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

Helping you pick the best sorcerer spells.

Considerations

Sorcerers do possess some enhancements to their spells that might affect the spells you choose. These include:

Metamagic

Sorcerers can enhance their spells with metamagic. There’s a lot of options to choose from like changing damage types, preventing allies being affected by your spells or targeting additional enemies with the spell. In my advice below, I’ve tried to highlight where some of these options might have useful interactions.

Innate sorcery

Sorcerers have a slightly better spell save DC and advantage on spell attack rolls than most spellcasters. This is a limited use feature, but can be used for the whole of 2 combats per long rest making it a fairly reliable source of enhanced spellcasting. Basically, your spells should land more often, especially when combined with metamagic options like heightened and seeking spell.

Elemental affinity – Draconic sorcery

Although this is just for the draconic sorcerer, they have a feature at level 6 that allows spells of a damage type they choose to deal additional damage. It’s one to be aware of when picking spells as you’ll want to choose spells of that damage type. AoE spells are best in conjunction with this feature because the extra damage will affect multiple targets, increasing the amount of extra damage inflicted.

Cantrips

• Acid splash (3/5) – You only need to hit 2+ enemies to make this do more damage than any other cantrip. Essentially it’s worse than most cantrips against 1 enemy, but better against multiple enemies.
• Blade ward (2/5) – Concentration and an action is a heavy price to pay for a class that needs to be using these things on much better spells. Especially when you shouldn’t expect to take much of a beating anyway.
• Chill touch (2/5) – You may need a melee spell attack occasionally, but to be honest, if you end up in melee range, I’d be more inclined to put my effort into getting away rather than attacking.
• Dancing lights (3/5) – Decent enough way to tackle darkness if characters in the party lack darkvision.
• Elementalism (1/5) – Maybe there are cool effects others can work out that this spell can do, but to me, it all just seems like showmanship.
• Fire bolt (3/5) – Solid damage and the damage type is a little better than that for poison spray (even if the damage isn’t quite as good).
• Friends (2/5) – If you’re up against a lot of social situations, this can make them a fair bit easier (sorcerers make decent faces). Unfortunately, it’s limited to a minute and only to non-hostile humanoids and you’ve got a minute before it ends making its scope a bit tricky to make work beyond that very short time frame.
• 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.
• Mage hand (4/5) – Great utility spell. Grab or manipulate things that are out of reach. It’s also great for setting off traps while you stand at a safe distance.
• Mending (2/5) – This one can be really useful, or not useful at all. It’s just too situational to be reliably of worth.
• Message (3/5) – The range is a bit limiting, but if you’re split up and need to communicate, this is a good way to do it. No spell slots needed.
• Mind sliver (5/5) – You can either use this to make enemies worse at saving throws, or make yourself more reliable at hitting them with your next attack as this requires a saving throw. Most creatures have poor intelligence so this should land more often than most spells and psychic damage is rarely resisted. I quite like the idea of using this in conjunction with the quickened spell metamagic option, allowing you to cast mind sliver to weaken an enemy’s saving throw and then cause a saving throw with your other spell.
• Minor illusion (4/5) – Top utility spell. Great for creating distractions while you sneak around. The more cunning you are, the more useful this spell will be.
• Poison spray (3/5) – Your highest damage for a ranged spell attack. Just be aware that the damage type is also one of the most highly resisted and a lot of creatures now have poison damage immunity.
• Prestidigitation (3/5) – I don’t think I’m as enamoured with this spell as many others, but it can be a useful utility spell if you’re creative enough. I’d prefer minor illusion and/or mage hand, but this can be handy too.
• Ray of frost (3/5) – Good if you want to slow enemies down. You can combine this with the slow weapon mastery property from your allies to reduce movement by 20ft. Good for long range combat. Less so when fighting in close quarters.
• Shocking grasp (2/5) – Like chill touch, you probably don’t want to be making melee spell attacks if you can avoid it. This is better though as it prevents attacks of opportunity allowing for a getaway if you don’t have misty step. I’d still prefer other options over this though.
• Sorcerous burst (4/5) – Decent damage, a good damage type and the chance to deal extra damage when you roll an 8. As you gain levels, the chances of rolling an 8 increase with the extra dice you roll for damage. You could also consider using the empowered spell metamagic option to give you another chance at rolling 8s. It’s questionable whether this is the most optimal use of this metamagic option (AoE spells work best) but if you’re using a cantrip and have sorcery points to spare, it’ll work better than with other cantrips.
• Thunderclap (2/5) – This is no good for a sorcerer as it relies on getting right in the middle of enemies. Use acid splash for an AoE cantrip or use a spell slot, this is too dangerous, even if you plan on using misty step to get away again.
• True strike (4/5) – Use this with a light crossbow for better low-mid level damage. It’ll also mean you’ll be able to use your superior charisma for attack and damage rolls and you’ll get a better damage type than high damage cantrips like fire bolt and poison spray.

