The Best Spells for Clerics in Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) Fifth Edition (5E)

As far as spells go, Clerics have the benefit of being able to prepare spells on a whim each day, completing changing the list of spells they are able to cast after every Long Rest. Because of this, your choice of spell matters a lot less than a class who is stuck with a limited number of spells known, but the downside is that it means that a cleric has a smaller spell list than other casting classes. Clerics focus primarily on buff spells and healing, but also have an interesting array of debuffs and some damage dealing capability. However, unless you go Tempest Cleric, your ability to lay out the same amount of damage as a Sorcerer or Wizard is likely to be limited. Nevertheless, Clerics have spells for most occasions, some spells will situationally be better than others, and it’s impossible to know what any individual DM or adventure will throw at you, but here are the top picks!

Cantrips:

• Guidance: While not particularly useful in combat, Guidance should be applied on essentially every skill check. There’s essentially no reason not to use it and you will make everyone better at everything that they need to do. It’s a huge win, and possibly one of the best spells for level in the game
• Sacred Flame: A decent source of radiant damage, with a handy amount of damage. It requires a saving throw so you can use it against melee attackers and it ignores all but total cover according to Sage Advice. The damage scales well enough that there’s very quickly no reason to ever use a weapon again. Great cantrip.
• Word of Radiance: This is the Cantrip to go for when you as the healer get surrounded by enemies and you don’t have a good AoE spell to burn, or you need to save your higher level spell slots. As far as damage goes, it can quickly outpace frontline fighters on damage per round if you have enough enemies in close proximity.

1st Level:

• Bless: This spell might simply be the best spell in the game, and since it’s only a first level spell slot. If you are in combat and your cleric isn’t concentrating on anything else, there should always be a bless up. A bless mathematically increases the chance of your party dealing more damage and taking less damage round by round. It is useful in every regard, and it’s so cheap as far as spell slots are concerned, that it’s quite easy to keep this up and on all of your party members.
• Guiding Bolt: Spectacular damage for a low level spell and gives the next attack advantage. Fantastic for setting up your melee front line or giving the party rogue Sneak Attack and has a decent range as well, so you can snipe it in from the backline.
• Healing Word: It’s no secret that healing in 5e is terrible. You will never keep up enough healing to match damage output at any level. Almost the only useful thing it does is get your friends back above consciousness. Better to use a bonus action than an action to do so, and keep yourself open to use a cantrip or attack, and Healing Word has more range, meaning you don’t have to incur Attacks of Opportunity on yourself running across the battlefield to touch your ally for Cure Wounds.
• Sanctuary: The best way to win a battle in D&D is to not get hit. It’s a quick bonus action, so you can still cast Sacred Flame in the same turn, it doesn’t cost concentration and can screw with your enemies. I recommend casting this on Wizards or Rogues, anyone in the party that has a little less Hp and would benefit from being hit less over the course of the fight.

2nd Level:

• Aid: Basically no better 2nd level spell as far as buffs go. It increases characters hit point maximum, which means it doesn’t interfere with also giving them temporary hit points via Heroism. It is not concentration, it lasts 8 hours, you can basically drop it on your entire front line. There’s nothing not to love here.
• Augury: Your first decent Divination spell, this spell requires a DM who can think ahead and knows the answers to some of your questions, but it essentially allows you to toggle hints like you’re in the Tutorial of a video game, and the spell component is reusable unlike Augury’s higher level cousin Divination.
• Enhance Ability: All around fantastic utility spells. Enhance Ability gives you advantage on anything you need. Cat’s Grace on the rogue, now they have advantage on Stealth or Sleight of Hand, Bull’s Strength on the Barbarian, now they have advantage on Grappling and Athletics checks to shove. Eagle’s Splendor on yourself and now you have advantage on Persuasion and Deception checks AND more importantly advantage on Counterspell checks as well.
• Silence: Basically every spell in the game has a verbal component. If your enemies are bunched up, or if the barbarian/fighter has them pinned in one area. Drop Silence and the enemy spellcasters are instantly useless.
• Spiritual Weapon: Spiritual is a bonus action, and continues to be a bonus action. If your cleric needs a bit of extra damage over the course of a combat, then Spiritual Weapon is one of the best spells. You can continue to move the weapon, and it doesn’t even have Concentration. A cleric with Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians and using their action to cast Cantrips is a deadly force in a lower level campaign.

3rd Level:

• Bestow Curse: Bestow Curse is insane, I’m pretty sure whoever made the spell just didn’t consider how broken it was. Casting it at a higher level basically ruins enemies. I suggest looking through all the effects, but robbing creatures of their turn every time they fail their saving throw is my personal favorite.
• Dispel magic: 120 foot range, can take care of multiple buffs on enemies, and with Eagle’s Splendor and a decent charisma it will be hard for you to fail. I highly recommend this spell. Also useful if you have to disarm magical traps or other wards.
• Motivational Speech: Another great option for temporary hit points, and you don’t have to take the Inspiring Leader feat to do it, very good spell.
• Protection from Energy: Situational, but a highly sought after defense for your frontline, especially if you have a good idea of what kind of monsters you are fighting ahead of time. The downside is that it’s a single ally and holds your concentration over the course of a fight.
• Revivify: It costs 300 gp to cast, but it will change the ending of a dramatic fight from having to bury an ally and have the player make a new character, to them popping up good as new. You can even use Revivify in combat, as it’s only 1 action to cast, and you can cast it up to 1 minute after the character has died. So even if you have to wait until you’re out of combat, you have 10 rounds to do so.
• Spirit Guardians: Spirit Guardians is a huge spell. It has a 15 foot radius, it deals damage at the beginning of every enemy's turns and it forces them to move at half speed. It’s duration is 10 minutes long, possibly allowing you to kite this from fight to fight if they are within close proximity, such as a tougher dungeon crawl.
• Tongues: Assuming you are the face of the part you’ll want to use this on yourself, and for a low level spell that allows you to talk to basically any creature in the game with a language, it is certainly worth picking up.

