Which druid subclasses are best and what are they good at?
Druids gain their powers through the magical gifts granted from nature. But different druids focus on different aspects of nature to gain different powers. Their subclass represents this focus (also called a circle).
In D&D 2024, we’ve received the following druid subclasses:
- Circle of the land – Draw power from the various biomes of the land like arid, polar or tropical environments.
- Circle of the moon – Draw power from the moon granting them improved wild shape capabilities.
- Circle of the sea – Draw power from the seas, granting them a tempestuous emanation.
- Circle of the stars – Draw power from the stars granting them an enhanced starry form, fuelled by their wild shape.
In this article, I’m going to tackle which of these 2024 subclasses is best and the types of characters each subclass is best at.
Circle of the land
What are they?
Druids that draw power from the different environments of the land. They lean into the spellcasting aspect of druids more heavily, with adaptable subclass spells and recoverable spell slots. They’re also able to expend their wild shape uses for spell-like effects.
Key abilities
- Circle of the land spells (lv3) – You have 4 different subclass spell lists that you can swap between allowing you to adapt to different situations.
- Land’s aid (lv3) – Expend a use of your wild shape to cause damage and healing in a small area.
- Natural recovery (lv6) – Cast a spell without a spell slot and recover a few spells on a short rest each day.
- Nature’s ward (Lv10) – Become immune to the poisoned condition and gain resistance to a damage type according to your type of land.
- Nature’s sanctuary (Lv14) – Create an area of half cover for you and your allies and share your nature’s ward resistance with them.
What are they good at?
Spellcasting and providing support from afar. Land druids have more spell choices, more spell usages and a couple of spell-like features in their repertoire making them more magic-focused than most druids.
How effective are they?
They’re pretty good and fairly adaptable. You can fit your spell list to your opponent to some extent as well as your resistances. More spell usages make them a good option for playing longer adventuring days or just being more trigger happy with your spells. Having alternate uses for your wild shape can be very useful as you likely won’t use wild shape too often in combat.
The biggest challenge for a land druid (but it’s not an overly problematic challenge) is planning ahead. It’s not always possible to know what you’ll face so knowing which land to focus on is tricky.
The different land types aren’t necessarily equal in power either. That isn’t necessarily a problem as it can make your choices a little easier, but temperate and polar are inferior to arid and tropical in both the resistances granted and the spell options given.
Overall, I’d say the circle of the land is a pretty solid druid subclass and a decent choice for a spell-focused character.
Score: 3/5
Circle of the moon
What are they?
Druids that draw their power from the moon. This grants them enhanced wild shape capabilities, able to transform into more powerful creatures and enhance their attacks and defence further.
Key abilities
- Circle forms (lv3) – Gain access to more powerful wild shape forms, improved AC and more temporary hit points.
- Circle of the moon spells (lv3) – Gain additional spells known related to the powers of the moon.
- Improved circle forms (lv6) – Make your wild shape attacks deal radiant damage and get improved constitution saving throws.
- Moonlight step (lv10) – Teleport 30ft as a bonus action.
- Lunar form (Lv14) – Deal extra damage with your wild shape attacks and teleport someone else when you use moonlight step.
What are they good at?
Being tough and mixing spellcasting with melee combat. They also make a great utility class with more and better wild shape forms.
How effective are they?
There may have been a general reduction in the resilience granted by wild shape, but it remains a great way to be more tanky. And this is especially the case for the moon druid with triple the hit points and more AC.
This means that moon druids can easily mix it on the front lines with martials, with other full casters or support on the utility front through their wild shape. This makes them exceptionally versatile and, unlike most druids, their wild shape is an effective strategy in combat.
Wild shape may not be as tanky in 2024, but it is more balanced and still very effective. Personally, I think the moon druid is a top tier subclass and very effective at a wide range of functions.
Score: 5/5
Circle of the sea
What are they?
Druids that draw their powers from the sea. They can create watery emanations to support them in combat.
Key abilities
- Circle of the sea spells (lv3) – Learn spells associated with the powers of the sea.
- Wrath of the sea (lv3) – Create an emanation that harm’s and pushes enemies away from you.
- Aquatic affinity (lv6) – Increase the size of your wrath of the sea emanation and gain a swim speed equal to your speed.
- Stormborn (lv10) – Gain a fly speed equal to your speed when using wrath of the sea and gain resistance to cold, lightning and thunder damage.
- Oceanic gift (Lv14) – Manifest wrath of the sea around yourself and/or another willing creature.
What are they good at?
Close range spellcasting and movement. Wrath of the sea makes the sea druid ideal for getting close to enemies, supplemented by their spellcasting. With both a swim speed and a fly speed, they’ve got some decent utility and can easily maneuver where they need to be on the battlefield.
How effective are they?
Spellcasting and short range combat don’t often work well together, but wrath of the sea can easily help you manage this with damage and pushing enemies away. They have some decent AoE options too in thunderwave, shatter and ice storm.
3 damage resistances help them be more resilient on the front lines, but they are 3 less common damage types. It’s still a welcome resilience feature.
Wrath of the sea makes a pretty good bonus action option and doesn’t get in the way of casting spells with your action or using concentration while having some decent damage scaling.
My main issue with the sea druid is that they are pushed into the front lines a fair bit, and that can be a difficult place to be for a non-martial spellcaster. The subclass features do manage this fairly well, and it is a decent option, but only if you want to make your spellcaster a bit more vulnerable.
Score: 3/5
Circle of the stars
What are they?
Druids that draw their powers from the stars. They are granted enhanced starry forms that grant their attacks more power.
Key abilities
- Star map (lv3) – Gain a star map that lets you cast guidance and guiding bolt (guiding bolt can be cast a few times for free).
- Starry form (lv3) – Become luminous and gain a bonus action ranged attack, improved healing or more reliable concentration.
- Cosmic omen (lv6) – Use reactions to either increase or reduce d20 tests.
- Twinkling constellations (lv10) – Your starry forms are improved with either greater damage, healing or flight.
- Full of stars (lv14) – Gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage.
What are they good at?
This depends on the starry form you choose to use. But mainly, star druids focus on improved spellcasting. This can improve their damage output, healing or ability to concentrate. With guidance and cosmic omen, they make a good buff/debuff specialist too.
How effective are they?
Star druids are quite versatile and able to fill a few different spellcasting roles, and can alter their focus depending on the needs of the party. Each of their star forms are pretty decent and scale well enough with your levels.
Cosmic omen is pretty good at helping important d20 tests to succeed or fail and can be used a decent amount. Bludgeoning, slashing and piercing damage are all quite common and better options than the sea druid gets.
Overall, the circle of the stars is a pretty good druid subclass.
Score: 4/5
Which druid subclass is best?
All the druid subclasses are at least decent, meaning you can choose your subclass based on how you want your character to be and easily have a decent spellcaster.
But some subclasses are better than others and in reality, I think the moon druid is the most powerful option. With increased temporary hit points, better AC, better wild shape forms and better damage, they are also the best melee druid subclass too.
They also happen to be very versatile. True, other druid subclasses can access swimming and flying wild shape forms (or get this through subclass features). But the moon druid can use forms that do this and can capably operate in combat in these environments.
Which druid subclass do you think is best? Let me know in the comments below.
Spotlight on D&D 2024
All the latest updates on what’s changing with the 2024 rules revision.