Level 1 spells

• Burning hands (3/5) – Damage is decent if you can get enough enemies in the area. You do have to get a bit closer to the danger than a sorcerer normally likes to make this work, but probably your biggest AoE spell at 1st level.
• Charm person (3/5) – A decent spell for helping you handle social situations. Mainly, this is for convincing someone to be friendly that wouldn’t have been otherwise which should help with persuasion checks and similar things.
• Chromatic orb (5/5) – The damage here is decent and the ability to change damage types means you should be able to avoid resistances (and helps with the draconic sorcerer’s elemental affinity). What makes this even better is your ability to potentially hit additional targets. You’ve got a 34% chance of rolling a double, but if you upcast this, the probability gets higher becoming 59% at level 2, 79% at level 3 and 92% at level 4. Plus you can have it bounce as many times as the level it’s cast at. As a level 1 spell though, it will average 13.5 damage per target. With it bouncing 34% of the time, it should average 18.1 damage. Odds of hitting also increase with things like innate sorcery and the seeking spell metamagic. You can also up the odds of a double with the empowered spell metamagic. You can see exactly how powerful this spell is in my chromatic orb guide.
• Color spray (2/5) – Blinding multiple enemies with a single spell is decent, but it’s only for one turn.
• Comprehend languages (2/5) – It’s rare that not understanding a language would be a blocker to your game progression. Can be useful, but not often enough.
• Detect magic (4/5) – Someone needs this in the party and as it can be cast as a ritual, so you don’t need to eat into precious spell slots.
• Disguise self (4/5) – Great option for a charisma focused character. If you intend to attempt some impersonations or similar things, this is much easier than gathering the uniforms of guards.
• Expeditious retreat (1/5) – Retreating is rare, and having to be consistently faster than your enemy is even rarer.
• False life (3/5) – Decent number of temporary hit points. You can cast in preparation for a battle too so no need to expend your action during combat.
• Feather fall (4/5) – Really situational, but really useful if you ever do need it.
• Fog cloud (3/5) – Lots of uses for heavily obscuring an area with fog, including making a quick escape and handling invisible enemies (making the attacks more even).
• Grease (3/5) – Really good in narrow areas like dungeons, especially if you want to fight enemies from a distance or stop them in the grease in melee combat giving them the chance of constantly slipping.
• Ice knife (2/5) – The damage on this is pretty poor. There are cantrips nearly as effective as this by level 5.
• Jump (3/5) – An extra 20ft of movement 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. Probably the kind of thing you’ll give to an ally as sorcerers don’t generally need to be that manoeuvrable.
• Mage armor (4/5) – Unless you grab the lightly armored feat or multiclass, this is your easiest way to grab a decent AC. Without this, you’re too vulnerable so really important option. It lasts 8hrs and doesn’t require concentration so really easy to cast ahead of combat and lets you still concentrate on more powerful spells.
• Magic missile (3/5) – The damage isn’t that high, but it as an automatic hit on multiple enemies which can be very useful and compensates for it’s lower damage. It’s less valuable on a sorcerer that tends to be better at not missing than other spellcasters due to innate sorcery and metamagic options but still one of the better damage dealing options at level 1.
• Ray of sickness (2/5) – An average of 9 damage and the poisoned condition for a turn is not strong enough I think compared to your other options.
• Shield (4/5) – Can be really useful if you want to focus on not taking damage and losing concentration.
• Silent image (4/5) – A better version of minor illusion, but at the cost of a spell slot.
• Sleep (4/5) – It’s a small AoE, but if you can catch multiple enemies in this, the odds of success increase a lot and can be fairly substantial. It’s one of the only ways to nullify multiple enemies from 1st level. And if the enemy fails their saving throw twice, they don’t get other chances to wake up (though an ally could kick them).
• Thunderwave (3/5) – Decent AoE damage and some crowd control through pushing. I’d prefer it on a more melee-focused spellcaster, but it’s OK for a sorcerer too.
• Witch bolt (2/5) – The damage isn’t enough to consume your concentration and it’s too easy for an enemy to stop the additional damage by running round a corner.

