D&D 5E What's the worst spell?

[DaveDash]

It does have some stiff competition in the form of Regenerate, Symbol, Conjure Celestial, and MAYBE Fire Storm. As always, what you prepare depends on what you think you'll face. Demon invasion? Divine Word to the rescue! Lich stole the queen's soul? Not so much.

Yeah, I edited my post, and the other options at level 7 (You need to include 7th level heal as well) as extremely useful. Plane Shift is awesome in utility and offensively.

I agree though yes, under some specific situations this spell could be pretty good in mass combat scenarios, extra planar mass combat as an added bonus. It is only 1/day though so it's still very hard to justify.

 

[Rhenny]

Ray of Enfeeblement - During the playtest, I remember it was a first level spell that reduced the target's damage done to 1 point of damage (something like that - I can't quite remember now). I commented on that as being too powerful. I bet lots of other people did too because they nerfed it too much, making it a 2nd level spell that only reduced damage to 1/2 with additional Con saves each round to overcome the spell. That's certainly not worth a 2nd level slot.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yeah, I edited my post, and the other options at level 7 (You need to include 7th level heal as well) as extremely useful. Plane Shift is awesome in utility and offensively.

Eh... 7th level Heal just isn't exciting IMO compared to Regenerate. Nigh-immortality for an hour plus 600 points of healing stomps all over 80 points of healing. The only advantage Heal has is that it's quick to cast.

I don't like playing clerics (I'd rather play support as a Lore Bard), but even if I did it's hard to imagine ever memorizing and casting Heal.

 

[DaveDash]

Eh... 7th level Heal just isn't exciting IMO compared to Regenerate. Nigh-immortality for an hour plus 600 points of healing stomps all over 80 points of healing. The only advantage Heal has is that it's quick to cast.

I don't like playing clerics (I'd rather play support as a Lore Bard), but even if I did it's hard to imagine ever memorizing and casting Heal.

Regenerate is good on paper, trust me I prepared it, but not good in practice. A minutes casting time for example means you need to prepare, and plenty of times you don't have this luxury. Right now in our fight against Tiamat regenerate would be useless, anyone unlucky enough to drop to zero HP would be eaten. Heal is what's keeping us alive in the fight.

Youre great at theorycraft but experience often paints a different picture. Are you really going to waste a 7th level slot when healing hit dice can suffice for out of combat healing? Regenerate does have its uses but Heal is vastly better for those moments IN COMBAT when you really need it.

 

[jaelis]

I think it is quite a bit worse, especially when you are not looking at just raw dpr. Poison Spray does the same damage as WB, albeit with the significant disadvantages of 10' range and a Con save. Fire Bolt does about a point less damage but has a much better range and also, along with other attack cantrips, benefits from advantage. Then there's the big benefit of the cantrips in that they don't use a spell slot. You can spam one each round and still have your concentration on some other effect. You may miss some rounds sure, but you also don't have to commit to doing so each round if the situation changes, and you don't loose the spell if the target moves out of range or goes under cover. Sure, if your target is going to just stand there and take it round after round, WB will really do a number on them, eventually. But usually that only happens if a) they are heavily engaged with the rest of your party/allies such that they cannot approach you to force a concentration check and for some reason cannot back out of range or quickly move through some cover, or b) they are chained up/incapacitated and you are torturing them to death.

While I can see situation a coming up occasionally, I'm not sure that WB is the best use of the spell slot, depending on resources and options available, in the race to zero hp. It can be better to buff one of the fighters and pew, pew, pew with a cantrip, or to MM the target and pew, pew, pew, as more damage earlier in the fight can be more valuable than more damage spread out over many rounds. As for option b), by all means, just make sure you bust out cool lines like "And now you die young Skywalker!"

OK, here's a proposal for quantifying how sucky a spell is: suppose you reduced it's level by one: would you be willing to cast it then? For a level 1 spell, say you got the level 2 effect for a level 1 slot. So WB would do 2d12 in the first round, 1d12 after. Mord's would still be 3d10 at level 6.

By that measure, I think witch bolt passes. It wouldn't be a great spell, but it would be a reasonable pick at low levels when slots are scarce and cantrips are only one die. If you got the follow up damage for two rounds it would be about the same as magic missile plus cantrips, and if you had advantage on the initial attack it would take just one round of follow up.

In comparison, Mord's sword at level 6 would still be worse than an upcast flaming sphere. And almost always you'd be better off casting disintegrate if you're just after damage.

