Best 6th to 9th-Level Spells in D&D 5e (2014): The High-Level Guide

Introduction

At 6th level and above, spell slots stop being a resource you manage and start being a resource you ration.

A 20th-level Wizard has one 6th-level slot, one 7th, one 8th and one 9th, per long rest. Not four of each. One. Those four casts are the entirety of your top-tier output for an adventuring day, which means the question a high-level spell has to answer is not "is this a good turn" but "is this worth an entire encounter."

Most of the spells printed in this band fail that test. Meteor Swarm is the biggest damage number in the game and it is usually the wrong 9th-level cast. Circle of Death is 8d6 in a 60-foot radius for a 6th-level slot, which is less damage than Fireball from a slot three levels higher.

The spells that pass are the ones that do something no other spell can do at all. Forcecage removes a creature with no save. Simulacrum gives you a second party member for the rest of the campaign. Contingency gives you a free spell at the worst moment of your day. True Polymorph changes the world permanently. Wish duplicates almost anything.

Verdict: at this tier, prepare removal, permanence and insurance. Prepare exactly one damage spell, and expect not to cast it.

---

What One High-Level Slot Is Worth

The slot table is the most important thing to understand about this band:

A Wizard at level 17 has 4 casts across this entire band, per day, and a typical adventuring day contains several encounters. So each one carries a very high opportunity cost.

Three consequences shape every choice here.

Damage is the weakest thing you can do with these slots. A boss at this tier has 250 to 450 hit points and legendary resistances. Chain Lightning's 10d8 removes about 12% of it, and the boss takes its full turn regardless.

Upcasting is genuinely competitive. A 9th-level Banishment removes six creatures. A 7th-level Bestow Curse runs 24 hours without concentration. Do not assume the printed spell at a level beats what you can pour a big slot into.

Legendary Resistance changes the maths on saves. A boss with three legendary resistances automatically passes the first three saves it fails. Any single save-or-suck you cast is likely to be absorbed by one of them - which is an argument for casting cheap save spells first to burn them off, then the expensive one. It is also the strongest argument for spells that allow no save at all.

---

6th-Level Spells

Disintegrate

Sorcerer, Wizard. 1 action, 60 feet, V S M (a lodestone and a pinch of dust), instantaneous. Dexterity save or 10d6 + 40 force damage; a creature reduced to 0 hit points by it is disintegrated, leaving only dust, and can be restored only by True Resurrection or Wish.

Averaging 75 damage, and force is almost never resisted.

Two things make it more than a damage spell. It destroys a Wall of Force - the only spell in the game that does - so it is the answer when an enemy caster boxes your party in. And a creature killed by it cannot be raised by Revivify, Raise Dead or Resurrection, which matters when the target is something you do not want coming back.

It is a single Dexterity save with no half damage: pass and the target takes nothing at all. Against a dexterous enemy or a boss with legendary resistance, that is a whole slot for zero effect.

Rating: B-Tier. The highest single-target damage in the band and an all-or-nothing gamble.

Globe of Invulnerability

Sorcerer, Wizard. 1 action, self (10-foot radius), V S M (a glass or crystal bead that shatters when the spell ends), concentration up to 1 minute. An immobile barrier; any spell of 5th level or lower cast from outside has no effect on anything inside it.

Total immunity to a large fraction of enemy spellcasting, for your whole party if they stand close.

Against an enemy caster whose repertoire tops out at 5th level - which describes most non-boss casters - this simply switches them off. Upcasting raises the barrier by one spell level per slot.

The costs are that it is immobile, so the party has to stay in a 10-foot radius, and it is concentration on the caster who is presumably doing something else. It also does nothing against weapon attacks, monster abilities that are not spells, or anything cast from inside the globe.

Rating: B-Tier. Situationally decisive against a spellcaster, dead weight otherwise.

True Seeing

Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. 1 action, touch, V S M (an ointment for the eyes made from mushroom powder, saffron and fat, worth 25 gp, consumed), 1 hour.

For an hour, the target has truesight out to 120 feet: it sees in normal and magical darkness, sees invisible creatures and objects, automatically detects visual illusions and succeeds on saves against them, perceives the original form of a shapechanger or a creature transformed by magic, and sees into the Ethereal Plane.

That is not one benefit; it is the complete answer to an entire category of enemy. At this tier, invisibility, illusion, and shapechanging are standard boss tactics, and True Seeing turns all of them off at once for an hour with no concentration.

25 gp per cast, and it only works on one creature unless upcast is not an option - it has no upcast at all.