Level 2 spells

• Alter self (3/5) – Kind of like disguise self with extras. The disguise is a bit less restrictive than disguise self and you can get a swim speed. Unarmed damage is basically pointless for a sorcerer though.
• Arcane vigor (2/5) – This is OK if you need a self-healing option and only taking a bonus action is decent enough, but with such small hit dice, the healing from healing word actually outperforms this (as a level 1 spell). And this consumes hit dice and can only be cast on yourself. But you don’t have access to healing word. Still, I’d be tempted to take magic initiate cleric for that and not bother with this.
• Blindness/deafness (4/5) – Solid enough saving throw spell with the benefit of not requiring concentration elevating it a point.
• Blur (4/5) – Strong defensive spell, though it gets less effective as enemies get better at hitting you, with disadvantage causing less of a problem for accurate creatures.
• Cloud of daggers (1/5) – Unless you can block a 5ft wide corridor with this, it’s just a waste of a spell slot and you should have just cast a cantrip to save the spell slot.
• Crown of madness (2/5) – The challenge with this is you’ll need to maintain it using your action to continue its effects. This is an acceptable sacrifice if you come across someone powerful. You essentially nullify their effectiveness while using their attacks against your enemies. You’ll also need to engineer that they start their turn next to one of your enemies which can be tricky, but easier now there’s a lot of weapon mastery abilities knocking around.
• Darkness (4/5) – A strong control option. Good for tackling invisibility, making an escape or if you have some form of blindsight.
• Darkvision (3/5) – The best way to see in the dark if you don’t already have darkvision.
• Detect thoughts (3/5) – There are interesting ways to use this for both stealth and social situations, but taking advantage of it is a bit situational, depends on your DM’s generosity and can go wrong with that wisdom saving throw.
• Dragon’s breath (3/5) – This is kind of like reusable burning hands for a whole combat that you can grant to someone else. You could cast it on someone else with less precious actions (like a familiar if you have one).
• Enhance ability (4/5) – Great for tackling high stakes skills checks like those involving stealth or social encounters. You’re capable at both, but could also be used on another.
• Enlarge/reduce (3/5) – Decent buff or debuff. Works nicely on grapplers like monks so they can grapple larger things and do more damage (at the same time if they have the grappler feat). Or cast it against a high level enemy your party grappler wants to grapple and make them smaller.
• Flame blade (1/5) – This forces you into melee combat which you really don’t want to be doing. The damage isn’t that great either. Firebolt will do similar damage from level 5 and can do so at range.
• Flaming sphere (2/5) – Like a slightly better version of cloud of daggers. It has a larger radius, affects creatures within 5ft on the first turn and can be moved with a bonus action instead of an action. The damage is a little lower though and it has to be rolled rather than teleported. Despite being better, it’s too low damage to consistently invest in.
• Gust of wind (2/5) – Can be decent for corridors, poor for enclosed or large spaces. This makes it too situational to be regularly useful.
• 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. Things like Goblins and Gith are now Fey and Aberrations so this won’t work on them. Personally, I’d favour Tasha’s Hideous Laughter or sleep at level 1 for this kind of effect which is less limited by creature type and can also nullify enemies.
• Invisibility (5/5) – Excellent stealth spell and will help you for a round of combat too.
• Knock (2/5) – If you don’t have a rogue, I’d say just invest in thieves’ tools proficiency and sleight of hand with your background instead. This could get expensive on spell slots if you come across a few locks.
• Levitate (3/5) – Useful for scaling tall buildings and scouting. You can also nullify an enemy to some extent with this, especially if they don’t have ranged options.
• 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 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. But really, this is something you grant to an ally’s weapon, not your own.
• Mind spike (1/5) – The problem with this is the damage is low and you have to be able to see the creature to hit it and then nullify future invisibility attempts. The issue is, you often don’t know you’re going to face something that can turn invisible until it turns invisible. There are better ways to tackle invisibility.
• Mirror image (3/5) – Solid protective spell, and will help you maintain your concentration.
• Misty step (4/5) – Great safety spell. It’ll get you out of sticky situations like grapples and crowds. Can also get you to hard to reach places and make you travel further if needs be.
• Phantasmal force (3/5) – If you’re creative, you can do a lot of interesting things with this spell. False bridges, fake ground or holes are all possibilities as well as scary creatures.
• Scorching ray (3/5) – Solid damage and with the reliability of your spell attacks, I’d favour this over magic missile for a multiple target spell.
• See invisibility (4/5) – At least someone in the party needs a way to deal with invisibility and this is probably one of the better, low level options. This is even more handy now that the hide action grants the invisible condition.
• Shatter (4/5) – Probably the best pre-level 3 AoE damage dealer. One of your best options at this level for dealing with crowds.
• Spider climb (2/5) – This can be useful sometimes, but I’d probably just go for levitate if I need some height.
• Suggestion (4/5) – Time for some jedi mind tricks! It’s inferior to hold person at incapacitating enemies, but sometimes you need to have someone do something for you (like to grab the key to the jail cell you’re in). You’ll need to be careful at wording your instructions.
• Web (5/5) – Strong control spell. Will slow down multiple enemies and can restrain them too.

