D&D Best Cleric Spells For Every Level

Spellcasting is the main appeal of any spellcasting class. Choosing spells that fit your roleplaying needs for every situation.

A cleric casts divine spells which are drawn from the cleric spell list, however, since you have to carefully consider your spell selection from one of the largest spell lists in 5th edition Dungeons and Dragon, making the choice can be overwhelming.

Worry not oh conduit of miracles, we’ll make things a bit easier with a quick list of the best spells available to clerics to help you fill your spell list.

Best Cleric Cantrips.

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Best Cleric Cantrip: Toll the Dead.

A solid choice for damage. This cantrip is a reliable source of necrotic damage with its big damage dice and requiring a wisdom save to avoid.

Why Toll the Dead Is Great:

• Necrotic damage is seldom resisted, ensuring you’ll always get some damage in when battling foes.
• Unlike most damaging cantrips, Toll the Dead requires the target to succeed on a Wisdom saving throw to avoid being harmed, letting you purposely target low wisdom foes to get your shots in.

Best Level 1 Cleric Spells.

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From level 1 spells upwards, clerics need to spend spell slots to manifest the magic of their deities.

Best Level 1 Cleric Spell: Bless.

Bless it’s a top-notch support spell. It gives up to three creatures a bonus 1d4 to all attacks and saving throws for one minute.
This extra d4 stacks with additional effects that gran advantage on attack and saving throws, setting up your team for victory.

Why Bless Is Great:

• You can buff up to three party members, in most groups, that’s almost all of the party.
• Few abilities buff both attack and saves, the two most rolled checks in combat.

Second Best Level 1 Cleric Spell: Healing Word.

Healing is something clerics excel at, and few healing spells can change the tide of battle as radically as Healing Word.

You can heal a creature of your choice as a bonus action with a single word.

Why Bless Is Great:

• Unlike most spells, it takes a bonus action to cast, letting you do something else during your turn.
• It only requires a verbal component, letting you cast it as long as you can speak.

Best Level 2 Cleric spells.

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Best level 2 Cleric Spell: Spiritual Weapon.

As a bonus action, you can create a floating weapon that can move and strike your foes with force damage.

At low levels, Spiritual Weapon’s damage output can match damage done by most ordinary weapons.

Why Spiritual Weapon Is Great:

• It requires a bonus action to conjure.
• It does not require concentration, making this one of the only constant damage spells that do not take up your concentration.

Second Best Level 2 Cleric Spell: Silence.

The perfect low-level utility spell. Silence can create a zone of complete silence or target specific creatures, making it so you can take down your target sneakily, stealth into places after breaking down the door, and even shut down other spell-casters.

You can’t cast a spell with verbal components in the effect of Silence.

Why Silence Is Great:

• Amazing utility is limited only by your creativity.

Best level 3 Cleric spells.

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Best Level 3 Cleric Spell: Spirit Guardians.

By channeling the miracles of your deity, you can deal 3d8 damage and halve the movement of creatures of your choice within 15 feet.

Since the spell is centered on you, this is perfect for melee-oriented clerics who wish to deliver great loads of damage.

Why Spirit Guardians Is Great:

• By halving enemy movement, you become a reliable damage source and a great obstacle to those in melee.
• You can choose to deal radiant or necrotic damage, cherry-picking the best kind to fit the situation.

Second Best Level 3 Cleric Spell: Revivify.

Death is a constant threat in 5th edition, and this spell is the cure.

As long as there is a body and the target hasn’t been dead for longer than a minute, you can bring an ally back from the realm of the dead.

Why Revivify Is Great:

• It gives your party more breathing room to try out crazy ideas since death is no longer the end.
• It takes only 1 action to cast, meaning that the revived ally can be brought back into the fray with a single cast.

Best level 4 Cleric Spells.

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Best Level 4 Cleric Spell: Banishment.

You can send one creature you can see to another plane of existence for the duration if they fail a Charisma saving throw.

This can potentially disable an encounter before it starts, giving the party enough time to regroup, position themselves and prepare before the target comes back.

Why Banishment Is Great:

• If the majority of creatures you fight are monsters from a nightmare, Charisma most likely isn’t their highest ability.
• If the target is native to a different plane of existence than the one you’re on, they are completely banished to their home plane!

Second Best Level 4 Cleric Spell: Death ward.

A potential lifesaver, Death Ward does as its name implies: Protects a target from death in one of two ways.

The first time the target drops to 0 Hit Points they instead drop to 1 Hit Point, otherwise, if the target is subjected to an effect that would kill it instantaneously without dealing damage, it is negated.

Why Death Ward Is Great:

• From allies to protection targets, the ability to avoid imminent death can buy an extra round for someone to escape or win the encounter.
• As you grow in level, so do the threats you face. Instant death effects become more prominent and this spell is the only known protection against them.

Best Level 5 Cleric Spells.

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Best level 5 Cleric Spell: Raise Dead.

A better version of the Revivify spell, Raise Dead can return a dead creature to life if it hasn’t been dead for longer than 10 days, neutralizing all non-magical diseases afflicting them.

