The Best Ranger Spells for D&D 2024 (5.5e)

Analysing all the ranger spells.

Considerations

The biggest challenge for a ranger is working out which of your many options is the best to use. While wizards can get away with casting spells every turn and it always be the right choice, rangers need to consider their fairly substantial capabilities with weapons as well.

On top of this, you get free uses of hunter’s mark which adds damage to each attack against the spell’s target. Using this can be really effective, but it does occupy some of your bonus actions and your concentration. When considering spells for a ranger, it’s always worth asking whether in combat, the spell will be more useful than making attacks and using hunter’s mark.

The other thing to be aware of for rangers, is you will get mid level spells later than full casters and have less spell slots to play with. Hunter’s mark saves you a little here as it can be cast once for an entire combat of benefits (unlike the paladin’s divine smite which needs to be cast multiple times for subsequent damage boosts). It’s worth being aware though, that some spells may feel less impactful at higher levels because you’re gaining lower level spells at this point.

In some instances, you may find that some spells work well for other classes, but because of this competition for action economy, don’t make sense for a ranger. This is a major part of my considerations in evaluating the spells below.

Level 1 spells

• Alarm (2/5) – Your use out of this kind of depends on how much your DM likes to pop surprises on you while you sleep. Decent if they do, near pointless if they don’t.
• Animal friendship (3/5) – Reasonably useful for wilderness adventures. Convince an animal to scout for you, provide directions or other useful things. You might even be able to convince things like bears to fight for you.
• Cure wounds (3/5) – Decent enough healing spell, especially for a high wisdom ranger. However, rangers tend to be best focused on dealing out damage. If you want a spell for emergency healing, I’d go with gooseberry. Cast it once a day and administer when an ally hits 0hp.
• Detect magic (4/5) – Someone needs this in the party and it can be cast as a ritual so 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.
• Ensnaring strike (4/5) – This requires concentration meaning that it competes with hunter’s mark for your spell use. The effects are more powerful, as restrained (plus some bonus damage) will effectively keep an enemy out of combat. But hunter’s mark is more reliable as it damages automatically. I’d favour this for low strength enemies that cause a lot of problems (like enemy spellcasters). Gaining restrained at this early a level makes this very powerful though. If you’re a low wisdom ranger though, you may find you struggle to get enemies to fail their saving throws. Top spell, but only for high wisdom rangers.
• Entangle (5/5) – Great control spell with a decent area that causes restrained and difficult terrain so great for really slowing enemies down. If you use this though, you can’t also use hunter’s mark.
• Fog cloud (3/5) – Lots of uses for heavily obscuring an area with fog.
• Goodberry (4/5) – Essentially for recovering allies from falling to 0hp. It’s great for this as you can even hand them out to allies so everyone in the party has a way to recover allies. While it has a casting time of an action, I’d just cast at the beginning of the day and then administer them with the bonus action they require.
• Hail of thorns (3/5) – If you have spell slots to spare, this is a good way to boost damage output, especially as it works alongside both your attacks and hunter’s mark. The damage output is less than other 1st level spells (like hunter’s mark (even if you can hi other enemies), but the benefit is being able to add even more damage on top of attacks and hunter’s mark. So a great spell for using up spare spell slots, but best left along if spell slots are scarce.
• Hunter’s mark (5/5) – A ranger’s staple and you get free castings of this. While not as explosive as something like divine smite in terms of damage, it’s far more economical for longer adventuring days and allows you to preserve spell slots. Over the course of a combat, it can deal significant damage for a level 1 spell. The only drawback is that it occupied your concentration and sometimes needs reapplying with a bonus action. You can check out my full guide to hunter’s mark for more details and tactics.
• Jump (3/5) – An extra 20ft of movement for a bonus action each turn of combat with no concentration required is decent. Or you can use it to jump across long distances or up buildings. Can be useful, especially at low levels when flight is harder to come by.
• Longstrider (2/5) – Mostly you need extra speed in combat so unless you’re expecting multiple encounters very close together, this feels like a worse version of jump, that also doesn’t let you jump really far. Plus it takes up an action.
• Speak with animals (3/5) – Solid investigation spell as there are often opportunities to talk to animals. Your mileage may depend on how much information your DM is willing to give from this spell.

