a lot of investigating, this could well be very useful. But you could also end up never using it at all… For me, it’s usually going to be too situational to bother with.
• Stone shape (3/5) – This is technically a bit situational, but also potentially quite useful. Bypass natural walls in a dungeon by simply shaping the stone and passing through them. Of course, you could just watch your DM have many 6ft thick walls in their dungeon, but that would be cruel to ingenuity.

Level 5 spells

• Circle of power (4/5) – Pretty strong protective aura. Spell saving throws should be reasonably common at this level and the chance to take no damage from AoE spells can be a life saver too.
• Commune (4/5) – Great information gathering spell. Just make sure you ask your questions carefully.
• Contagion (4/5) – Nasty debuff and a fair bit of single target damage. If you can get the enemy to fail the first saving throw, then they’re probably stuck poisoned for most of the combat. Great against tough enemies.
• Dispel evil and good (3/5) – Although a bit situational, these creature types are common enough that you should encounter them often enough.
• Flame strike (3/5) – This is basically a tall, skinny fireball with a smaller AoE, no option to cast at lower levels, an extra 2d6 damage, and some of the damage is radiant. An upcast fireball will deal the same amount of damage and mixing up damage types is better for tackling resistances, but catching flying creatures is rarely going to be enough to justify half the AoE. Sadly, unless you’re a light domain cleric, this is the best option you have for fireball-like effects. It’s still a decent spell, just weaker than fireball.
• Geas (2/5) – This can be solid, but quite difficult to engineer into something practical. Getting a captured enemy to do your bidding is probably the main use here, which can be hugely useful, or just hard to make happen, which is why it only gets a 2.
• Greater restoration (4/5) – You likely won’t need this a lot, but when you do, you’ll really appreciate having this spell available.
• Hallow (2/5) – Some interesting effects available with this spell but its 24hr casting time makes it very situational and difficult to use. Only good for protecting a base or when you know far in advance an enemy is coming. The other use case is through divine intervention allowing you to do things like quickly make enemies vulnerable to a damage type, block out certain monster types or cause instant fear for certain monster types.
• Insect plague (3/5) – Nice to have a constantly damage area of effect for a combat. With more ways to push enemies around, you could keep knocking them into this area. Of course, the natural reaction of most enemies will be to avoid the area. The problem is, it’ll take 2 turns of damage to deal the same amount a flame strike would have and I don’t see enemies sticking around long enough to let you get enough damage for them all to take 3 rounds of damage. One thing to keep in mind is that the damage can be caused once per turn meaning pushing an enemy into the area can cause the damage as well as potentially causing it on the enemy’s turn as well.
• Legend lore (2/5) – Largely, the value of this spell will be determined by your DM’s willingness to impart information and how much they know about famous thing. Situational at best, potential to be pretty useless though.
• Mass cure wounds (4/5) – An average of about 26-28hp per character (with up to 6 potential targets) is some pretty substantial healing with one action. Well worth the spell slot when the party’s looking worse for wear.
• Planar binding (1/5) – Really great if you can make it work, but you’ll have to work hard to do so. Find an appropriate creature that’s powerful enough to bother binding, cast magic circle to contain it, then cast this to get an ally. It’s too contrived for me and uses multiple spell slots.
• Raise dead (3/5) – Ideally, you shouldn’t have allies dying (heal them a little with healing word once they start taking death saving throws instead). That’s not always possible though, and when it isn’t, you’ll be glad you have this. Useful for sorting out dead NPCs you didn’t want dead too.
• Scrying (4/5) – Decent information gathering spell. You can always just try this before every rest when you’ve got a spare spell slot and see what you can find out about the BBEG or other people.
• Summon celestial (3/5) – Decent damage, even if it’s not that tough for the level you’ll be fighting at. Always useful to have some extra damage and another target for enemy attacks.

Level 6 spells

• Blade barrier (4/5) – Force your enemy into firing off attacks against three quarters cover or charge through some spinning blades. You can then fire off saving throw spells while they struggle. You could also box enemies in. Not quite as good at stopping enemies as other wall spells, but it does deal damage.
• Create undead (3/5) – Semi-permanent undead servants is quite useful, but be aware that ghouls aren’t that tough at the level you’ll be casting this. Still, they make a decent enough meat shield and can be used to go first into dungeons to trigger traps and similar nasties.
• Find the path (2/5) – Useful if you don’t know where you’re going, it saves stumbling around exploring places, but you’d hope there would normally be another way to find your destination like a map or a guide.
• Forbiddance (2/5) – Stopping teleportation and damaging certain creature types can be useful but with a 10min casting time and needing to know the creature type, this is very situational. If you know what you’ll be facing and it fits the criteria, this could be useful, but generally it’s way to situational. There are abuse cases, like casting it on a dungeon and watch enemies attempt to escape. At a 24hr casting time though, I’d expect a DM to try hard to disrupt this kind of abuse.
• Harm (2/5) – An average of 49 damage is decent and reducing hit points maximum’s can resolve issues with enemies that regenerate or heal. The problem is constitution saves are generally good on monsters, there are higher damage spells and healing on monsters isn’t hugely common (though it does get more so at higher levels).
• Heal (5/5) – Really big healing and the removal of a few common conditions is pretty good. Basically a new lease of life for a downed barbarian.
• Heroes’ feast (4/5) – Fantastic buff! Poison resistance, immunity to the frightened and poisoned conditions and 2d10 added to your maximum hit points for the duration for the whole party (and more) is a lot. And those hits points can stack with temporary hit points! Just be aware that it costs 1,000gp for each casting which is pricey! Unless you have more gold than you know what to do with, you don’t want to be casting this spell everyday.
• Planar ally (2/5) – Potentially very powerful, but also potentially very expensive and easy to go to waste. Your DM gets to choose too much of the impact of this spell making it easily wasted or inconsequential.
• Sunbeam (3/5) – This is an efficient use of spell slots, and the damage is decent if you can line enemies up, but that’s often not possible. This is great in corridors and less great in most other places.
• True seeing (3/5) – The best way to see things that aren’t there. While see invisibility can foil the invisible condition, this will capture more things in its remit. Can be pointless at many times, but essential at others.
• Word of recall (3/5) – This is an emergency option if things get overwhelming or you’re trapped. You’ll need to prepare in advance though and gather the party close.

