'Cure Wounds' is D&D's Most Popular Spell

It's been a while since I've posted a data update from D&D Beyond (we've already seen the most common adventures, classes by tier, and subclasses, and more). This time it's the turn of spells, as the D&D Beyond developers reveal the post popular spells both overall and broken down by class.

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The most popular spell is cure wounds. These spells are either picked as a known spell or is explicitly prepared from all spellcasters. Most skew to lower levels because most D&D games are played at lower levels.

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[Dausuul]

You also still have 43% of all Warlocks not taking Eldritch Blast. I'm honestly not certain if I should be heartened or alarmed by that.

I expect a lot of them are bladelocks. Eldritch blast is still useful for bladelocks--it gives you a nice reliable ranged attack--but it's not the absolute must-have pick that it is for a regular blaster warlock.

 

[Gradine]

I expect a lot of them are bladelocks. Eldritch blast is still useful for bladelocks--it gives you a nice reliable ranged attack--but it's not the absolute must-have pick that it is for a regular blaster warlock.

Ah... that makes sense.

 

[Sacrosanct]

since they killed the wizards power because the fighters seemed left out and the warlock was getting his butt handed to him, yes little can be done with the wizard neutered edition of d&d 5th edition as it is. I like the old glass cannon wizard of old, and thank goodness i found a working class some one did on line. People don't play a class any more its dip in this and that and then wonder why they die horribly. Over all i like 5th, less power creep than 3rd x any way but i feel they lost too much of it with the over simplifying of the system. But thank fully for me it's not to hard to fix the crappy parts and the options in the DM guide does help much as well. The thing is most these spells are so low level and most of the mid to high ones i used back in the day are not in the books.

What do you mean by "wizard of old"? 3rd edition? Because TSR D&D, the magic users were a lot more "neutered" than in 5e, so it wouldn't make sense be referring to those editions. Between needing to pass a roll to even learn the spell, to maximum spells known, to having any spell wasted by ANY sort of distraction, TSR era magic users had it rough.

Also, if you think everyone nowadays does level dips, I suspect you're either just getting exposure from online forums where that's all you see, or are playing with powergamers. 5e did a really good job making it tough choice to stay in your main class or to multi-class, unlike 3e where it's pretty much assumed you will multiclass always. I would say 75% of all the PCs in 5e I've seen (in my own table and at AL) are single class

 

[Wrathamon]

I find it interesting as others have stated that eldritch blast and hunter's mark are taken at such a low %. I wonder if EB was taken at a higher % pre hexblade.

 

[ad_hoc]

Most people make choices based on what they think is cool and what suits their character first, only considering power secondarily.

People online also over exaggerate the effectiveness of certain abilities. Eldritch Blast is no better than other good attack cantrips. Rangers have other good spells. Etc.

 

[Dausuul]

Eldritch Blast is no better than other good attack cantrips.

A cantrip that is top-tier out of the box, and can easily be upgraded to deal 50% more damage at level 2 (improving to 90% at higher levels), is in fact much better than other attack cantrips.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Hunter's mark is less useful for beast masters (your pet doesn't get HM damage) might explain why it isn't at 100%.

 

[TwoSix]

Most people make choices based on what they think is cool and what suits their character first, only considering power secondarily.

People online also over exaggerate the effectiveness of certain abilities. Eldritch Blast is no better than other good attack cantrips. Rangers have other good spells. Etc.

Actually, if anything this particular data set shows me that D&D Beyond users are actually pretty savvy, optimization-wise, with their choices. Healing word is more popular than cure wounds for the classes that have it, for example. (Except druid, which has optimization reasons to eschew Healing Word.) Eldritch Blast is, by far, the most popular cantrip for warlocks, and has a bigger margin of selection than any other cantrip for any other class. That's a group that's making smart power choices, not flavor choices.

 

[Gradine]

Eldritch Blast is no better than other good attack cantrips.

A cantrip that is top-tier out of the box, and can easily be upgraded to deal 50% more damage at level 2 (improving to 90% at higher levels), is in fact much better than other attack cantrips.

People online also over exaggerate the effectiveness of certain abilities.

Sometimes destiny writes itself

 

[Dausuul]

Sometimes destiny writes itself

• Eldritch blast deals 1d10 damage, averaging 5.5, out of the box.
• With Agonizing Blast, available at level 2, you can add your Charisma bonus to damage. At 2nd level, a warlock is most likely to have a +3 bonus. That is +50% over baseline (actually closer to 55%).
• When your Charisma reaches 20, the +3 becomes +5. That is +90% over baseline.
• Since Agonizing Blast boosts damage per attack, it scales as you get more attacks.

Please explain what I am exaggerating.