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). I think this works better for a cleric though, who will get this sooner and can upcast it higher.
• Animal messenger (2/5) – This can have it’s uses, but I suspect those are a little too few and far between.
• Barkskin (3/5) – Decent if your dexterity is less than 20. You can essentially ensure you have 17AC. You can cast this ahead of combat too so it doesn’t eat into your bonus action. Main problem is it can easily eat into your spell slots.
• Beast sense (2/5) – Could complement the use of the beast master’s primal companion when they go off scouting. I guess if you’ve charmed an animal, you could use this too. If you’re a beast master, this becomes decent. Otherwise, it’s too situational.
• Cordon of arrows (3/5) – An average of 20 damage prepared in advance of a battle (so you don’t use an action in combat) makes this a decent spell if you know an enemy is coming. It won’t always be possible to work this ahead of combat, and during combat, this will be outperformed by your attacks (with hunter’s mark) so this is strictly for laying traps rather than being cast during combat.
• Darkvision (3/5) – The best way to see in the dark if you don’t already have darkvision.
• Enhance ability (4/5) – Usually best cast on an ally, help them with their skills checks as you’re not the best at these. A good option for difficult social and stealth situations.
• 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 investing expertise in investigation.
• Gust of wind (1/5) – Decent for corridors, poor for enclosed or large spaces. This makes it too situational to be regularly useful.
• Lesser restoration (4/5) – You won’t always need this, but when you do, it can be indispensible. 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 animals or plants (1/5) – The problem you have here is it’s just too situational. And even if you did need to find an animal or plant, your DM should have presented a way for you to work this out independent of the spell. I’d invest in other spells.
• 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.
• Magic weapon (3/5) – The extra damage isn’t amazing (though best when getting off a lot of attacks, like when dual wielding) but bypassing resistances can be really useful. For a bonus action, you can use this in the heat of battle when you realise you’re having a resistance issue or you can cast ahead of combat as it lasts an hour. No concentration needed so it doesn’t conflict with hunter’s mark.
• Pass without trace (5/5) – Excellent stealth spell and it helps the whole party so everyone can sneak along with you. Including the clunky paladin!
• 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. Restrain or grapple them in the area to keep their mouths shut.
• Spike growth (5/5) – Slow enemies down and hurt them in the process. There are no saving throws here either, this all works automatically. Best cast ahead of combat if you can (as enemies won’t naturally see the growth) and in narrow areas where they can’t bypass the spikes.
• Summon beast (2/5) – This needs your concentration and doesn’t do loads of damage. In fact with dual wielding, you can equal or exceed the damage of this creature with hunter’s mark each turn. It does have some utility that elevates its usefulness (flight and water travel in particular here) but overall, not worth using over hunter’s mark.

Level 3 spells

• Conjure animals (5/5) – Against a bunch of enemies and over the course of a combat, you can deal some serious damage with this spell. This is especially the case if you can move around a lot and move cleverly. Rangers are faster than most so this is a little easier to engineer.
• Conjure barrage (4/5) – Slightly lower damage per creature than a fireball, but with a longer area of effect. You do have to get close to your targets though, but this isn’t overly problematic for a martial class.
• 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 (4/5) – Really useful for ending nasty spell effects. Just be aware though that you probably want this in your party earlier, so hopefully your full spellcaster already has this.
• Elemental weapon (2/5) – This does less damage than hunter’s mark, and while it will make weapon attacks bypass resistances, it’s a 3rd level spells that actually diminishes your damage output as it requires your concentration. I’d just stick with magic weapon.
• Lightning arrow (2/5) – This doesn’t work with hunter’s mark and the increased damage is too small for a 3rd level spell. Yes you can hit other nearby targets, but use Conjure barrage if you want to hit a bunch of enemies.
• 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.
• Nondetection (2/5) – This is way too situational to be of much use! It’s really for DMs to keep locations of important things extra secret. Yes, you could prevent your invisibility from being revealed, but it’s not common enough to face enemy spellcasters to make this regularly useful.
• Plant growth (4/5) – It’s overgrowth that will likely yield the best results here. Making enemies move a quarter of their usual movement could be powerful, and the area of effect is huge! It will probably affect your party too, but you can create clear pockets too. There’s no save for movement so a clever ranger can do a lot with this spell, especially against melee enemies.
• 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.
• Revivify (3/5) – This is a weird one as in most situations you should avoid having allies dying anyway by using something like goodberries when they start taking death saving throws. But if you do ever need it, you’ll really hope you have it. It’s better for a cleric as they’ll get it sooner, but if no one else can grab it, then you’re the backup healer so it may have to be you.
• Speak with plants (3/5) – This is theoretically better than speak with animals as plants tend to be more plentiful. There’s also less in the way of limitations on what the plants might be able to express (unlike speak with animals). But this is a third level spell slot and isn’t considerably more useful than speak with animals. So while it’s decent, I’d lean more towards speak with animals.
• Summon fey (3/5) – Solid summon with decent damage and utility. No need to use a bonus action to command it so this is preserved.
• Water breathing (2/5) – Great if you know you’ll be in the water a lot. Pointless if you won’t. Means that this is situationally good, but may easily go unused.
• Water walk (2/5) – Situationally very useful, but also easy to go unused if your DM isn’t using liquids as an obstacle.
• Wind wall (3/5) – Solid control spells that can be useful for separating enemies and protecting pockets of allies. Good for frustrating enemy archers, but can also be awkward for you too so positioning is key. Be aware of enemy spellcasters though as they’ll be able to easily cast spells through this wall.