Rating: A-Tier. The most reliably useful 6th-level spell, and the one people forget until an invisible enemy is killing them.

Chain Lightning

Sorcerer, Wizard. 1 action, 150 feet, V S M (a bit of fur, a piece of amber, glass or a crystal rod, and three silver pins), instantaneous. 10d8 lightning to one target, then it leaps to up to three other creatures within 30 feet, Dexterity save for half.

Around 45 damage to four separate targets, at 150 feet, which is the best multi-target damage in the band. Lightning is resisted much less often than fire.

Upcasting adds one additional target per slot level.

It is still damage at a tier where damage is the weakest thing you can do. Against four grouped enemies it is a fine cast; against a single boss it is 45 damage from a 6th-level slot.

Rating: B-Tier. The best damage spell at 6th level, which is not a strong recommendation.

Heal

Cleric, Druid. 1 action, 60 feet, V S, instantaneous. Restore 70 hit points, end blindness and deafness, and cure any diseases.

Seventy hit points instantly at 60 feet, with no roll of any kind, plus condition removal.

At this tier, that is a party member restored from near-death to fully functional in one action. Upcasting adds 10 per slot level.

It does nothing to prevent the damage that made it necessary, which is the standing argument against all healing in 5e 2014. What Heal has that lesser healing does not is scale: 70 is enough to matter against boss damage in a way that 2d8 never is.

Rating: B-Tier. The one healing spell at this tier that changes an outcome.

Circle of Death

Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. 1 action, 150 feet, V S M (the powder of a crushed black pearl worth at least 500 gp), instantaneous. 8d6 necrotic in a 60-foot radius, Constitution save for half.

An enormous area - a 60-foot radius is nine times Fireball's footprint - for 8d6, which is exactly Fireball's damage.

That trade is the review. Against a battlefield full of enemies it is unmatched coverage. Against anything else it is a 6th-level slot doing a 3rd-level spell's damage.

The 500 gp black pearl is consumed on every cast, which nobody remembers until the shopping trip.

Rating: C-Tier. Only worth it against an army, and it costs 500 gp to find out.

Create Undead

Cleric, Warlock, Wizard. 1 minute, 10 feet, V S M (one 150 gp black onyx stone for each corpse), 24 hours. Create up to three ghouls from corpses; they obey your commands for 24 hours, and re-casting before the duration ends makes control permanent for 24 more hours.

The upgrade to Animate Dead: ghouls instead of skeletons, with a paralysing claw attack, and higher slots create ghasts, wights or mummies.

Like Animate Dead it compounds - re-cast daily and the servants persist - and like Animate Dead its real limits are social rather than mechanical. It is unambiguously evil in most settings, the onyx costs 450 gp for three, and the spell can only be cast at night.

Rating: C-Tier. A campaign-defining spell for one specific character concept and irrelevant to everyone else.

Programmed Illusion

Bard, Wizard. 1 action, 120 feet, V S M (a bit of fleece and jade dust worth at least 25 gp), until dispelled. An illusion up to a 30-foot cube with sound, appearing when a condition you specify occurs, then running for up to 5 minutes.

The trap-setting illusion. It lasts until dispelled, it triggers on a condition of your choosing, and it can be a 30-foot cube with full sound.

It is a tool for prepared defence - guarding a base, protecting a vault, warning off intruders - rather than anything you cast in an encounter. Its ceiling depends entirely on how much your DM engages with illusions.

Rating: C-Tier. Fun in a domain-management campaign, absent from most.

Fizban's Platinum Shield

Sorcerer, Wizard (Fizban's Treasury of Dragons). 1 bonus action, 60 feet, V S M (a platinum-plated dragon scale worth at least 500 gp), concentration up to 1 minute. A creature gains half cover, resistance to acid, cold, fire, lightning and poison damage, and takes no damage on a successful Dexterity save that normally allows half. You can move the shield 60 feet with a bonus action.

An unusually complete defensive package on one creature: +2 AC and +2 Dexterity saves from half cover, resistance to five damage types, and effectively Evasion.

It is a bonus action to cast and to move, which means it does not consume the caster's action.

Against a dragon or an elemental boss whose damage lands in those five types, it roughly halves what one party member takes for the whole fight. Against anything dealing force, psychic, radiant, necrotic or physical damage, the resistance half does nothing.

The 500 gp component is not consumed.

Rating: B-Tier. Excellent in the specific fight it was written for.

Mass Suggestion

Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. 1 action, 60 feet, V M (a snake's tongue and a bit of honeycomb or sweet oil), 24 hours, no concentration. Up to twelve creatures make a Wisdom save or pursue a suggested course of action.