Level 3 spells

• Blink (3/5) – This essentially gives you safety for 50% of your turns in combat. Not bad for a fragile class, especially in longer encounters. It does require an action to setup, but quickened spell can help here.
• 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).
• Counterspell (4/5) – Preventing a nasty spell is great. This is especially the case for PCs as most monsters won’t use spell slots, instead they’ll be able to cast spells a certain number of times per day and this will still expend those uses.
• 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.
• Fear (4/5) – Strong way to take a bunch of enemies out of the combat simultaneously, especially if you’re fighting large groups. You do have to get fairly close to the enemy for this one which isn’t great for a sorcerer. I still prefer hypnotic pattern though, which essentially does the same thing at range.
• Fireball (5/5) – Really strong damage dealing AoE spell. Best used in the first turn before you and your allies get in the way (or coupled with careful spell).
• Fly (4/5) – Really useful utility spell. Can keep you safe (ish) in combat and helps you access hard to reach locations.
• Gaseous form (4/5) – Strong exploration spell. Will get you places you might not ordinarily be able to get.
• Haste (4/5) – A strong buff that can easily enhance yourself or an ally. An extra action, more speed, better AC and better saving throws all combine nicely.
• Hypnotic pattern (5/5) – I’d probably prefer this over fear as it’s got better range but effectively removes a group of enemies from the combat.
• Lightning bolt (3/5) – Lines of enemies are harder to find than groups, but can happen in long corridors. Generally though, this tends to be weaker than fireball.
• Major image (4/5) – If you’re really creative, this can be amazing! Use it to distract and deceive enemies. And once you get 4th level spells, you can cast this without using concentration and can make the illusion permanent.
• 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.
• Sleet storm (3/5) – A more problematic version of fog cloud. Good for controlling the battlefield and nullifying enemy spellcasters a bit. It’s best in more confined spaces where enemies may be forced to travel through it.
• Slow (4/5) – I prefer hypnotic pattern over this which completely nullifies an enemy rather than severely debilitating them. But this is still very good and has a larger area it can cover.
• Stinking cloud (3/5) – Good control spell. Works best in confined spaces and for getting enemies in the places you want them to be. Poisoned is nastier with this spell, but only lasts a turn. Consider combining it with something that restricts movement like sleet storm, grease or web to really get enemies stuck.
• Tongues (2/5) – It’s unlikely that this will be useful very often so not usually worth taking.
• Vampiric touch (1/5) – This can be easily outperformed by a cantrip. The healing also isn’t enough to justify this, plus you can’t use your concentration on anything else and have to get into melee range to use it. A particularly poor spell for a sorcerer.
• Water breathing (2/5) – It’s not often you need to breathe under water. Situationally useful when those moments do come up, but often pointless.
• Water walk (1/5) – I’d just use fly instead if you need to cross water.

