BG3 1st Level Spells Tier List (Part 1) **FLASHING LIGHT WARNING** 

Featherfall is great outside of combat imo. i skipped all traps in the hag lair. i skipped half of moonrise towers by jumping down to the prison cells. i skipped half of the underdark combined with jump and many more. in fight... its usless as said.

Your coverage of this game is top notch. I'm sure as the game gets older, these videos by you will still be the go-to for many people (myself included) when we need to brush up on knowledge or something before a new playthrough or even during one.

Very nice! However, I would make feather fall a B tier spell simply because you can use it to avoid a lot of annoying areas in the game. It's obviously not a spell for combat situations, but navigating certain areas can be made much more advantageous with it, and because it targets your whole party no one is left behind like a psionic jump. Positioning can be very important and I think the spell does that very well. It's also very good in the fight against Minthara because you can have your front line jump down while your spellcasters maintain the high ground. Love the videos, keep up the great work 👍

My Tav did use Disguise Self throughout the whole game as the extra 1d4 on all checks from the Shapeshifter's Boon Ring (from killing the Strange Ox) that stacks with other stuff like Guidance etc. was invaluable. I disguised mostly as female gnome as I like their default look and it lets you use all the entrances that only work for small races. Btw. Create Water also seems to reveal invisible enemies. I used it on the Act 3 Hag fight to locate them.

For bless there is an item that allows to bless on heal. Combine with any mass healing and your team is fully blessed no need for concentration nor supplementary spell slot.

Can confirm that fog cloud is still insanely broke for bonus action hide classes. I played a gloom stalker rogue multiclass and was basically only ever hit if something went before me in the turn order. The Ai will try to path into you as if you tried to hide normally, but they really dislike actually entering the cloud itself which makes it basically invincibility.

More tier list ideas! (After spells & feats) Transformation tier list (i.e. all the wildshapes, displacer beast form, dark urge transformation, mindflayer, etc) Summons tier list (i.e. animate dead, necromancer book spell, Us, guardian of faith, woodland being, etc)

Create water is also the best spell to remove invisibility..:) Clearly best level 1 spell (with magic missile & shield..:))

Slight warning for disguise self: You can play the game with characters fully disguised however it will mess with there story events. For example: spoilers Shadowheart was disguised and killed nightsong. However after leaving the shadowfell she acted as tho she wasn't there, got mad and would leave the party. For gale, he will never ask for a item to consume, so after beating kethric he will also leave the party due to the orb being ignored.

Regarding the obscure and blind effects for fog cloud, you can do that without a spell slot on a bonus action, every turn, with rogue disengage and the Cloak of Cunning Brume. Feels like the most efficient way to proc those obscured effects (and also get small-AoE blind off).

Been counting the days for this video release, can’t wait to dive in

Appreciate this vid. I am planning to start my first tactician playthrough after kinda breezing through my first playthrough on Balanced. I think I'm ready. But i'll need to learn to min/max a bit more.

Round 2 boys, here we go!

I feel like false life is meant to be used as a scroll before combat

RP tier for cure wounds? It’s better than healing word when a character heals themselves because it doesn’t need range and heals for more HP. Plus you can stack it with healing word on the same turn at any level. Also it’s a great way to top off healing characters out of combat because it’s, again, more healing per spell slot. Definitely more useful that a lot of these spells

Fog cloud allows you to rob merchants blind

lol, still dead on. Fair enough on find familiar. Great wizard spell (if you upgrade later to Shovel). Replaceable ritual that can help rogue, and can also be used each short rest if it dies, meaning it took enemy action economy. Decent on ranger if you take it. Same reasons and always prepared. Quasit and or imp are also great, but probably not first level. Scratch help action is very good, but maybe not better than C, cause he's squishy and can't invis. Probably not worth managing. Upgraded is definitely better than C. Just commenting again for algorithm. Nice convo.

