Best Spells: for Druid Wild Shape D&D 5e

hey optim answers Chris here so wild shape it's cool but it's not easy to optimize around once we get into those upper single digit levels it's even harder once we get to high levels that means in order to optimize our wild shaping Druid we need to make careful decisions in order to get the most out of our wild shape features as well as to make sure our racial features are feeds our class and subclass features and spell selections are working well when we use wild shape if you've been watching this series you should already have a pretty good handle on what forms are the best to Wild shape into what Feats will support your wild shaped Druid and what races are going to give us some cool and Powerful options in our wild shaped forms now we're going to get to a tricky one spells so if you have wild shape then you'll automatically have some spells because we'll have a minimum two levels in Druid Moon Druid specifically but of course spells or other lists are available through multi-classing setting specific backgrounds magic items and more but we need to look at spells different when we're making a character focused on wild shape the elephant in the room of course is that you can't cast spells while you want shaped the only way around that is 18 levels in Druid in other words for most characters there's simply no way around it however wild shape isn't Like A barbarian's Rage in that we can in fact concentrate on spells while we're wild shaped so when we look at spells we need to look at them from the perspective of a character that hasn't wild shaped yet but will still benefit from those spells once the wild shape is active it's like the queen side Castle in chess it's not as easy to set up but still effective when done right so we're going to look at spell casting and I'm mainly concentrating on spells from levels one through four and we'll see what options are standing out for us for what should be an obvious reason I'll be mainly focusing on Druid spells if you enjoyed my content and you would like to support it please find the link to my patreon page in the video description patreon see these videos early and without the YouTube ads and there's a bunch of rewards check out my patreon page to find them all and one of them is a video call out as these people are about to receive Aaron color Rob reichelt Awesome Face Benjamin bloody nine Brett McDowell CJ Dash Panther Dave Peters David Lotz David W skibbons Drew Terry gakumaru Hawaii Ian Johnson James Thomas jazzan Jonathan Lexi KJ Aurelio kirchi Leela May leferja Marlon Rooks Nathaniel McCauley Nick Lutz Nick Simmons ridesqui Sergeant Abraham Sam S Scott Bennington Scott Shields Stephen Edmondson t-u-m TomTom Victor Classen and Zachary Shapiro thanks all so much for your support let's get started [Music] foreign [Music] but I'm not going to spend a lot of time on them most cantrips that are going to be available to us we just won't be able to use with wild shape at all and those that we can use for the most part are giving us very very minor benefits what's probably the most effective can trip for a wild-shaped druid isn't even a druid cantrip and that would be the light spell the thing is your race May provide you dark vision but that's one racial feature that very clearly doesn't pass over to your wild-shaped form once we get into Elemental wild shape we're going to have dark vision but a lot of those lead up forms don't have dark vision built in so a light spell could be very handy indeed though we don't necessarily need multiple light can trips so if you are going to need the light spell I would probably just talk to other players and see who's playing spellcasters with cantrips and find out who can fit the light cantrip on their list guidance is a possibility to set up you know a boost to your initiative role you could potentially throw magic Stones while wild shape if you need a ranged option you could even potentially concentrate on a resistance cantrip but regardless we're probably talking short durations for very limited benefits so let's get into the media options our leveled spell options so the list of possible level spells to cast with a wild-shaped character before wild shaping it is exhaustive so I am going to highlight options with a bias towards Druid spells but there's going to be lots and lots of spells that are potential spells for your wild shaping character that I'm not going to be able to cover so what I want to do is start with like a simple tool set that you can use for your own Spell evaluation so when you look at your available spells here's what you want to do first remember you can only concentrate on one spell at a time so there's no point in weighing down your spell list with a bunch of concentration options unless each spell has a specific situation where it is the best choice non-concentration spells with durations are always going to be much more valuable because we can layer them up without having to worry about our concentration dropping also wild shape has a long duration unless we take enough damage to drop it early so long durations on spells really stand out we should consider our action economy something like call lightning for example it could be used when wild shaped but if it's using our action every round then we're not taking advantage of actions we might want to use while wild shaped so it's only really useful if we're wild shaped into something where the actions aren't our Focus like maybe we're wall shaping into a flying form then we're mainly taking