Why Raise Dead Is Great:

• Sometimes people don’t die in battle, whether it’s an NPC withholding important information or an enemy you killed, you can bring them back in a bigger time frame than revivify.

Second Best Level 5 Cleric Spell: Greater Restoration.

It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

Greater Restorations is the cure to almost all negative ailments that can afflict a character, propping them back to their feet almost instantly with nary a side effect.

Why Greater Restoration Is Great:

• Some fates are worse than dead: Curses, diseases, and plethora more conditions. Greater Restoration is the only way you can fearlessly charge into battle against foes who enjoy debuffing their enemies.

Best Level 6 Cleric Spells.

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Best Level 6 Cleric Spell: Heroes’ Feast.

One of the best buff spells available. This spell lets you bring forth a great feast that cures all diseases and poison, grants immunity to poison and frightened, advantage on Wisdom saving throws, and increases maximum Hit Points for 24 hours!

Why Heroes’ Feast Is Great:

• While the materials are costly, the boons are so worth it. All of these benefits can turn your party into an unstoppable force against the correct enemies.
• Since it lasts 24 hours, you can time it for when you’re about to storm the BBEG’s stronghold or head into a particularly hazardous quest.

Second Best Level 6 Cleric Spell: Word of Recall.

This spell lets you transport you, and up to five willing creatures within 5 feet to a previously designated sanctuary.

Overland travel is a common thing throughout adventures, usually taking you through perilous forests and blazing deserts, this spell lets you cut the time you need to travel back to 0.

Why Word of Recall Is Great:

• If you’re facing an impossible foe, this spell can save your party from imminent death, bringing you back to a safe spot.
• Sometimes enemies like to attack the heroes’ homes when they are away: Dismantle their plans by coming back immediately.

Best Level 7 Cleric Spells.

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Best Level 7 Cleric Spell: Planeshift.

With a name like that it’s difficult to misunderstand its purpose, Planeshift lets you and your friends move between planes, or, if you’re daring, you can deliver it as a spell attack to force a target to save or be sent to another plane.

Why Planeshift Is Great:

• As an offensive spell, it can completely take foes out of the fight. As long as they have no means of navigating between planes, you can send them somewhere they can cause no harm.
• As a means of transportation, it’s great. You can quickly access the higher tiers of existence, create extra dimensional lairs and hide your diary where others won’t find it.

Second Best Level 7 Cleric Spell: Regenerate.

Not only does regenerate recover a constant amount of Hit Point every round, but it also restores severed body parts, perfect when dealing with foes who truly want you dead.

Why Regenerate Is Great:

• Not only does it heal a decent amount of Hit Points, but recovering 1 Hit Point every turn for 1 Hour means that, unless killed outright, but you also can’t stay down.
• If your game uses body part loss, then this is the only spell that can restore a lost body part, recovering from a wound otherwise unhealable.

Best Level 8 Cleric Spells.

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Best Level 8 Cleric Spell: Antimagic Field.

This spell creates a field that moves with you within which no magic can function.

While it also disables your spells, Clerics are plenty capable of striking down foes with their force of arms, turning this into the perfect anti-wizard spell.

Why Antimagic Field Is Great:

• Spells are one of the most dangerous threats out there, being capable of completely negating magic can render some foes powerless.

Second Best Level 8 Cleric Spell: Holy Aura.

Become a paragon of buffing with the ultimate AoE buff.

Holy Aura lets you pick allies within a 30 feet radius and grant them advantage on all saving throws while all other creatures have disadvantage on attacks against them.

Why Holy Aura Is Great:

• If fiends or undead attack those affected by the spell, they must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be blinded.
• Advantage on all saving throws can turn a potentially deadly scenario into a breeze, for most high tier enemies can force you, or your allies, to save against game-changing effects.

Best Level 9 Cleric Spells.

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Best Level 9 Cleric Spell: Gate.

The ultimate conjuration, this spell lets you manifest a portal that links a location within range to a precise location in a different plane of existence.

If you know the name of a specific creature, that creature is brought through the portal. While it does not grant any kind of control over the creature, it’s a great way to bring unsuspectingly allays, ambush enemies, and even for a large scale, quick getaway.

Why Gate Is Great:

• This spell shines when you need to bring someone on another plane of existence towards you. Whether you’re rescuing someone lost in the twisting nether or ambushing a plane-shifting threat, it’s up to you.
• Gate is amazing because it’s an actual portal that stays open for the duration. Depending on your creativity, you could come up with amazing scenarios like opening a hole into the never-ending seas of the plane of water and the like.

Second Best Level 9 Cleric Spell: Mass Heal.

This is it, the ultimate healing spell.

Mass Heal heals up to 700 Hit Points distributed amongst creatures within 60 feet of you as well as curing disease, blindness, and deafness.

This can turn the tide of battle, either bringing a large army back to full health or bringing your allies to peak efficiency, Mass Heal is the epitome of healing magic.

Why Mass Heal Is Great:

• This spell shines the most when cast among a large number of people, perfectly patching up the victims of a large AoE effect.

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