Level 4 spells

• 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 throws, many creatures have poor charisma and it can target any kind of creature.
• Blight (2/5) – An upcast fireball will do nearly this amount of damage to a single target (and that can hit multiple targets). With that context, I’d say this is quite a weak spell.
• Charm monster (2/5) – I find this tough to recommend. You’re not necessarily gaining an ally for combat, even then, it’ll only hang around for an hour before knowing you magically influenced it. It could be a way to tackle a creature without violence, but you’re best doing this before combat erupts.
• Confusion (3/5) – This is like an unreliable hypnotic pattern. I prefer hypnotic pattern with it’s larger area of effect and greater reliability, but if you like chaos, this can sometimes cause enemies to attack each other.
• Dimension door (3/5) – Good for getting out of dungeons quickly or getting the jump on far away enemies. You may need to be a little creative, but as long as you can see, have seen or can precisely determine distance of the location, you can get there safely.
• 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’s harder to make work. For me, this is too hard to contrive into a useful, 4th level spell.
• Fire shield (4/5) – No concentration needed and you should be able to discourage enemies from attacking you (and damage them if they do). Some damage resistance is decent too. I’d go for the chill shield normally as the resistance and damage type are both better.
• Greater invisibility (5/5) – Disappear in combat and attack with advantage and be attacked with disadvantage.
• Ice storm (2/5) – The damage here isn’t particularly high and difficult terrain for a single turn isn’t that great either.
• Polymorph (5/5) – Effectively nullify an enemy, enhance an ally or gain some kind of utility benefit like flight. This is a really versatile spell!
• Stoneskin (3/5) – Solid protection spell, but be aware, this consumes your concentration and as enemies get more magical attacks and less standard weapon damage, this becomes increasingly redundant.
• Vitriolic sphere (5/5) – This is a little more damage than an upcast fireball, but spread over a couple of turns. The damage type is probably slightly better too. I’d say it’s pretty comparable.
• Wall of fire (4/5) – Really useful way to control the battlefield, separating, slowing and/or damaging your enemies.

Level 5 spells

• Animate objects (4/5) – This is a tricky one to judge. If you have a high charisma (20 ideally), you can average 34 damage per turn with a huge and a large animate object (other combinations deal less damage). But that relies on hits and these constructs staying alive long enough to deal damage on subsequent turns. Even without that, they are at least extra targets for enemies to go after. If you can hit with most attacks and have these last for 2-3 turns, the damage output should be worth the spell slot.
• Bigby’s hand (5/5) – You can deal more damage with animate objects but you have less flexibility. This can push, grapple and protect on different turns. Pushing could be great for getting nasty enemies out the way, into AoE effects or off walls. At 30ft, this is some major distance for a push too. In typical circumstances, the grapple will probably be quite effective as it can deal damage and grapple. Particularly useful against a melee character and to let you move someone around while damaging them (so probably better than the push as the hand can move 30ft while grappling). It’s a dexterity saving throw so could work against a lot of melee creatures and is one of only a few ways to grapple a huge creature.
• Cloudkill (3/5) – The damage is alright and it’s persistent so adds up. The problem is keeping enemies in the area to be damaged. Push weapon masteries can help here as well as grapples and similar things but making this effective takes some concerted effort.
• Cone of cold (3/5) – Very similar damage to an upcast fireball, but the disadvantage here is you have to get close to enemies and ahead of your allies to land it against enemies (which isn’t great for a sorcerer), fireball can be shot a long way away.
• Creation (3/5) – This is difficult to assess as it depends on the circumstances of your adventure. As the item is only temporary, it means you’re either creating something to trick someone, or that you only need to use over a short period. Mundane objects are easy to procure, but I suppose you could create a fake item of worth while you steal the original or something like a key while leaving the owner non-the wiser that you’ve duplicated the key. I still feel it’s a bit situational, but this could be a fun spell with the right adventure and the right DM.
• Dominate person (2/5) – If you can get this to work, it can be quite powerful, but with just a 1 minute duration and the need to cast it against someone that isn’t an aggressor (at least if you want a decent chance of this working), this becomes hard to contrive into something that will often work. Add to this the fact that less creatures are now classed as humanoid and this spell has diminished even further in usefulness.
• Hold monster (3/5) – Incapacitate a monster for a while is decent. Hold person is a much lower spell slot, but monsters tend to be tougher and more common enemies, especially with the recent Monster Manual changes making more creatures non-humanoids.
• Insect plague (3/5) – Nice to have a constant 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 fireball 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. So I’d just go for fireball, it’s more instantaneous and easier to engineer. This isn’t bad though.
• Seeming (4/5) – Basically an illusion for the whole party to look like someone else. Really useful for party’s that want to do more sneaking than killing.
• Synaptic static (5/5) – Essentially a fireball that weakens it’s victims. A great option for big damage and debuffing without needing to maintain concentration. The debuff is quite substantial and intelligence is rarely strong on creatures. I think I’d often prefer this over fireball.
• Telekinesis (3/5) – The effects aren’t super powerful on this, but it has such broad utility that it can be useful in a lot of situations. You can restrain, drop from heights, disarm or pull items from far away towards you. And this includes quite big objects too. Just don’t expect big damage on this.
• Teleportation circle (2/5) – More of a practical spell than anything else. It sort of can become necessary if you need to easily jump around places but it’s useless if you don’t need to go to the same few locations repeatedly.
• Wall of stone (4/5) – Strong battlefield control spell. Isolate and split up enemies to make things a bit easier to handle.