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Alternatively, compare WB upcast to 7th level with MS. WB does 7d12 = 45.5 damage in the first round, and then you'd probably end it to cast something else. MS does 3d10 = 17.5, so you'd need 3 rounds of MS to catch WB. I think I'd rather take the damage all up front and not have to worry about maintaining concentration.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Regenerate is good on paper, trust me I prepared it, but not good in practice. A minutes casting time for example means you need to prepare, and plenty of times you don't have this luxury. Right now in our fight against Tiamat regenerate would be useless, anyone unlucky enough to drop to zero HP would be eaten. Heal is what's keeping us alive in the fight.

Tiamat is a perfect example of an enemy for whom there is ample time to prepare by casting Regenerate. It's not like you don't know you're about to sneak into her temple, and not like you don't know how useful the spell is going to be in combat.

Youre great at theorycraft but experience often paints a different picture. Are you really going to waste a 7th level slot when healing hit dice can suffice for out of combat healing? Regenerate does have its uses but Heal is vastly better for those moments IN COMBAT when you really need it.

You're pretty great yourself at giving back-handed compliments. Moving on...

Are you really going to sit around for an hour in Tiamat's temple healing? It's one thing to spend a minute casting Regenerate outside the front doors; it's another thing completely to stop for an hour long lunch break as the ritual nears completion.

I challenge your claim about the "anyone unlucky enough to drop to zero HP would be eaten" in the context of believing that Heal is awesome. If Tiamat breathes on you twice in one round, anyone with Regenerate cast on him still gets a full turn's worth of actions next round, but the guy who had an 80 HP Heal is still at 0 HP. You can still die while wearing Regenerate, e.g. from massive damage or three attacks that all hit you in one turn (one to drop you to 0 HP, two more to cause two more failed death saves each if they are within 5') but it helps a lot more than Heal does, especially against Tiamat because her breath weapons only cause one death save failure (they can't auto-crit).

 

[Iry]

Mending is in theory kind of useful but I have _never_ seen a situation come up in play where you'd cast it.

Any Necromancer should probably have Mending. It's a great way to repair broken bones, so you can keep using the same corpses for Animate Dead over and over again.

I mean, you probably don't even need Mending because Animate Dead doesn't say the pile of bones has to be intact, but some DMs might claim your bones are damaged and cannot be re-animated. Mending overcomes that limitation.

 

[DaveDash]

Edit: Double Post somehow

 

[DaveDash]

Tiamat is a perfect example of an enemy for whom there is ample time to prepare by casting Regenerate. It's not like you don't know you're about to sneak into her temple, and not like you don't know how useful the spell is going to be in combat.



You're pretty great yourself at giving back-handed compliments. Moving on...

Are you really going to sit around for an hour in Tiamat's temple healing? It's one thing to spend a minute casting Regenerate outside the front doors; it's another thing completely to stop for an hour long lunch break as the ritual nears completion.

I challenge your claim about the "anyone unlucky enough to drop to zero HP would be eaten" in the context of believing that Heal is awesome. If Tiamat breathes on you twice in one round, anyone with Regenerate cast on him still gets a full turn's worth of actions next round, but the guy who had an 80 HP Heal is still at 0 HP. You can still die while wearing Regenerate, e.g. from massive damage or three attacks that all hit you in one turn (one to drop you to 0 HP, two more to cause two more failed death saves each if they are within 5') but it helps a lot more than Heal does, especially against Tiamat because her breath weapons only cause one death save failure (they can't auto-crit).

They were two seperate examples. In theory craft land you don't ever get surprised or lack preparation, but in real D&D it happens all the time. We've had plenty of tough fights where we haven't had that minute time to prepare - and heal is versatile in the sense it's useful ALL the time.

Your example against Tiamat is flawed. Firstly by the time we found her we actually didn't have a minute to prepare, because we found the ritual to summon her first and we needed to act quick.

Secondly theres no guarantee the person I cast regenerate on will actually need it. I might cast it on myself, but it turns out our sharpshooter Fighter gets pummelled and needs healing desperately. I've now lost that tactical flexibility and ability to react to the combat as it develops, and as a result wasted a 7th level slot.
Tiamat is a god and might even be able to sense the magic and just ignore the person with regenerate.
It lacks tactical flexibility - basic limited resource decision tree logic.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Well, being Resistant to Slashing, Bludgeoning, and Piercing damage for the rest of your adventuring career may be "boring", but some kinds of boring are more appealing than others.


Just saying, players don't always do the wacky things you want them to do. Or even the reasonable things you want them to do.

When my group had the opportunity to do this we chose Force and Psychic, for example. No one likes being disintegrated...