advantage of the flight speed while we rain down lightning bolts on non-flying enemies for example but spells that either aren't using our action after casting or perhaps using our bonus action tend to have more universal applications so I'm going to use that criteria and I'll highlight some spells that stand it out for me and we will start at first level spells so fog cloud has a really good duration but we cannot move it so this is still probably a one combat thing the idea would be we cast fog cloud with our action then we wild shape with our bonus and then we take any movement needed fog cloud is always a spell you want to coordinate with the rest of your group some character types can get really get screwed over with a fog cloud and we don't want that ideally this would combine with a wild shaped form with blind sight though I think there is a case that the blind fighting combat style could carry over to wow shape as well giving you blindsight 10 feet I mean special Senses don't carry over very specifically but I think at least thematically blind fighting is exactly what it describes a method of fighting that simulates blindsight I mean I think that's at least worth a conversation anyways with fog Cloud app a wild shaped form with line site has a lot of appeal of course we can move around without provoking opportunity attacks we should have advantage on our attacks and attack suggests should have disadvantage I'll touch a bit on the darkness spell here as well now darkness is a second level spell and it's not on the Druid spell list but the obvious advantage of Darkness over fog cloud is you can cast it on an object and then it moves with the object meaning you could potentially get multiple combats out of that 10 minute duration fog Cloud though available to any Druid with wild shape long Strider okay so the long Strider spell doesn't use concentration so it's one of those spells that you can layer with other spells which is nice now if I have three first level spouse slots and those are my only spells I think long strata gives a fairly minor benefit for that kind of resource cost but if we're getting into the higher levels on that spell casting progression chart then longstrider becomes an Ever easier spell to cast and as mentioned no concentration pretty solid duration and that flat plus 10 movement speed applies to your walking speed but also any other movement speeds you have as well so climbing burrowing swimming and flying so that's a decent buff as long as that one first level slot is low cost for your character goodberry so this is an easy pick it has no concentration fantastic duration and one first level slot is providing 10 hit points of healing as a moon Druid we can span spell slots while in Wild shape to give ourselves some healing but that's a d8 per spell slot level so spending a first level slot after the fact averages out to 4.5 hit points healed well good berries providing more than twice that much though each Berry is an action to eat so this healing for the most part is going to be an out of combat thing armor of agathis so this isn't on the Druid spell list so you'll need some other method to get it on your spell list and like longstrider I wouldn't be spending slots on this if our spell slots are extremely limited but armor Vegas is not using concentration has a good duration increases durability and punishes melee enemies that hit us in combat and as a wild shaper we're probably mixing it up in melee armor of agathis is most notable for how strong it upcasts with higher level slots so even if you get armor of agathis with a single level class dip we can use those higher level slots gained through Druid levels to get more out of this spell one limiting factor is that temporary points don't stack so this won't be a great pick if you have another reliable way of getting temps gift of alacrity so just a warning this one is a dunamansi spell from the wild Mount campaign setting so this is not going to be available for every character but if it is available to you boosting initiative is really nice for a wild shaper because a lot of our forms aren't going to have strong initiative scores this is also a pretty light investment for non-concentration eight hour duration if I have one first level spell slot to spend on a non-concentration spell I would normally favor this spell over longstrider if I had both available to use of course if you have multiple slots available layer them up Hunter's Mark so natural weapons are weapons meaning Hunter's Mark should work in a wild-shaped form this is a concentration spell so if we use Hunter's Mark that is our concentration but we have a good duration and we can up that duration without casting and the value here is really going to depend on the number of attacks of our form so for the most part our bonus action should be available for Target switching and with heavy multi-attacks this increases in value I should mention hex will provide similar results though the necrotic damage from hex is going to be a little less reliable so let's say we have three attacks with the multi-attack very possible depending on the form we select then Hunter's Mark is probably adding seven to our damage per round assuming a 60 chance to hit at higher levels that's not a huge amount but at lower levels that's a very significant boost like with the Deinonychus it's going to be about a 40 percent DPR boost let's move on to our second level spells so bark skin we should at least talk about bark skin even though I'm not going to give it a glowing