Which sorcerer subclasses are best and what are they good at?
There are 4 sorcerer subclasses in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. For most sorcerers though, your subclass won’t change your playstyle hugely. All sorcerers remain powerful spellcasters that want to stay away from danger and fire nasty spells at the enemy.
What will change with your subclass is the details of how you accomplish this. For instance, a draconic sorcerer will be tougher and deal more damage with certain elemental spells which might become the focus of your character. A wild magic sorcerer on the other hand, will attempt to invoke wild magic surges to layer additional effects onto their spells.
The current sorcerer subclasses for D&D 2024 include:
- Aberrant sorcery: Use psionic powers and spells to become something of a utility specialist.
- Clockwork sorcery: Wield the magic of order to tip the balance of combat in their favour. Highly reliable spellcasters that can manage nasty magical effects.
- Draconic sorcery: More resilient than other sorcerers and able to deal more damage. These sorcerers possess the magic of dragons.
- Wild magic sorcery: Layer wild magic surges onto their spells to create powerful, but very random effects.
In this article, I’ve taken a deep dive into each subclass to help you know their capabilities and how good they are at what they do. I’ve also rated each subclass to help you choose which one is best for your character.
Aberrant sorcery
What are they?
Aberrant sorcerers have been transformed by aberrant beings from the Far Realm. This grants them psionic abilities like telepathy, telekinesis and transformations, making them something of a utility specialist.
Key abilities
- Telepathic speech (lv3) – Speak telepathically.
- Psionic sorcery (lv6) – Cast spells discreetly without verbal or somatic components.
- Psychic defenses (lv6) – Resistance to psychic damage and advantage on saving throws against the charmed and frightened conditions.
- Revelation in flesh (Lv14) – Transform yourself to gain attributes like flight, a swim speed, the ability to breath underwater, to see invisible creatures and/or wriggle through tight spaces.
- Warping implosion (Lv18) – Teleport away from danger, leaving behind an implosion for your enemies.
What are they good at?
Aberrant sorcerers are the utility specialists of the sorcerer subclasses. With telepathy and transformations at their fingertips alongside utility spells like detect magic and telekinesis, they are able to tackle a wide range of out of combat functions.
How effective are they?
Although aberrant sorcerers do succeed at being a decent utility class, their main problem is when features kick in. Their best feature is revelation in flesh which gives them flight, a swim speed and the ability to see invisibility. However, this doesn’t kick in until level 14, leaving the aberrant sorcerer without a really good feature until then. And many of these types of abilities are available with spells you can grab from level 5 or even earlier.
Although less of an issue, being an effective utility specialist requires investment in skills. This isn’t a sorcerer’s natural forte. Feats like skilled and your background can help here, but you’ll likely want to invest in stealth and scouting skills on top of the usual face skills which is a lot of demands on a relatively unskillful class.
My other issue with the subclass is their level 18 feature which relies on things going very wrong before it’s useful. Teleportation and AoE damage are very handy, but sorcerers should do everything in their power not to be surrounded by enemies, and this damage will also harm nearby allies too. This makes the capstone feature awkward at best.
This isn’t to say that aberrant sorcery is a bad subclass. Telepathy, resistances and subtle spells are all decent enough. And as they kick in, your transformations are really good. But the best parts of this subclass kicks in too late to be of use to most characters and this feels unnecessary.
If you desperately want a utility sorcerer, then aberrant sorcery is your best option. Just be aware that it’s probably the weakest of all the sorcerer subclasses.
Score: 2.5/5
Clockwork sorcery
What are they?
Sorcerers infused with the powers of order from the plane of Mechanus. This subclass seeks to bring balance to combat by removing conditions, revoking advantages and disadvantages, preventing low rolls and guarding against devastating attacks.
Key abilities
- Restore balance (lv3) – Use a reaction to remove advantage or disadvantage from a d20 roll.
- Bastion of law (lv6) – Use sorcery points to protect a creature from damage with a number of d8s equal to the sorcery points used.
- Trance of order (lv14) – For a minute you can prevent attacks from having advantage against you and ensure all d20 tests have a minimum roll of 10.
- Clockwork cavalcade (lv18) – Create a 30ft cube that heals 100HP, repairs and dispels magic from spells of 6th level or lower.
What are they good at?
Buffs, debuffs and being extremely reliable at hitting. They’re also great at removing nasty things like conditions and spell effects from allies.
How effective are they?
Really effective! I think this may be one of the best subclasses in D&D 2024! Not only can you protect yourself and allies from large amounts of damage, remove condition and spell effects and prevent problematic effects of advantage and disadvantage, but at level 14, you’re nearly guaranteed to hit with every spell attack you make!