Level 6 spells

• Arcane gate (2/5) – I think the use case for this is to unexpectedly appear before enemies, attack them, and then run back through the portal where your allies have laid a trap. It’s got it’s uses but it’s too situational, relying on a fairly long line of sight for instance. If you just want to teleport, dimension door can do that.
• Chain lightning (5/5) – High damage spell that can hit 4 targets and you don’t have to worry about allies getting in the way of an AoE spell. Careful spell can take care of that for a sorcerer, but this will save you some sorcery points and do similar damage to an upcast fireball assuming the same number of targets.
• Circle of death (4/5) – Basically a huge and more powerful fireball. Straightforward, strong option.
• Disintegrate (4/5) – You’ll average 75 damage with this which is pretty big, but will be outperformed by circle of death and chain lightning when multiple targets are available. But disintegrating an enemy once they’ve been weakened a bit could be the difference between permanently killing an enemy, and having them come back again somehow. The damage is also pretty reliable with a flat 40 damage plus the extra dice damage.
• Eyebite (4/5) – Continuously nullify enemies for the rest of the combat. Poisoned may feel less consequential, but there’s no saving throw required so it will always succeed. That includes against big bosses that have legendary resistance!
• Flesh to stone (2/5) – Nasty save or suck spell, but you probably won’t petrify an enemy until combat has finished or is ending. Still, it can maintain restraint and there may be other reasons you want an enemy petrified.
• Globe of invulnerability (3/5) – Fairly effective method for dealing with nasty spells. It has it’s issues though. It won’t work on level 6+ spells (which are the scariest). A spellcaster could also enter the area of the globe to bypass it’s protection.
• Mass suggestion (5/5) – 12 creatures is a lot of targets and you can choose whoever you want within 60ft. You essentially incapacitate them and create another effect if you want making this a very powerful option. This even has out of combat utility. The duration is really long and lasts 24hrs too; without concentration!
• Move earth (1/5) – This certainly isn’t a combat spell and it’s a little lacking in the versatility department too, but the effects can be large. You could dig down into a creature’s burrow perhaps or create traps and natural terrain to protect your party from an attack. But these are all very situational and take a lot of time making this spell difficult to recommend.
• Otiluke’s freezing sphere (5/5) – This basically averages the same damage as circle of death, but with a couple of added benefits. It has twice the range, can freeze water, restraining those in the water and can be precast and thrown within a minute. This means you could cast the spell ahead of combat, pass it to a barbarian to throw on the first round while you dish out another nasty spell. You might want to use subtle spell to keep your tactics quiet for an ambush.
• 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.