recommendation here barkskin is a notoriously awful spell it uses your concentration just to give you a very mediocre Armor class with a second level spell 16 just isn't that impressive in armor class for that kind of resource cost though we should consider that with wild shape armor classes of 11 12 and 13 are pretty common so in those cases Armor class 16 is actually a pretty big boost for very specific cases like let's say you wanted to fill that doorway with your large size brown bear and then you want a tank and do some doorway dodging a 16 Armor class could make a pretty big difference my recommendation here is very tepid I would not jump to be preparing bark skin with my druid but when you have a terrible spell like bark skin it's at least notable when it might have an application here and there where it's less terrible while chipping Moon Druids are pretty much the only such application for bark skin dark vision so like the light can trip this is about forms without dark vision though I think there's a bit of a gray area in the wild shape rules for transferring over spell effects that provides special Senses to Wild shape I think a lot of DMS would be just fine with this and no concentration and really great duration I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about this one I think the application it's fairly obvious Moonbeam so short duration and concentration but as a setup for single combat this isn't a bad choice if you have Force movement options so what you would do is you would set up Moonbeam on round one probably right over an enemy and then you would wild shape they would take some damage on their turn and of course move out of the Moonbeam and then your party smack them back in maybe with the crusher feet maybe with grapple and drag and then they take damage immediately upon entering again and then once again at the start of their turn that EA here is to double up that damage as much as possible ideally with multiple targets it's also complementary with Battlefield controls set up by other characters so if that wizard wants to drop a web doubling up with the moon beam can be effective finally when we're wild shape our ranged options are probably pretty much non-existent but we can move the moon beam 60 feet with our action so it gives us an option there finally this Bell is on the Druid spell list pass without Trace so yes it uses concentration but it's on the Druid spell list and has a strong one hour duration now some encounters have some opportunity to set up surprise and others don't if setting up surprise is an option though then pass without Trace increases your odds massively and if you do surprise an enemy the impact is absolutely massive deadly fights become very winnable protection from Poison so this spell provides resistance to poison damage and advantage on saving throws against poison poisons are common in the game and it just happens that poison resistance is the easiest to get like if you want lightning resistance with the duration of more than one round we're talking about protection from energy that's a third level spell and uses your concentration I mean even then I'm not sure I would spend that second level spell slot for this spell unless I had a good idea that poisons were likely upcoming but in that case this is a must-have unless you already have poison resistance from another source in which case someone in your party could likely still benefit from this in some situations I would quite happily spend every second level spell slot I had getting resistance on as many party members as possible Spike growth so overall with a forced movement centered party I would prioritize Spike growth over Moonbeam Moonbeam has its advantages like the ability to move it and working against flying enemies but Spike growth doesn't limit how much damage a single creature can take by being pushed and dragged through it in a single turn when you have a flying high speed form like air Elemental you could grapple from above then you could drag back and forth for some pretty big damage or you could use your Whirlwind for multiple enemies for 3d8 plus two plus eight D4 damage to each of them plus knocking them prone that's 35 damage to each one that failed to save so let's move on to third level spells obviously I will start with conjure animals uses your concentration but the damage from your contract animals will probably out damage your attacks of course since it's not using your action it's all getting added together anyways so instead of one brown bear maybe now you have three or of course you could have a pack of wolves to get that enemy prone for you to beat on I've more recently talked about the issues with conjure animals if we want to be table friendly with our summoning so I'll add in summon Fey as an alternate though if you have fourth level slots summon fade does a lot better if you upcast it by one level fly so a lot of our potent wild-shaped forms don't fly the fly spell has a good duration though it does use your concentration and it up casts well targeting one additional creature per spell slot level so generally speaking our wild shape forms have no ranged options which means against flying enemies we're pretty screwed unless we can get flight by some other means like the fly spell now fly is not on the Druid spell list that means you need to access it through some other means or be very nice to the party wizard Spirit Guardians again not on the Druid spell list so you need to access by some other means and it uses your concentration but as decent