Level 4 spells

• Conjure woodland beings (5/5) – I’d say this is slightly better than an upcast conjure animals. The damage is almost the same and conjure animals has more flexibility in how it can be moved, but easily disengaging is normally better than improved strength saving throws. This demands a wisdom saving throw as opposed to dexterity. Dexterity tends to be better than wisdom on enemies making this the more likely to deal damage. Like with conjure animals, there’s serious potential for big damage with this spell over the course of a combat.
• Dominate beast (2/5) – This can be a powerful spell, if circumstances align. The problem is you need to cast it on a beast (and there’s no guarantee the beasts you meet are good ones to charm). It only lasts a minute so you either have to use it during combat or to get the beast to do something that only takes a minute. If you’re fighting the beast, it probably won’t work. For me, this is too hard to contrive into a useful, 4th level spell.
• Freedom of movement (3/5) – While technically situational, it is possible to contrive useful situations for using this. For example, using plant growth to create difficult terrain that only you or an ally can easily move through makes that kind of spell extra useful. 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 be worth having.
• Grasping vine (4/5) – Restricting an enemy and making decent damage against them is decent, especially for powerful enemies. You can even drag enemies into nasty AoE spells too. There don’t seem to be any mechanics for damaging the vine so the way to get away is spending an action trying to escape.
• 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 much.
• Stoneskin (2/5) – Solid protection spell, but be aware, this consumes your concentration and many things at this level either have other damage types in their repertoire, or can just target someone that won’t resist their attacks. For me, this is an expensive use of concentration when you have so many other options.
• Summon elemental (3/5) – The best summon for adaptable damage types. You’ll average quite a bit more damage per turn than hunter’s mark making this a worthwhile trade off. This also gives another target for enemies to focus on which takes the heat off of yourself and allies a little too.

Level 5 spells

• Commune with nature (2/5) – While potentially useful, I find that normally, if the information you could gain from a spell like this is important, there are other ways to discover it.
• Conjure volley (4/5) – A little more flexible than conjure barrage (due to its greater range) and higher damage (even when upcast). Solid damage dealing spell if you’ve got decent wisdom.
• Greater restoration (3/5) – You likely won’t need this a lot, but when you do, you’ll really appreciate having this spell available.
• Steel wind strike (4/5) – This is a high damage spell when you can get enough enemies close enough, which shouldn’t be a big problem with such a large range. You’ll average 33 damage per attack. For context, an upcast fireball will deal 35 damage per target but with a smaller area and affecting allies in the area too (though it has the potential to damage more enemies too). Just be aware that you’ll need a relatively high wisdom to make this effective.
• Swift quiver (3/5) – Essentially, you can use your bonus action to shoot 2 extra times per turn. If we take a longbow for instance, that’s an extra 19 damage per turn (assuming 20 dexterity). Hunter’s mark with a long bow will deal an extra 7 damage per turn. This is obviously superior, but hunter’s mark does give you advantage on attack rolls at this level and keeps your bonus action free at least some turns for other things and you can usually cast it for free. Over a 3-4 turn combat, swift quiver will deal an extra 36-48 damage, but steel wind strike will easily beat that against just 2 targets in a single turn. Because this spell relies on weapon attacks, it can be better than steel wind strike when you’ve gone for a high dexterity, low wisdom build, but if your wisdom is fairly high, steel wind strike is better.
• Tree stride (2/5) – Interesting option if you want to jump in and out of safe spots during combat. The action required to cast limits what you can do for a turn, but that can be a worthy sacrifice for a longer or tougher combat. Just be aware this will only work in certain forests, so it is situational. You disappearing every other turn also means your allies take more of the attacks.

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That’s all the ranger spells. Which spells do you prefer on a ranger? Let me know in the comments below.

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