Suggestion for twelve creatures, for a full day, with no concentration.

The concentration change is what makes it a different spell rather than a bigger one. You cast it and walk away. Twelve guards told something reasonable will spend the next 24 hours doing it while you concentrate on something else entirely.

Upcasting extends it to 10 days at 7th, 30 days at 8th, and a year and a day at 9th.

Same restrictions as its lesser version: the suggestion must sound reasonable, the targets must understand you, and damaging one ends it for that creature.

Rating: A-Tier. The best social spell in the game and the one that most rewards a player who thinks about wording.

---

Otto's Irresistible Dance

Bard, Wizard. 1 action, 30 feet, V, concentration up to 1 minute. The target begins dancing: it has disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws and on attack rolls, other creatures have advantage on attack rolls against it, and it must use all its movement to dance in place. It can use its action to make a Wisdom save to end the effect.

No saving throw on the initial cast. That single line puts this alongside Forcecage and Maze as one of the few effects Legendary Resistance cannot absorb.

The target starts dancing, immediately and automatically, and to stop it must spend an action to attempt the save - so even ending the spell costs the enemy a turn. Meanwhile everything attacking it has advantage and it has disadvantage on everything.

It has only a verbal component, so it can be cast while restrained or with both hands full.

Rating: A-Tier. The best 6th-level control spell precisely because there is nothing to resist.

Arcane Gate

Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. 1 action, 500 feet, V S, concentration up to 10 minutes. Create two linked 10-foot-diameter portals; any creature or object that enters one exits the other.

Ten minutes of a two-way teleport link, up to 500 feet apart, that anyone can use.

The obvious use is mobility: the party crosses a chasm, bypasses a wall, or withdraws instantly. The less obvious ones are better - a melee character stepping through to reach the enemy back line, an entire party evacuating a collapsing room, or an enemy chasing you through a portal that you then move.

You can reorient one portal as a bonus action, and both are visible, so enemies can use them too.

Rating: B-Tier. Excellent mobility that requires a plan to be worth a 6th-level slot.

Blade Barrier

Cleric. 1 action, 90 feet, V S, concentration up to 10 minutes. A vertical wall of whirling blades, either a straight wall up to 100 feet long or a ringed wall up to 60 feet in diameter; it provides three-quarters cover, is difficult terrain, and a creature entering it or ending its turn there takes 6d10 slashing, Dexterity save for half.

The Cleric's Wall of Force equivalent, except it deals damage instead of being impassable.

6d10 averages 33 to anything that crosses, and the ring configuration around a group is a repeating tax they must pay to leave. Three-quarters cover for your party behind it is a +5 to AC and Dexterity saves.

Unlike Wall of Force it can be walked through - at a cost - which is sometimes what you want, since it lets your party pass too.

Rating: B-Tier. The best 6th-level slot on the Cleric list after Heal and True Seeing.

---

7th-Level Spells

Forcecage

Bard, Warlock, Wizard. 1 action, 100 feet, V S M (ruby dust worth 1,500 gp, consumed), 1 hour, concentration. An immobile cage of force: either a 20-foot cube with bars, or a solid 10-foot cube. Creatures inside cannot leave by nonmagical means; a creature that attempts to teleport out must succeed on a Charisma save against your spell save DC or the teleport fails and the spell slot is wasted.

The strongest practical spell in the band, and the reason is one word: no saving throw.

You do not roll to place it. The target does not save to resist it. Legendary Resistance is irrelevant because there is nothing to resist. If a creature is in the space when you cast it, it is in the cage - for an hour.

The solid version is total: no line of sight, no line of effect, nothing in or out. The barred version lets your party attack through while the target cannot leave.

Its counters are worth knowing. Teleportation works, though the Charisma save means it often does not. Dispel Magic at 7th level or higher ends it. A creature with an incorporeal or ethereal form walks out. And the 1,500 gp of ruby dust is consumed on every single cast, which is a genuine limit on how often you use it.

The famous combination is Forcecage plus a 9th-level upcast Banishment or Sickening Radiance, which is powerful enough that many DMs house-rule it.

Rating: A-Tier. The single best use of a 7th-level slot in the game.

Simulacrum

Wizard. 12 hours, touch, V S M (snow or ice in quantities sufficient to make a life-size copy, plus powdered ruby worth 1,500 gp sprinkled through it, consumed). Create an illusory duplicate of a beast or humanoid: it has all the creature's statistics but half its hit point maximum, and it is friendly to you and obeys you.

The highest-ceiling spell in the game in a long campaign.