Great tier list! I like how you show and explain spells

Good video. Thanks you for your tier lists

Ive been binge watching most of ur vids since i found youre channel, theyre really helpful and overall great. Thanks loads :D Ive been waiting for this vid especially too lol

Re-listened, which is a sign of how much fun these tier lists are. :-) I do get not liking Find Familiar as a combat spell. Not much raw damage. OTOH, the cat is excellent outside of combat for moving NPCs and grouping targets. The Raven can blind one target every round with a reasonable chance of success (more so in the early game). Enemies, even powerful enemies, often waste attacks on the familiar rather than your party. You get decent utility, low level attack and crowd control, and one hit worth of defense, all for a spell that doesn’t cost you a spell slot cast as a ritual. I’d say it’s a solid B tier. A tier for the imp or quasit.

37:00 It's also an evocation spell, so Sculpt Spells means a wizard(with a light cleric dip) can just toss it in the middle of combat and only hit enemies. A cleric dip for a wizard is just a good idea in general, so this is quite the amazing combo, imo.

Even for how good bless is, I stop putting it in spell slot after certain point of act 1 when you got that ring(or pendent) that will bless targets that receive healing from that character. It's so OP that by using 1 aoe healing spell(the best is lv 2 spell) and you can bless your entire party in one go I can't believe that item is just uncommon equipment.

I had a really funny moment with command: approach in a pf1e game. We were in an abandoned duergar fortress and a group of duergar looters at the end of a corridor noticed us, so we cast grease on the floor and the one guy who didn't get hit by the initial grease spell got commanded to walk right through it, triggering an attack of opportunity from an ally in a side room and then tripping on the grease. It can be an S tier spell in the right conditions, but outside of those it might lack reliability.

Awesome video! About race specific weapons, there is one for dwarfs that I only got access go on a dwarf playthrough, I'm not sure if you need to be one tho. I won't spoil what it is just just for anyone who's interested it definitely favors martial classes.

I decided to go with Arcane Trickster for Astarion because that's how his stats (and well, whole character really) were obviously designed and ended up with Animal Friendship on his level 1 spell list because after Shield, Disguise Self, and the Jump boost spell (all of which I could see as useful for Roguery - and they have been) not much else mattered to me. It's a kind of funny spell. Not totally useless, since there are a lot of animals to talk to in the game, but definitely mostly. Its shining moment came when at Waukeen's rest Astarion ended up off near the barn looking for more water to throw on the fire while I turn-based mode my other characters to rescue the actual people stuck inside, and because I had animal friend on him I also had given him a speak with animals potion that day, so when I ran into the terrified cow/ox in the barn, he was able to talk it down and prevent I think, a combat encounter that normally happens there. So, I guess all of that is to say, the spell DOES work, at least. It will prevent animals from attacking you when dialogue ends if they're normally inclined to. But considering animals are generally not the worst opponents in the game (except maybe those eagles, but even then) and considering a constant use of animal speaking is actually needed to facilitate this spell, yeah, you're talking extremely marginal use cases in the game. They ARE there though, even if rare.

Love these videos!

Great tier list. Here's the only situation where I wish I had Featherfall in a fight: I'm playing Karlach as a Tavern Brawler monk and during the fight to defend the grove from Minthara and her goblin army, I had plenty of opportunities to just jump down and wreak havoc with my fists, but I was essentially locked into throwing spears and javelins from above. I've also used it to escape from the bulette in the Underdark effectively. Still a C tier spell in combat, but not entirely useless.

I agree with others. Feather Fall definitely being underrated. It's too good for exploration to rate on combat utility alone even though there is some and I have used it a few times in combat. It certainly has more combat utility than friends, which got S tier as a cantrip. It also has more combat use than Disguise self, which you are never casting while actually in combat (even though you might have during combat for githyanki weapons, but can also pre cast feather fall).

find familiar i think is worth considering. it is a ritual spell with a combat benefit, the benefit might be as small as dealing 1d6 and/or tanking a enemy attack, but hey. considering it costs 0 action economy and 0 spell slots it is kinda useful by definition. i havent experimented too much with the spell, but on my first playthrough i remember a crab i summoned finishing off a human and then getting 1 shot by a shadow which is technically S tier action economy as my actual wizard was just using cloud of daggers that turn and not having to expend any resources to get the effect. on a wizard that does not need to consider spell learned slots, this can easily be an auto prepare once you have enough int for all your combat spells. i would place it in A or S tier on theory alone personally.