Level 7 spells

• Delayed blast fireball (4/5) – This is strong damage, but I’d argue the point of this spell is to ready a spell for an ambush or get creatures in position while it builds up power. But the power increase isn’t huge and means not eliminating creatures you could have eliminated already by just exploding the fireball. At its base damage, it will deal as much as an upcast fireball, I’d just be tempted to use that instead. It remains a powerful spell, just a difficult one to manufacture into more of a use than simply hurling a fireball. Just be aware, even if you explode it straight away, it will still end your concentration on another spell.
• 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 and might be a worthy pairing to save the 7th level spell slot this requires. The effects would be weaker though. You’d also need an ally to cast one of these spells due to the concentration requirements.
• Finger of death (3/5) – An average of 61.5 damage on a failed save or half on a pass is decent. However, it’s less than disintegrate. Turning someone into a zombie is cool, but not particularly useful at this level so I’d say just take disintegrate.
• Fire storm (4/5) – It’s not as much damage as an upcast fireball, but the area is bigger and the ability to affect certain zones and not others will help you avoid allies and capture more enemies.
• 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 its 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.
• Prismatic spray (4/5) – This has a big area of effect and some pretty juicy effects. It’s a little random, but essentially you’ll either damage a foe or incapacitate them a bit (or even a lot).
• Reverse gravity (4/5) – This is not only very useful, it’s also loads of fun. Great for tackling nasty melee enemies or getting to awkward locations. There’s no saving throws on this so enjoy making a tarrasque hover somehow!
• Teleport (4/5) – This is your most flexible form of teleportation allowing multiple creatures to teleport with you to basically anywhere on this plane of existence. It’s success is limited by your familiarity with the location though.

Level 8 spells

• Demiplane (2/5) – A secret hideout for when the battle has been tough or you need somewhere to rest can be quite useful. But an 8th level spell (your only one) is a high price to pay for some safety when sleeping.
• Dominate monster (5/5) – Powerful if you can get a monster unawares with this. You should regularly be able to use this by sneaking before a combat, casting it and catching the creature unawares, and now it will help with your combat. It can work on some really tough creatures too.
• 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 sorcerers that want to sow some chaos, but it’s far too difficult to reliably do what you want for a spell of this level.
• Incendiary cloud (4/5) – Sort of like a lingering, more powerful fireball that is hard to see through. If you can get enemies to keep getting caught by the cloud’s effects, it can be really powerful. Consider having allies push enemies into it or use grappling and restraining spells to keep them in its area. It’ll take work and coordination to make the most of this spell though, meaning it might also only be really effective on the first turn.
• Power word stun (1/5) – I struggle to understand why you wouldn’t just cast hold person or hold monster. They don’t even have hit point restrictions and can be upcast to affect more creatures. The only advantage this has is that it will at least reduce speed to 0 for a turn on a fail and works automatically on most creatures, but that’s almost nothing at the cost of a level 8 spell! Especially when your spell save DC should be quite strong.
• 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. The radius is also much larger so you can catch more enemies in its effects.

Level 9 spells

• 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…
• Meteor swarm (5/5) – An absolutely devastating AoE damage spells with high damage and 4 meteors should be devastating to most creatures!
• Power word kill (3/5) – High damage spell that hits automatically or completely kills the target. The difference in average damage dealt and actually killing something with 100 hit points is 22 so not massive, but without outright killing, this isn’t much better than disintegrate. If you can’t accurately work out how much HP the creature has left, it’ll still deal some decent damage, but not much more than a 6th level spell.
• Time stop (4/5) – Really interesting spell to setup lots of powerful effects. But there’s some big limitations as you can’t affect another creature otherwise the spell ends. I suppose the idea is that your final turn is spent casting a spell that can affect other creatures and previous spells are for buffs or setup. Something like delayed blast fireball could be quite useful here. The same with things like summons and defensive spells. There’s probably some utility here too, but it’s a hugely powerful spell to spend on anything too frivolous.
• Wish (5/5) – The text literally says it’s “the mightiest spell a mortal can cast”. In its basic form, you can cast any spell of 8th level or lower without needing to meet other requirements. This includes the time taken to cast the spell. It just occurs. You can also upcast spells to 8th level too (as confirmed by Jeremy Crawford). To make this worth more than just upcasting a spell at 8th level though, you’ll want to cast a spell that normally requires expensive resources (like sequester), isn’t ordinarily available to you (like spirit guardians) or that would normally take longer than an action to cast (like symbol). There are other powerful effects you can cause with the wish spell too, but these come with risks, including a 33% chance you can never cast wish again and taking damage when casting spells until you take a long rest. So cast with care!

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Do you have any favourite sorcerer spells? Or think I’ve been harsh on your favourite spell. Let me know in the comments below.

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