A simulacrum of your party's Wizard is a second Wizard: same spells, same spell save DC, half the hit points. It follows your commands, acts on its own initiative, and lasts indefinitely - it is not a duration spell.

The rule that keeps it finite: it cannot regain spell slots. It casts each of its spells once, and then it is a very knowledgeable person with no magic left. It also cannot create another simulacrum.

The costs are 12 hours of casting, 1,500 gp of powdered ruby consumed, and enough snow or ice to make a body - which is a genuine logistics problem in a desert campaign.

A damaged simulacrum can be repaired with a complex ritual costing 100 gp per hit point.

Rating: A-Tier. Slow, expensive, and the most powerful thing a Wizard can do with a week of downtime.

Teleport

Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard. 1 action, 10 feet, V, instantaneous. Transport yourself and up to eight willing creatures, or one object, to a destination on the same plane. Roll on a table for accuracy based on how well you know the destination.

Instant travel across a continent for nine people.

The accuracy table is the spell: a permanent circle or an associated object is always on target. A place you have seen very often - "very familiar" - is on target 100% of the time in practice, since the table only misfires on a roll of 04 or lower. A "seen casually" or "viewed once" destination has a meaningful chance of arriving off target, somewhere similar, or in a mishap that deals 3d10 force damage and re-rolls.

What it removes from a campaign is travel time. What it adds is the possibility of arriving 1d10 x 1d10 miles away in an unknown direction.

Rating: A-Tier. It changes what a campaign map means.

Finger of Death

Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. 1 action, 60 feet, V S, instantaneous. Constitution save; 7d8 + 30 necrotic on a failure, half on a success. A humanoid killed by it rises at the start of your next turn as a zombie permanently under your command.

Around 61 damage with half on a success, so unlike Disintegrate it never fully whiffs.

The zombie clause is the interesting one: a permanently controlled undead, with no duration, no re-cast required, and no material component. Over a campaign a Warlock or Wizard using this as their default finisher accumulates a retinue.

Necrotic is resisted by a fair number of high-CR creatures, and undead are immune.

Rating: B-Tier. Reliable damage with a permanent rider, at a tier where reliable damage is not enough.

Draconic Transformation

Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard (Fizban's). 1 bonus action, self, V S M (a statuette of a dragon worth at least 500 gp), concentration up to 1 minute. You gain blindsight out to 30 feet, a 6d8 breath weapon in a 60-foot cone usable as a bonus action, and a flying speed of 60 feet with hovering.

A self-buff cast as a bonus action that grants flight, blindsight, and a repeatable 6d8 breath weapon on a bonus action every turn.

The bonus-action economy is the value: your action stays free every round while you deal roughly 27 in a cone. Blindsight also answers invisibility and darkness for the duration.

It is concentration, and it competes with everything else you would want to concentrate on.

Rating: B-Tier. Strong on a caster who has no better concentration option and wants to be mobile.

Reverse Gravity

Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard. 1 action, 100 feet, V S M (a lodestone and iron filings), concentration up to 1 minute. In a 50-foot-radius, 100-foot-high cylinder, gravity reverses; creatures and objects fall upward, taking falling damage when they hit the top, and a creature can make a Dexterity save to grab a fixed object.

A 50-foot-radius cylinder is one of the largest areas in the game, and everything in it goes up.

Creatures thrown 100 feet up take 10d6 on impact, and then when the spell ends they fall back down for another 10d6. In between, they are suspended, unable to close to melee, and mostly unable to do anything useful.

It is control and damage in one, at a scale nothing else at this level matches. Its weakness is that flying creatures ignore it entirely, and at this tier a lot of things fly.

Rating: A-Tier against a ground-based force. Check for wings first.

Etherealness

Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. 1 action, self, V S, up to 8 hours. Step into the Border Ethereal, where you can see and hear the Material Plane in shades of grey out to 60 feet, move in any direction, and pass through solid objects.

Eight hours of walking through walls, unseen and untouchable by anything on the Material Plane.

It is the ultimate infiltration tool - no wall, door, lock or guard matters - and the ultimate escape, since almost nothing can follow you.

You cannot affect or be affected by the Material Plane while ethereal, so it is purely a movement and observation spell. Upcasting brings up to three additional willing creatures per slot level, which turns it into a party infiltration.

Rating: B-Tier. Total access, zero combat use.

Prismatic Spray

Sorcerer, Wizard. 1 action, self (60-foot cone), V S, instantaneous. Each creature in the cone rolls a d8 to determine which of eight rays hits it: seven damage types at 10d6 each with a Dexterity save for half, or on an 8, the target is struck by two rays.