I recently finished my first (but deep) playthrough and I thought I had a good grasp on what’s worth what already I didn’t realise some of these scale so good into late game as well! just never used them when I had higher spells 0.0

Good list and rationale. Only one I was surprised by was find familiar. Choose the Raven, give it Longstrider, then open with a blind attack from stealth. All attacks on target now have advantage. Once target is blinded or killed, back the bird up to avoid getting targeted. At worst, it saves you from a hit and didn't cost an action, bonus action, or spell slot. What's not to love?

Charm Person can give you advantage on Persuasion dialogue options when Friends won't work. It's still not above a C, I'd say, but I used it a few times for that. Overall, great list and explanations. Edit: I've now watched a few of these, and I understand better how these are ranked. I fully agree with the placement of Charm Person now.

I love your tier lists and all of your content on BG3. I disagree on some evaluations, but with so many different combinations it's impossible to have a same opinion on every aspect. About ensnaring strike - one thing that makes it IMHO an at least B spell. It uses bonus action and action, but (contrary to what was said in a video) it allows for extra attack, so it is worth casting past level 5. Add the Bounty Hunter disadvantage on saving throw making it a decent single target control on some enemies. You can also do a Ranger/Sorcerer multiclass and twin it, which would allow for 3 attacks at level 7 (Ranger 5/Sorcerer 2). Find Familiar is a ritual so it cost just one preparation on a wizard f.e. And raven has an attack that blinds on hit with no saving throw. C is way too low. Especially early game when you can cast 3 to 5 spells per long rest spending a preparation slot on Find Familiar is great.

Nice video mate :)

My favorite spell combo on trash mobs is Hunger of Hadar and Sleet Storm, mostly because trash mobs tend to fail saving throws on ice quite often, so Hunger of Hadar keeps them blind and taking insane damage, and the AI is forced to move because they’re blind, they slip and fall, waste their turns and take damage. I end up skipping my turns because I literally don’t have to lift a finger.

I never thought of armor of agathys that way. upcasting is one of the hardest mechanics to understand just because there is so many spells. I recently did a warlock run and upcasting is really important to understand there and I was pretty lost.

Love the content, just have one suggestion going forward - For folks like me who aren't super familiar with the game, or dnd rules, seeing only the skill icons without names is very hard to process and understand. I saw another tier list video someone did for the game and they had the skill names on the icons and it helped A LOT

Create water is useless since you can throw water (the item) for the same effect. Disguise self before you pickpocket, go to camp and drop disguise, go back and they won’t suspect you. There is also a ring you get from the ox that’s shapeshifted that gives you a +1d4 to ability checks as long as you are disguised.

Another s tier video! Really excited for your ranking of 4, 5, and 6 level spells! Just an fyi, but there is some glitching in the video around ensnaring strike.

Great video! Have u decided when part 2 is coming out? Can't wait

Command : Grovel is also surprisingly the only counter I know to Globe of Invulnerability. Gale inside its Globe, invulnerable, will lose concentration if an enemy casts Command Grovel on him. Idk if it's a bug

You can also get Armor of Aegethes from a piece of gear. :) I like using Disguise Self with my entire party so we can slip away and do a little murdering without losing amenity with 3rd party factions we can find merchants in or are attempting to infiltrate.

Thanks for the video! Love the content. For new players reading this, this list is pretty spot on and fair. However, DO use "Find Familiar" if this is your first playthrough. It is A/S Tier imo on first playthrough. You dont know anything, and this spell allows you to literally scout most areas you enter and find alternate routes to enter, surprise, avoid, or kill enemies. After the first playthrough, this spell is close to RP tier.

Feather fall is ritual and can be combined with enhanced leap (also a ritual) to give party members a massive boost to mobility with no downsides of fall damage while jumping.