4th Level:

• Banishment: Hands down one of the best spells of any level in the game. It immediately removes a creature from play entirely if they fail the save, the save which is Charisma, an incredibly rare save to find in the Monster Manual. More importantly, many high level creatures are from other planes to begin with, so if you can hold concentration until the end of the fight they might simply never come back at all. If you have this spell and the Feat Warcaster, you are in excellent shape.
• Death Ward: An 8 hour duration, no concentration. Once you get to high levels, this spell should be dropped on the entire front line. Instead of having to waste more diamond dust, and turns healing your allies, they instead go to 1 hit point and deal even more damage before they go down. It also has the incredibly handy effect of stopping death effects like Power Word Kill from immediately destroying your allies before they can get a shot off.
• Divination: The more powerful cousin of Augury, it costs 25 gp for every casting, but you get a much more clear cut answer directly from your deity. It’s the perfect Cleric spell.
• Stone Shape: Based somewhat on how much Dungeon Crawling or Castle Sieging you do, Stone Shape has nearly limitless uses for a clever cleric to make all kinds of crazy changes to the world, and potentially bypass monsters, traps, locked doors and other obstacles while saving more resources for the harder fights.

5th Level:

• Greater Restoration: Restores all ability score damage, removes a point of Exhaustion, and more, Greater Restoration is a spell at least one party member should be able to cast, so if you don’t have a cleric, you should pick it up.
• Scrying: The initial component is incredibly expensive, but you only have to buy it one time. The spell focuses on the target, but gives you a nearly perfect way to spy on the enemy, or even to simply check in on an ally. Scrying is a pretty archetypal D&D spell, and is even useful for the DM to provide information and backstory for their villains that the players might not see in another fashion.
• Summon Celestial: This new spell out of Tasha’s allows you to summon a cool angel fighter to your defense. Both the Defender and Avenger option make excellent combatants that deal Radiant damage and can fly. I have to say these summons actually hold up in most combats and I highly recommend this spell.

6th Level:

• Heal: Other than its more powerful version, Mass Heal, Heal is essentially the most powerful heal in the game. It straight up gives a creature 70 hit points and it removes most of the lower tier status conditions such as diseases and poisons. A very handy spell, and one of the few healing spells that’s actually worth a spell slot before characters are at 1 hit point.
• True Seeing: See through Illusions, ignore invisibility, see into the Ethereal Plane, see Hidden Doors, ignore magical darkness and see a Shapechanger’s true form at any time. The spell might not be useful all the time, but when it is, it’s a no-brainer.
• Word of Recall: A level before Teleport, this spell allows you to head home to a designated holy space, and get you out of dodge immediately for the cost of a single action. Very good spell for its level, and incredibly handy in a pinch.

7th Level:

• Etherealness: This spell lasts 8 hours, you are nearly undetectable by creatures on the Material Plane which allows you to scout dungeons, escape combats and spy on other creatures. It’s even long enough to hazard a long rest, though I expect there are better uses for a 7th level spell.
• Plane Shift: A single target save or suck spell, similarly to Banishment, it simply removes a threat, even better than Banishment they simply don’t come back. In addition, you can use it to travel around the planes with your party members to all kinds of fun places. Especially useful for getting nearly anywhere in the cosmos, or using the Heavens of Celestia as a good place to take a nap when you find yourself in a challenging spot.
• Regenerate: A great long term healing spell, doesn’t require concentration, so a person will never have to make death saves, and a great way to heal out of combat if you’re quickly making your way through a dungeon. It does also heal lost limbs, but that tends to happen fairly infrequently in D&D.

8th Level:

• Antimagic Field: Extremely useful, but also makes you suck for the entirety of the time it is up as you also can’t cast any spells. However, against extremely powerful spellcasters or in the case of other powerful magical effects, this spell might be the difference between life and death.
• Holy Aura: All your allies gain advantage on all of their saves and enemies have disadvantage to hit the whole party. Easily a game winning spell. There is very little question that this is one of the best spells you can have prepared.
• Sunburst: A giant fiery explosion with the chance to blind opponents. It is a Constitution Save which is one of the weaker saves in the game as many creatures have high Con or proficiency in the save, but the sheer size of Sunburst makes it worth it in certain situations.

9th Level:

• Mass Heal: Clerics don’t get too many interesting high level spells. But they do get two amazing healing options. Mass Heal is 700 hit points distributed in any way you wish. IE, your whole party is now full health, basically no question about it.
• Power Word Heal: A single target heal, but it also removes Charmed, Frightened, Paralyzed and Stunned and can make a creature stand up from being prone as a reaction. Ultimately, as far as burning a 9th level spell slot, Mass Heal will almost always be far more useful. But, in certain circumstances, Power Word Heal could give an edge.

If you like this article or any others I have written, consider liking, subscribing, tipping or pledging here on Vocal as it really helps me continue writing! If you're looking for other articles about Clerics, follow the links below!

• Backstories for Clerics
• Backstories for Clerics Pt. 2
• Feats for Clerics
• Magic Items for Clerics
• Best Tempest Cleric Build

If you're looking for spells for another class, look below;

• Cantrips
• Bards
• Druids