Random, high-variance area damage: 10d6 of one of seven types per creature, plus outcomes that blind, restrain-and-petrify, or send the target to a random plane.

The petrification and plane-shift results are genuine removals, and the randomness means resistances rarely apply to whatever comes up.

The cone originates from you, and the variance means it can roll badly against exactly the creature you needed it to stop.

Rating: B-Tier. Enormous output, no control over what it does.

---

Delayed Blast Fireball

Sorcerer, Wizard. 1 action, 150 feet, V S M (a tiny ball of bat guano and sulfur), concentration up to 1 minute. A bead of fire that gains 1d6 damage at the end of each of your turns, starting at 12d6, and detonates in a 20-foot radius when you end concentration, when a creature touches it, or at the end of the minute.

Fireball with a fuse. Held for the full minute it reaches 22d6, averaging 77 in a 20-foot radius.

Its real use is Time Stop: during stopped time you can place several delayed beads and then let them all go at once, which is the highest single-round damage combination available to a Wizard.

Held normally it costs your concentration for the whole time it is charging, and a creature that touches the bead sets it off early.

Rating: B-Tier alone, A-Tier as part of a Time Stop turn.

Plane Shift

Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. 1 action, touch, V S M (a forked metal rod worth at least 250 gp, attuned to a particular plane), instantaneous. Transport yourself and up to eight willing creatures to a different plane - or, against an unwilling creature, a melee spell attack that banishes it to another plane on a failed Charisma save.

Two spells sharing a name.

The travel version is how planar campaigns happen at all, and the forked rod requirement means the DM controls which planes you can reach.

The offensive version is one of the hardest removals in the game: hit a creature with a melee spell attack, it fails a Charisma save, and it is gone to another plane entirely - not for a minute, permanently, unless it has its own way back.

Rating: B-Tier. The travel half shapes campaigns, the offensive half ends specific enemies.

Mordenkainen's Sword

Bard, Wizard. 1 action, 60 feet, V S M (a miniature platinum sword with a grip and pommel of copper and zinc, worth 250 gp), concentration up to 1 minute. A spectral sword; on your turn you can use a bonus action to move it 20 feet and make a melee spell attack for 4d10 force damage.

Spiritual Weapon at 7th level: 4d10 force averaging 22 per round from a bonus action, so your action stays free.

The problem is the comparison. Spiritual Weapon costs a 2nd-level slot and does 1d8 + modifier; this costs a 7th-level slot and does 4d10, plus it needs concentration where Spiritual Weapon does not. For your only 7th-level slot of the day, 22 damage a round is not enough.

Rating: C-Tier. Good economy, wrong slot.

---

8th and 9th-Level Spells

Contingency

Wizard, 6th level. 10 minutes, self, V S M (a statuette of yourself carved from ivory and decorated with gems worth at least 1,500 gp), 10 days. Cast a spell of 5th level or lower that targets only you, and choose a circumstance; the stored spell triggers automatically when that circumstance occurs, using no action of yours.

Listed here rather than with the other 6th-level spells because it belongs in the same conversation as Wish and Simulacrum: it is a spell you cast during downtime that changes what your character can survive.

The stored spell triggers without using your action or your reaction. Common choices:

• Death Ward on "when I drop to 0 hit points."
• Dimension Door on "when I fall more than 20 feet" or "when I am reduced below a quarter of my hit points."
• Greater Invisibility on "when a hostile creature I cannot see attacks me."
• Absorb Elements or Shield for a free reaction that does not use your reaction.

Ten days of duration means you re-cast it about three times a month and otherwise forget it exists. The 1,500 gp statuette is not consumed.

Rating: A-Tier. Free insurance against the worst moment of the next ten days.

Feeblemind

Bard, Druid, Warlock, Wizard, 8th level. 1 action, 150 feet, V S M (a handful of clay, crystal, glass or mineral spheres), instantaneous. 4d6 psychic and an Intelligence save; on a failure, the target's Intelligence and Charisma become 1, it cannot cast spells, understand language, or communicate, and the effect lasts until removed by Greater Restoration, Heal, Wish or a similar 6th-level-or-higher spell. The creature repeats the save every 30 days.

The hardest counter to an enemy spellcaster in the game. A failed Intelligence save means the archmage cannot cast, cannot speak, and cannot understand what is happening - for 30 days.

It targets Intelligence, which on most monsters is the weakest save. On an archmage it is the strongest, which is the irony of the spell.

There is no concentration and no duration to break. It is instantaneous and permanent until cured.