This also means the clockwork sorcerer is absolutely devastating with a chromatic orb from level 14+. The level 18 capstone feature is also impressive with a lot of healing and dispelling of magical effects.
If you’re looking for a protective and extremely reliable subclass (or even just an excellent sorcerer subclass), then there’s none better than the clockwork sorcerer in my opnion!
Score: 5/5
Draconic sorcery
What are they?
Sorcerers touched by the magic of dragons. This subclass is tougher and deals a bit more damage than other sorcerer subclasses.
Key abilities
- Draconic resilience (lv3) – get a form of unarmored defence and +1HP per level.
- Elemental affinity (lv6) – Deal extra spell damage with an elemental damage type of your choice and gain resistance to that damage type.
- Dragon wings (lv14) – Gain an hour of flight once per long rest.
- Dragon companion (lv18) – Cast summon dragon without using a spell slot or concentration.
What are they good at?
Being tougher and more durable than other sorcerers. Dealing a bit more damage than other sorcerers. They also get some utility with their flight.
How effective are they?
Draconic sorcerers are pretty good. Sorcerers desperately need more durability and draconic sorcery dishes that out in spades! Much improved AC, more HP, a damage resistance and even flight at later levels all work to help you survive much longer.
Elemental affinity gives a decent enough damage boost of about 4-5 damage per spell. it does lock you into certain spells, but your transmuted spell metamagic option can help you out there. The dragon companion is also a nice boost, allowing you to essentially have an extra concentration spell on the go in some combats.
My only quibble with the subclass is that flight kicks in a little late. You already have the fly spell through the subclass from level 5, and while this is a free use, it feels a little underwhelming at level 14. Admittedly, it’s tricky to know what you would do to bring it in at a lower level, but it does feel a shame that it takes so long to become available.
Still, this is a pretty strong subclass that manages to capably address a sorcerer’s biggest weakness (durability), enhance their biggest strength (spell damage) and throw a bit of utility into the mix too.
Score: 4/5
Wild magic sorcery
What are they?
Sorcerers afflicted with wild magic. While usually beneficial, wild magic is highly unpredictable, requiring wielders of its powers to think on their feet and adapt as random magical effects are manifested from their being.
Key abilities
- Wild magic surge (lv3) – Have a chance to unleash wild magic when you cast a sorcerer spell. This causes a random effect from the wild magic table.
- Tides of chaos (lv3) – Give yourself advantage on d20 tests, but this will also cause future spells to cause wild magic surges.
- Bend luck (lv6) – Use your reaction to add or subtract 1d4 from a d20 test.
- Controlled chaos (lv14) – When causing a wild magic surge, you can roll twice on the wild magic table and choose which effect you want to create.
- Tamed surge (lv18) – Once per long rest, you can choose the wild magic effect rather than rolling for a random effect.
What are they good at?
Layering magical effects onto their spells making each spell cast, more powerful as a result. They’re also better at spell attacks due to having a fairly consistent method for gaining advantage on d20 tests.
How effective are they?
This is really hard to answer. Theoretically, they are the most powerful sorcerer subclass in the game because each spell cast has the potential to layer on an additional effect, many of which are similar in power to many spells that you might cast.
The challenge is you just don’t know what effect you’re going to get. In many cases, it just won’t be what you needed or it might even be negative (though these effects are rare). This also means thinking on you feet, hurling the wild magic surge in the most beneficial way possible with very little time to consider the ramifications of that choice.
At high levels, this does become more reliable and I’d argue at high levels, wild magic sorcerers can be extremely effective because of this.
Ultimately, this is an extremely hard subclass to evaluate. However, if you love unpredictability and thinking on your feet, this is not only an excellent subclass, it’s also loads of fun too. I have opted for a very middling score, but in the right hands and with the right kind of luck, I think this could well be an extremely satisfying subclass.
Score: 3/5
Which sorcerer subclass is best?
Although a lucky wild magic sorcerer may technically be the most powerful, and the draconic sorcerer is the toughest, I think this honour goes to the clockwork sorcerer. While unpredictability can be loads of fun, when it comes to creating an optimal build, clockwork sorcery is just that good at causing and disrupting magical effects.
That’s not to say that the wild magic and draconic sorcery subclasses are poor. I think they’re both pretty good, but clockwork sorcery is just that good!
Unfortunately, I do think the aberrant sorcerer stumbles a little and feels sub-optimal to me. At high levels, they do make a decent utility caster, but sadly, you’re waiting too long for its keystone feature. It’s perfectly fine to take it if those are the abilities and flavour you want, but for me, this is the weakest of the sorcerer subclasses.
Which sorcerer subclass do you think is the best? Let me know which one and why in the comments below.
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