Always enjoy the uploads, was a big fan of Davaeorn's tier lists and I'll be sure to be checking out all of these! It highly preferential, and it might just be because I'm a little stupid and forget some of the rationale, but I always like a quick little recap/intro about what each tier meant. It helps clear up any confusion about why certain things were placed in certain categories, especially as you get a bit later on in the series. Needing to go back to the cantrip list to see some of the base reasoning for why each spell gets a certain ranking is just a slight annoyance, and might help clear up some of the confusion and prevent you from feeling like you have to explain the reasoning to all the "But X spell is only strong because of Y or only gets good with Z" types of comments. Even if it was quite literally just the little intro copy pasted with fill-in-the-blank splice or something silly, I think it makes the series as a whole flow a bit better / make them easier to jump into. But it's a very minor nitpick, and I'll keep enjoying the videos either way!

Regarding Create Water: You can also cast it where you know/think Invisible enemies are and it will reveal them. As if the spell wasn't good enough when combined with Cold/Lightning damage. PS: There are a few points in the video where the video rapidly flashes purple; I assume a rendering issue, but yeah, just letting you know.

Another big boon for bless is the staff that boosts the bonus up to 2d4 and 3d4 for spell attacks.

I love your videos! Can you redo the revisited class videos now that we are post-release? Love these

Charm person/monster was so good back in 2nd edition and every edition since has nerfed it. I miss my winter wolf pet :)

Disguised self is kind of bugged in that it only registers when you are equipping a weapon, so if you have a githyanki sword and then cast it you don't get the benefits unless you unequip it and equip it again. However, the cool thing (if you dont like the look or the roleplaying aspect of being a githyanki) is that you can disguise self first, equip the weapon and then end the spell and you will retain the buffs. You drop the buffs if you reload a save or if you switch characters (I think because the game checks your race again when you select the character again or when you reload) so it is difficult to mantain. I use this trick in my lone wolf campaign where I don't need to switch between characters.

Not sure if anyone mentioned but create water when cast from hiding does not use your action when the combat initiates since it is a non-damage spell which enables you for wild set-ups

i have never seen the wood woad fight he mentioned. this game is huge

arnour of agathys is great, because it is used mainly by warlocks and they always cast the highest level spells possible

False life is actually really good if you get it for free (like the warlock skill) and you're not doing a different source of temp HP. You enter every fight with a free damage reduction.

The problem with hit-point based spells like Colour Spray and Sleep is that while they can be really strong at early levels, they become practically useless later because the additional hit-points from upcasting get rapidly outpaced by the amount of hit-points enemies get. At levels 1-4, you could affect like 3 enemies with Sleep. But at level 10 you can't even affect one unless you've already damaged it to half health.

You could add that you can freeze water, so you can create ice groud that enemy can slip on it falling prone and ending their turn. Terrain effect without concentration. Now thats crazy! This is also why Ray of Frost cantrip deserve S tier slot. Have big ammount of items synergy, I think even more than EB. Draconic Sorc can add +cha to dmg and can twin it. There goes also freezing water effect. I fought in moonrise prision with paladins that have aura and I also moded them, so they have higher saving throws and they were still falling like crazy on ice. Very powerfull.

44:20 this still works vs AI w/ fog, and darkness. They completely fall apart if you start using those spells and hiding. I used it during Solo Tactician, and it felt too cheap. Didn't wanna finish that run.

Command is OP as hell at the very start of the game against the tiefling commander

Disguise Self also allows you to Speak with Dead on those you killed. Or if you plan on stealing, disguise self allowed me change to look like I was not the criminal who they put in jail, and I then walked out without anyone interfering.