Rating: A-Tier against anything that is not itself a genius. The single most devastating thing you can do to a caster.

Dominate Monster

Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, 8th level. 1 action, 60 feet, V S, concentration up to 1 hour. Wisdom save or the creature is charmed and you control it; it repeats the save each time it takes damage. Upcasting to 9th extends it to 8 hours.

Dominate Person without the humanoid restriction, and an hour instead of a minute.

Taking control of a dragon, a giant or a demon for an hour is the highest-value single effect available at 8th level - it removes the enemy and adds it to your side simultaneously.

The save-on-damage clause means your party must not attack it, and legendary resistance will usually absorb the first attempt.

Rating: A-Tier. Worth an 8th-level slot when it lands and a wasted day when it does not.

Power Word Stun and Power Word Kill

Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. 1 action, 60 feet, V, instantaneous.

Power Word Stun (8th) stuns a creature with 150 hit points or fewer, with no saving throw; it then repeats a Constitution save at the end of each of its turns.

Power Word Kill (9th) kills a creature with 100 hit points or fewer outright, with no saving throw and no roll of any kind.

Both are conditional on a hit point threshold, and that threshold is what defines them. Power Word Kill does not soften up a boss - it finishes one that is already nearly dead. The intended play is to bring the target below 100 and then end it before it acts again.

Because there is no save, Legendary Resistance does not help. That is the reason these matter: at a tier where every save-or-suck is absorbed by a boss's free passes, "no saving throw" is worth more than a big number.

Rating: B-Tier for Power Word Stun, C-Tier for Power Word Kill. A 9th-level slot to finish a nearly-dead enemy is a poor trade unless that enemy was about to end the fight.

Maze

Wizard, 8th level. 1 action, 60 feet, V S, concentration up to 10 minutes. Banish a creature into a labyrinthine demiplane; it can use its action to make a DC 20 Intelligence check to escape, and returns to the space it left when the spell ends.

Removal with no saving throw to resist the initial banishment, which puts it in the same category as Forcecage.

A minotaur or anything with a maze-related trait escapes automatically. Everything else has to make a DC 20 Intelligence check, which most brutes will never pass, and which most archmages will pass on the first attempt.

Ten minutes is long enough to fight everything else and then prepare for the target's return.

Rating: A-Tier against a low-Intelligence boss. Read the statblock first.

Mind Blank

Bard, Wizard, 8th level. 1 action, touch, V S, 24 hours. The target is immune to psychic damage, to any effect that would sense its emotions or read its thoughts, to divination spells, and to the charmed condition - and immune to Wish's ability to affect it.

Twenty-four hours of complete immunity to scrying, mind-reading, charm and psychic damage.

Its value is entirely a function of your enemies. Against an aboleth, a mind flayer colony, or a rival wizard scrying on the party, it is total protection. Against a dragon it does nothing.

Rating: B-Tier. The best defensive spell in the game against a specific and dangerous category of enemy.

True Polymorph

Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, 9th level. 1 action, 30 feet, V S M (a drop of mercury, a dollop of gum arabic and a wisp of smoke), concentration up to 1 hour. Transform a creature into a different creature or into an object, or an object into a creature. If you concentrate for the full hour, the transformation is permanent.

The permanence clause is why this is a 9th-level spell.

Offensively: turn a hostile creature into a snail, hold concentration for an hour, and it is a snail forever.

Constructively: turn a rock into an ancient dragon that is friendly to you, hold for an hour, and you have permanently created an ancient dragon. The new creature's CR can be up to the target's own CR or level, which is the balancing line most tables argue about.

The hour of concentration is the real cost, and it means the permanent version is a downtime activity, not a combat play.

Rating: A-Tier. The most world-altering spell short of Wish.

Wish

Sorcerer, Wizard, 9th level. 1 action, self, V, instantaneous.

The basic use, and the safe one: duplicate any spell of 8th level or lower, with no material components required and no risk whatsoever. That alone makes Wish the most flexible slot in the game - a Simulacrum with no ruby dust, a Forcecage with no 1,500 gp of powder, a Clone, a Mass Heal.

Beyond that, you may state a wish of any kind, and the DM grants it in whatever way they see fit. The spell text lists sample effects - restoring hit points to 20 creatures, granting resistance to a damage type for 8 hours, granting immunity to a single spell - and then it lists the price.

Using Wish for anything beyond duplicating a spell imposes:

• 1d10 levels of a Strength penalty, reducing Strength to 3 for 2d4 days.
• A level of exhaustion.
• Inability to cast any spell until you finish a long rest.
• A 33% chance you can never cast Wish again.