duration and it moves with you so you can potentially use it for multiple combats in addition to the obvious damage it also reduces the movement of enemies inside the area and what works really nice with wild shape is that Spirit Guardians flits 15 feet around our character that means on a two-dimensional grid I'm just going to show you here so the spare Guardians covers 48 squares if our character is medium sized so if you see here we have seven squares times seven squares to figure out our area that's 49 squares minus the square we're occupying but that's a medium-sized character if we're wild shaped into a large size creature look at that so now it's eight squares by eight and that's 64 minus the four we're occupying so now we're up to 60 squares now let's go huge so now it's nine by nine or 81 minus the nine squares we're occupying so we're up to 72 squares more squares means potentially more enemies are affected and I'm just going to quickly recommend looking at rituals to save spell slots waterwalk and water breathing are both Druid rituals and worth taking a look at so let's move on to fourth level spells this is kind of where I'm going to do my last in-depth look fire Shield so fire Shield wasn't to Druid spell until it got added in Tasha's culture of everything and it kind of hits all the marks for the kinds of spells we're looking for it has a decent duration doesn't use concentration and it has both an offensive and defensive element creatures within five feet that hit us within a melee attack take damage and we get resistance to either fire or coal damage now a fourth level spell slot is getting into pretty hefty resource territory but especially at those higher levels fire Shield is worth considering even if you don't know what kind of Damages you'll be facing if fire coal damage are expected though this is probably worth the casting even if fourth level is your highest level slot conjure Woodland beings so I don't have too much to say here Beyond we get a lot of the same kind of value as conjure animals with a lot more versatility in the kinds of things that some increasers can do check out the link above for details on Contra Woodland being options again pretty much any summoning is a pretty decent use of concentration for your wild-shaped Druid but this one is a notable option freedom of movement so one hour duration on the Druid spell list no concentration and provides all kinds of benefits including immunity to being paralyzed or restrained by spells or magical effects the ability to ignore difficult terrain the ability to fight underwater without penalties and the ability to automatically Escape grapples so if these kinds of challenges are expected then freedom of movement adds to our spell layering in Wild shape Stone skin okay back to tepid recommendations because Stone skin is not a good spell it uses concentration and it has that costly component that's consumed when casting the spout however we are talking about resistance to the three most common damage types in the game once Elemental wild shape is available that's going to be built in but in that level 7 through level 9 range this is pretty much your only option for that resistance isn't just increasing the durability of your forms but if you're facing attacks that do more than 20 points of damage it's also bringing down those concentration saving throw DC's as well so the DC of a concentration saving throw is half the damage you took or 10 whichever is higher so if you took 30 points of damage that's a dc15 saving throw but if you have resistance that damage well then you actually take 15 and so the DC would be 10. now it just so happens this value uses concentration so the saving throw is to maintain this spell but it does have built in that this might be an easier concentrate to maintain then spells that don't have that defensive component and this one is on the Druid spell list so now we're going to be getting into legit high level Spells at this point either these spells won't be available due to multi-classing or we're getting into such high levels that we might not achieve these levels anyways and if we are going 18 levels in Druid we can cast spells while wild shaped and that kind of changes everything I will give a special shout out to conjure Elemental that can be a really good option so you're an elemental and then now you've doubled it up wind walk is a party wide buff that gives great out of combat Mobility options and if you can afford to cast Heroes Feast the benefits the whole party are massive and with spells like awaken and Planet binding your ability to build armies of creatures under your control they're exactly what you would expect from a high level Caster now if you have experience in combining any of these spells with wild shape I would love for you to share your experience below even more if you've effectively used the spell I didn't cover in this video in the next video in this series I will be covering multi-class options and then I'm going going to finish up this series with a couple builds I think are pretty cool for higher level wild shaping characters otherwise until next time I am going to sit back relax and have some fun d d is for everyone thanks everybody and I'll talk to you soon [Music]

Channel: Treantmonk's Temple

Views: 26,433

Keywords: dnd, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Optimization, Guide, Wizard, Wizards, charop, ultimate, best, most powerful

Id: BL8SPL2rD08

Length: 21min 38sec (1298 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 20 2023