Level 7 spells

• Conjure celestial (5/5) – Lots of healing and harm which is great for tackling melee encounters to help your martials out. You can move the area too and it lasts 10 minutes so you can heal up your party after a combat. It affects creatures once per turn so you can move it into place on your turn, then have creatures re-enter on other turns through movement or things like the push weapon mastery.
• Divine word (4/5) – Strong against certain creature types and great against mobs of creatures. It won’t help you much against most really tough creatures (unless they’re extra-planar beings) but it’s a solid crowd control option.
• Etherealness (4/5) – This is a really good spell in the sense that you can get places and explore things you wouldn’t normally be able to explore. Gaseous form and invisibility can accomplish the same kind of effect, but you don’t get these as standard and they both require concentration.
• Fire storm (4/5) – Big damage spell that’s great for dealing with loads of enemies at once. The fact you can split up the damage zones makes it easier to avoid allies too.
• Plane shift (2/5) – This is a difficult one as plane hopping with a spell is far more convenient than alternate forms of planar travel, but it’s use and necessity is primarily down to your DM. Either they’ll want you on other planes and will provide a method for getting there, or they won’t and this could become challenging to keep players in the right place.
• Power word fortify (4/5) – This is a lot of temporary hit points and will really keep your party going for a decent bit extra. Do this at the beginning of the day to have ready whenever you need them or ahead of a big battle to preserve your action economy.
• Regenerate (2/5) – You’ll get better healing from heal at a lower level and recover from conditions. Losing limbs is so rare this just isn’t worth bothering with.
• Resurrection (3/5) – Like raise dead, you shouldn’t need to use this so much to resurrect allies as you shouldn’t be letting them die in the first place. But if you do need to, this is a powerful way to do so. I think its bigger use might be for bringing back NPCs which can be interesting and fun, but also a bit situational.
• Symbol (3/5) – First off, the effects of this spell are very flexible and very powerful. Note that any conditions caused by this spell work for the duration with no subsequent saving throws after the first one, affecting creatures in a large area. However, there are a couple of limitations to consider. First is the expense. 1, 000gp at this level may not be a huge deal, but it could soon add up with multiple castings. Second, you need to prepare this spell and anticipate enemies coming to you, not always easy to engineer, but common enough with some work to be handy.

Level 8 spells

• Antimagic field (3/5) – Can be incredibly useful, but does also nullify yourself. If you happen to find yourself up against a lich or archhag whose primary capabilities are their spellcasting, then this could be very effective. But, you’ll need to remove your own best tools and survive close to the enemy while your allies hack the creature to pieces.
• Control weather (2/5) – While there can be a purpose to changing the weather (perhaps to obscure your approach or calm conditions imposed by the DM), the actual impact on the game is likely to be quite inconsequential unless your DM wants to make it a natural disaster which is difficult to orchestrate.
• Earthquake (2/5) – Prone and getting rid of concentration is alright. Fall damage from fissures likely won’t be huge (average of 17-21 hp per affected creature). However, the damage and prone from falling structures can be quite substantial. Problem is, you need buildings around to make that happen, and even then, need creatures close to buildings to be affected. It is a huge area of effect though, but that also makes it easy for allies to get caught in the mix. This is a desperate measure for clerics that want to sow some chaos, but it’s far too difficult to reliably do what you want for a spell of this level.
• Holy aura (5/5) – Powerful protective aura that your allies will really appreciate. Basically makes the party really hard to hit, and blinds undead and fiends that manage to actually hit you.
• Sunburst (4/5) – Not as high damage as incendiary cloud and not long lasting either, but the effects of blinded are much easier to inflict and make last and the radius is much larger so you can catch more enemies in its effects.

Level 9 spells

• Astral projection (2/5) – Like with plane shift, this is a very situational spell requiring a need to enter the astral plane making it hard to recommend when you get one level 9 spell choice.
• Gate (3/5) – If you like to initiate a bit of chaos, then this is a wonderful spell. Summon a powerful planar being and hope that they don’t crush you. A creative player and DM could have a lot of fun with this spell. A cruel DM might just bring you an irritated demon lord though…
• Mass heal (5/5) – The ultimate healing spell. 700 hit points should be enough for the whole party and a few conditions get healed too. Save it for when things get quite dire, then revive your downed allies and bring them back to full health.
• Power word heal (4/5) – More effective than regeneration as the effects are instantaneous and heal from conditions too. Really solid option and one you can expect to need on a fairly regular basis, though I’d prefer mass heal over this.
• True resurrection (2/5) – This is obviously exceptionally powerful, but mostly an unnecessary use of a 9th level spell for you. Allies can be revivified or resurrected for much less and the spell costs 25,000 gold which is a huge amount! There are niche applications to this spell like if you need a long dead hero or creature to aid you in battle or something similar, but mainly, I think this is a tool for the DM to bring back enemies somehow. I just wouldn’t usually bother with it for an adventuring party.

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Do you have any favourite cleric spells? Let me know about them in the comments below.

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