Most experienced players use Wish exclusively for the spell-duplication clause and treat the free-form version as a story tool for the end of a campaign.

Rating: A-Tier. Even used only as "any 8th-level spell, free," it is the best 9th-level slot in the game.

Time Stop

Sorcerer, Wizard, 9th level. 1 action, self, V, instantaneous. Take 1d4 + 1 turns in a row, during which time stops for everyone else. The effect ends early if you affect a creature other than yourself, or an object being worn or carried by someone else.

Between two and five completely free turns.

You cannot attack anyone during them, which is the constraint people forget. What you can do is move, drink potions, set up terrain, position walls, and - the standard play - cast several concentration-free spells that only take effect afterwards, then end the sequence with a spell that does affect the enemy.

Delayed Blast Fireball stacked several times, Wall of Force placed around a boss, Contingency triggered, an escape prepared: all of these work.

The average of three turns means it varies from underwhelming to decisive on a d4.

Rating: A-Tier. The setup spell that lets a caster win the fight before it starts.

Meteor Swarm

Sorcerer, Wizard, 9th level. 1 action, 1 mile, V S, instantaneous. Four 40-foot-radius spheres; 20d6 fire and 20d6 bludgeoning to each creature in them, Dexterity save for half.

The biggest number in the game: 40d6, averaging 140 damage, in four separate 40-foot-radius spheres, from a mile away.

Against an army, a fortification, or a densely packed enemy force, nothing compares. Against a single boss with 400 hit points and legendary resistance, it deals 140 on a failed save and 70 on a success, and the boss takes its turn.

Fire is the most-resisted damage type in the game, though the bludgeoning half always lands.

Rating: B-Tier. Spectacular, and almost never the correct use of your only 9th-level slot.

Foresight

Bard, Druid, Warlock, Wizard, 9th level. 1 minute, touch, V S M (a hummingbird feather), 8 hours. The target cannot be surprised, has advantage on all attack rolls, ability checks and saving throws, and other creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls against it.

Eight hours of advantage on everything and disadvantage on every attack against you, with no concentration.

That is not a combat spell, it is a whole adventuring day. Cast it in the morning on your party's most important character and every roll they make for the rest of the day is improved.

The one-minute casting time keeps it out of combat, and the 8-hour duration means it covers the entire day anyway.

Rating: A-Tier. The best pure-value 9th-level spell, and the least exciting one.

Antimagic Field

Cleric, Wizard, 8th level. 1 action, self (10-foot radius), V S M (a pinch of iron filings), concentration up to 1 hour. A sphere in which all magic is suppressed: spells cannot be cast, magic items stop functioning, summoned creatures vanish temporarily, and ongoing spell effects are suspended.

The nuclear option against magic, and it is symmetrical - your magic stops working too, including your own magic weapons and armour.

Its home is on a party whose damage comes from mundane weapons, walking a spellcasting boss into a bubble where it can do nothing. Against a lich, an archmage, or anything whose entire threat is spells, an Antimagic Field carried by a Barbarian is a win condition.

Against a dragon or a giant, it disables your party and does nothing to theirs.

Rating: B-Tier. A specialist answer that requires the whole party to be built for it.

Clone

Wizard, 8th level. 1 hour, touch, V S M (a diamond worth at least 1,000 gp, consumed, plus a vessel worth at least 2,000 gp and at least one cubic inch of the creature's flesh), instantaneous. Grow an inert duplicate of a creature; when the original dies, its soul transfers to the clone if the soul is free and willing.

Immortality insurance. The clone takes 120 days to mature and then waits indefinitely; when you die, you wake up in it with all your memories, at the age the clone was grown to.

It is the reason high-level Wizards in fiction are hard to kill for good, and it costs 3,000 gp and four months of lead time per body.

It does nothing in a fight and everything to a campaign's stakes.

Rating: B-Tier. A downtime investment, not a spell you cast at anyone.

Glibness

Bard, Warlock, 8th level. 1 action, self, V, 1 hour. For the duration, when you make a Charisma check, you can replace the number you roll with a 15 - and no magic can determine whether you are telling the truth.

A guaranteed 15 on every Charisma check for an hour, before modifiers. A high-level Bard with expertise in Persuasion and a 20 Charisma has a floor of around 15 + 5 + 12, which is a 32 on every single social roll for an hour.

The second clause is quieter and stronger: no magic can detect your lies. Zone of Truth, Detect Thoughts and a paladin's Divine Sense all read you as honest.

It costs an 8th-level slot, so it is one entire day's worth of top-tier magic spent on a conversation - which is exactly right for the conversations at this tier.