The only time I really found Feather Fall useful was for Rogues, but still very situational. It's useful when they're perched in a high place during a fight for their stealth attacks. They can easily regroup with it, or niche situations like the Nere battle where druegar can use roaring thunder arrows to shoot you off the upper catwalk, so you're safe if that happens (or they get the perfect angle and you hit the lava :P)

It's funny how many of the rp tier abilities and spells are featured in the speed run

Find Familiar outside of Warlock Pact of the Chain is only useful for exploring areas. Raven is the best option here, and I've used it on my Ranger character. I can fly the Raven around areas and see what the area has to offer. Also the Blind attack is very useful. However, the Raven has 1HP, and while hard to hit, it can be killed by AOE spells. i wasn't impressed by the options, and I thought the mouse could go into the burrow holes, but it can't. What you can do is have Gale learn the Cheeky Quasit from Illyn Toth's laboratory. That is a familiar worth having just for the comic relief alone.

You don't use feather fall to prevent enemies inflicting fall damage, you use it to jump down and finish the enemies you inflicted it onto. It also gives you HUGE jump range to freely reach backline enemies and avoid navigating around frontliners. 10 turns is more than long enough to finish most fights so it's perfectly fine to cast before the battle begins for free. Of course, I always have a wizard so it taking a spell learning slot isn't a big deal.

My problem with spells like bane, is that spells that weaken the enemies are competing with spells that buff you, and spells that prevent enemies from doing anything at all. And situations where weakening enemies is better than either of those options are few and far between.

Hi Aestus, can you pls put a flashing lights/epilepsy warning on this, cause some ppl might be forced into irl unexpected death saving throws if u dont

Question about DC because I see conflicting info online compared to in-game. Let’s take Gale using Thunderwave. It’s a CON save. The game says my DC is 12=8+2 from CON+2 from proficiency. Isn’t the +2 from CON supposed to be Gale’s +3 from INT stat which is 17? Or am I misunderstanding still? Playing on Steam deck btw.

So i never use fog cloud for some reason, but i use darkness the same way. The AI for that spell at least is pretty annoying. The steel watchers are already good vs the strategy with their aoe melee, but sometimes the archers will randomly maim someone with their crossbow inside the fog cloud somehow. Then you literally cannot escape and are effectively removed frpm combat. If fog cloud functions this way id allow it in runs, because its not an instawin button in every encounter passed maybe early act 2? Edit: positioning not near the edges of obscurement seem to help prevent this

Expeditious retreat is a tier if you are using lightning charges, and c tier otherwise I would say. IF you are using the lightning boots it's super strong early game, but if you just want speed, there are bonus action dash boots in the game that do the same thing but better

I mostly agree with you and your decisions are based on a lot of facts but feather fall is actually quite good. As someone else said, it straight up lets you skip whole sections of games just by jumping down. But one more reason why its actually pretty OP if the jump is even a teensy bit elevated , it let's you basically jump as much as your movement speed is which isn't how jump usually works. Thereby skipping many difficult terrains.

The major downside of Create Water for me is that water bottles and barrels exist. They aren't as common as they logically should be considering humans need water to live but you can stockpile quite a few of them making Create Water unnecessary in many encounters even if you are abusing the wet status.

gonna need a time stamp/chapter for guinea pig

I finished the game as ranger and I think you are wrong about ensnaring strike, its actually nice. 1) ranger can make extra attack after ensnaring strike 2) ensnaring usually works on immun guys, like bosses, steel guards e.t.c 3) it has very nice chance of proc 4) it provides adnvantage for attackers and disadvantage on saves because of rangers bounty hunter The only disadvantage is concentration requirement, so you have to choose between ensaring and hunter's mark

No sick Gith gear will ever justify for me looking that ugly xD I don't agree about Ensnaring strike simply because in my experience it's the single spell worth casting as ranger besides hunter mark. Ranger can get a feature when they level up that makes the entangle last longer and the save throw have disadvantage so it's better than it looks. Not as good as hunter mark but i wouldn't call it C tier.

Armor of Agathys is bonkers on an abjuration wizard. With enough stacks of Arcane Ward you can get a lot of triggers from your thorns effect.

