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

[Kalshane]

While Ray of Enfeeblement isn't great, the wizard in my campaign has used it fairly effectively. While Hold Person is better at the same level (and the wizard has this as well), it's highly restrictive in what it can effect, whereas RoE works against anything that uses Strength to attack.

Even a single round (since the save doesn't kick in until the end of the target's next turn) of half damage from a big bruiser (which generally have a low AC and lots of HPs, making them fairly easy to hit with the initial ray) can make a huge difference. The party just hit 7th level, so I'm sure it will lose effectiveness as they continue to level up, but so far its kept multiple PCs up in situations where the baddy would have turned them into paste.

 

[Helldritch]

In my book, witch bolt and true strike are the top most useless spell ever presented.

If witch bolt continuous damage would be a bonus action, the spell would be redeemed.
If True strike could be cast as a bonus action and would not take concentration it would be too good.

But saying that mending is useless? Preposterous! Do you know how many arrows such a spell can mend? Thus preventing the carrying of hundreds of arrows or bolts?

Mordenkainen's Sword is a joke. A level or two lower would've made it a great spell. But at its current level, no one wants it.

 

[TheNoremac42]

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.

Mending is also handy when you come across oozes or other things that inflict acid damage and penalties on your weapons/armor. Need to fix the door you just broke down? Mend. Snapped axle? Mend.

 

[Yunru]

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.

The sad thing is, that's the damage the initial damage should be doing at that level. The ongoing damage is a bit high though (1d8 by my guestimation).

 

[lowkey13]

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[Gadget]

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.

Point taken. I would agree that pound for pound, MS is a worse spell than WB.

While Ray of Enfeeblement isn't great, the wizard in my campaign has used it fairly effectively. While Hold Person is better at the same level (and the wizard has this as well), it's highly restrictive in what it can effect, whereas RoE works against anything that uses Strength to attack.

Even a single round (since the save doesn't kick in until the end of the target's next turn) of half damage from a big bruiser (which generally have a low AC and lots of HPs, making them fairly easy to hit with the initial ray) can make a huge difference. The party just hit 7th level, so I'm sure it will lose effectiveness as they continue to level up, but so far its kept multiple PCs up in situations where the baddy would have turned them into paste.

I don't doubt that there are situations where RoE is useful, it is just that with all the restrictions, it is far to niche to justify. Ranged Spell Attack (which can obviously miss), Concentration, Save every round to end, and for what? Half damage on STR weapon attacks. Not unarmed, claw, bite, or slam attacks (rules out most bestial monsters). Not DEX based attacks (which, in 5e, can be quite prevalent). I can still grapple you just fine under the effects of the spell, or escape your grapple, thank you very much. This fails my criteria earlier in the thread of actually delivering on what it says in the fiction. Obviously, sometimes delivering on all implied aspects of the fiction of the spell would be too much, but this doesn't even attempt it, really. And if you happen to hit with it, you may only get one round of use out of it, as big hulking brutes that use STR weapon attacks tend to have decent CON saves. At least let it apply to all STR based attacks (maybe DEX based as well), and perhaps disadvantage to STR based ability checks?

 

[Gradine]

So, here's the issue as I see it when looking at so-called "worst spells."

Eventually, if you are looking at objective indicators, you have to end up with a damage spell (because utility spells, like mending, will be in the eye of the beholder).

Every damage spell is measured not just in what it does, but also in terms of opportunity cost- in other words, what other damage spell can you cast?

Then, you have these three factors-

1. 5e has scaling attack cantrips.
2. 5e's damage spells that are level spells aren't ... that powerful (compared to past editions).
3. Certain signature spells (fireball, for example) are a little goosed.

Eventually, you end up with the same design problem. If you want multiple damage spells, they will either all be the same (in other words, they all do the same amount of damage per level) which is boring, perhaps differentiated by damage type (acid, force, fire, etc.).

Or you give them some mechanical differentiation. This spell does damage, AND continuing damage. This spell does damage, AND pushes back an opponent. This spell does damage, AND xyz.

The trouble is, any damage PLUS xyz will have lower damage than a "pure" damage spell, which means that you are limiting its use-cases. Which, again, makes it a subjective determination.

So I have a proposal.

Identify the pure damage spell that does the least amount of damage, relative to its "cost" (cantrip, level). That is the worst spell.

Survivor Thread: Worst Spell Edition?

 

[lowkey13]

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[Gradine]

I wouldn't mind that, but I'd need a good way of creating the list.

If only there were a place on the internet where a group of fans of the game collaborated to create a list of worst spells, and then spent at least nine pages arguing circles past each other as to their relevant merits

 

[lowkey13]

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