Rating: A-Tier in a political campaign, D-Tier in a dungeon.

Sunburst

Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard, 8th level. 1 action, 150 feet, V S M (fire and a piece of sunstone), instantaneous. 12d6 radiant in a 60-foot radius, Constitution save for half, and creatures that fail are blinded for 1 minute. Undead and oozes have disadvantage on the save.

Around 42 radiant damage in a 60-foot radius, with a blindness rider that lasts a minute and a repeating save to end it.

Radiant is one of the least-resisted damage types, undead take it badly by design, and the area is enormous. It also destroys magical darkness in the radius.

Blinding an entire enemy formation for a minute is worth more than the damage.

Rating: B-Tier. The best area damage spell in the band because it does something besides damage.

Gate, Shapechange, Imprisonment and Storm of Vengeance

The rest of the 9th-level list, briefly, because each is a specialist:

• Gate opens a portal to another plane and can pull a named creature through it. Its power is entirely campaign-dependent and it is the classic setup for a summoned-deity plot.
• Shapechange turns you into any creature with a CR up to your level, retaining your alignment, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma, for an hour, with the ability to change form on each turn. It is the most versatile self-buff in the game and it demands that you know the Monster Manual.
• Imprisonment removes a creature permanently, with a Wisdom save, and the only ways out are a specified condition you set at cast time or a Wish. It costs 500 gp per hit die of the target in components.
• Storm of Vengeance is a 360-foot-radius storm that escalates over rounds through acid, lightning and freezing rain. It is the largest area in the game and it takes several rounds to become dangerous.

Rating: all situational. None of them belongs in a default loadout, and each of them is the right answer to exactly one campaign.

---

The Spells With No Saving Throw

Legendary Resistance is the defining defensive feature of this tier: a boss simply chooses to pass the first three saves it fails. Every save-or-suck you cast is likely to be spent burning one of those off.

That makes the short list of effects with no initial saving throw the most valuable thing in the band, because there is nothing for a legendary resistance to apply to.

The practical sequencing that follows: cast your cheap save spells first to strip the boss's legendary resistances, then land a no-save effect while it has none left. A 3rd-level Hypnotic Pattern that gets resisted is a bargain if it clears the way for a Forcecage.

---

Best Picks by Class

Wizard

Forcecage, Simulacrum, Contingency, True Seeing, Wish, Foresight. The Wizard list at this tier is the best in the game by a large margin, and it is the only list with Forcecage, Simulacrum and Contingency all on it. Prepare Contingency during downtime, hold Forcecage for the boss.

Sorcerer

Disintegrate, Chain Lightning, Wish, Time Stop. Sorcerers get Wish and Time Stop but not Forcecage or Simulacrum, and they know very few high-level spells, so each pick is close to permanent. Twinned Dominate Monster is a genuine reason to be a Sorcerer at this tier.

Warlock

Forcecage, Feeblemind, Dominate Monster, Mass Suggestion. Mystic Arcanum gives a Warlock one spell of each level from 6th to 9th, cast once per long rest - and Forcecage as a 7th-level Arcanum is one of the strongest single choices available to any class.

Bard

Forcecage, Mass Suggestion, Foresight, True Polymorph, Etherealness. Bards get Forcecage and True Polymorph natively, plus Magical Secrets to take anything else. A Bard at 18th level with Magical Secrets can build the best spell list in the game.

Cleric

Heal, True Seeing, Mass Heal, Resurrection, Holy Aura. The Cleric list at this tier is support and restoration rather than control. Heal and Mass Heal are the reason a party survives boss fights; True Resurrection is the reason a death is not permanent.

Druid

Reverse Gravity, True Polymorph, Foresight, Shapechange, Storm of Vengeance. Shapechange on a Druid is the natural capstone of the class, and Reverse Gravity is the best control spell on the list.

---

Hot Take: Meteor Swarm is the most famous 9th-level spell and the worst common use of a 9th-level slot. It is 140 damage that a boss saves half of, in a game where the boss has 400 hit points, three legendary resistances and a turn coming. Foresight - which is boring, cast an hour before the fight, and produces no visual effect at all - improves every roll your best character makes for eight hours. One of these ends encounters and the other one looks good doing 18% of a health bar.

---

Related Guides

• Cantrips
• 1st-Level Spells
• 2nd-Level Spells
• 3rd-Level Spells
• 4th and 5th-Level Spells
• D&D 5e 2014 Spell Guides hub - class-by-class spell selection.

Tier 4 play is rare and worth seeing. Find a D&D 5e game on The Role Players Guild.