Create water… I don’t think I’ve ever bothered to spend that extra action to get monsters wet, so I can deal a bit of extra damage next turn. They’re usually dead before I get to use that lightning spell on next round. But that’s propably just me, because I only ever use 1 caster… (Shadowheart) So to me it’s a wasted action. Although it does wash the blood and gore away between fights…

Tbh as good as Create Water is, it's probably still an RP tier spell, you can achieve the same thing with just throwing bottles of water, you're never short of those. And the thing with throwing them is that they don't cost spell slots, plus if you have any sort of extra attack, you can throw multiple times, up to 3 times per actions as a fighter. Throwing is much more precise, whereas the spell can hit your own party and wash off your poison/coating

Charm person should be atleast c tier because it gives advantage on charisma checks in dialogue. You can use eagle's splendor but that takes up both a level 2 spell slot and you're concentration slot. If you're planning to do a big city trip then eagle's splendor is better but charm person is better for when you just need to pass one or two charisma checks.

That wet joke caught me off guard lol

Why is cure wounds RP? It heals more than the other healing spell, and you can cast both in the same turn because one is an action and one is a bonus action. I do so much clutch healing by using both spells on the same turn.

False life is a great spell. Just add character that you are not going to use until long rest to you party, buff 3 others for the whole day and replace it with another one who needs that extra hp less than others. I would say you can use it as A tier

Create water is C tier because you have the same effect, but better with just throwing a Carafe of Water and the water lasts longer and covers a larger area.

isn't create water effect redundant since you can do the same by throwing bottle of water?

26:16 I disguised Councellor Florrick in Act 3 and we all just walked out of prison. Technically not "Disguise Self", but it worked beautifully.

Why would you waste a spell slot on Create Water when carafes of water are so common though? What do you gain from it that the carafe doesn't provide that's significant enough to warrant a spell slot?

There's a robe that gives you armor of agathys too, so technically anyone can get it

Which type of armor is better for a Divination Wizard? Light + Shield (Half Elf) or Medium Armor (Githyanki)

Honestly I'd have to disagree with cure wounds. Sure, it takes an action point, but I usually play full time healer (Life Cleric), and my friends n I only play Honor mode. I cast Beacon of Hope, Sanctuary, then just bombard them with heals. It is scary still since enemies like the Grym Protector just one shot, so it's not overpowered, but it is definitely helpful n useful. Cure Wounds for any other build though I'd say is near useless.

Bonus action cast enchantment spells in late game? Is that a feature for a specific class?

I really think you are missing the value cure wounds provides. While mostly useless in combat compared to healing word out of combat it can provide decent value as a low level single target heal. If you have one character that got downed in a fight or took a lot of damage and don't have any short rests left casting a cure wounds multiple times or upcasting cure wounds can actually be good. Still pretty niche so C tier but it definitely has a use. tldr: Cure wounds is a decent low tier single target out of combat heal C tier

How do you cast false life on everyone? It's a self buff only. Unless the staff allows anyone to cast false life even without being a warlock?

Woah woah what did you mean at 23:05 😂

You missed one of the most powerful synergies for Armor of Agathys: Arcane Ward. It's an Abjuration spell. And until the Arcane Ward is broken, you only do the retaliation damage without losing any hit points. For an Abjuration Wizard, it is absolutely worth taking a single level in Warlock JUST to get that spell.

I used to look at burning hands and ice knife and think magic missile was so bad

i used disguise self in the gith place trying to get the egg and they immediately knew I wasnt a gith. i assume the spell works sometimes?

I feel like it’s a stretch to consider armor of Agathys an S tier spell if it needs to be cast at higher level in order to be good. Because then you’re casting it instead of casting a higher level spell. I feel like these leveled tier lists should assume you’re casting the spell at its default level. Would you still say that Armor of Agathys is an S tier option when compared to higher level spells? There aren’t that many good second level spells, but personally I’d always prefer to using cloud of daggers or scorching ray to delete some enemies. When you get beyond that you’re competing with fireball, which should basically always be cast unless there’s a specific reason not to lol

is throwing a water bottle at enemies not the same as casting create water without using a spell slot?

Yes, you don't understand familiar. It's not about the damage of the Raven(most commonly used), even not about its blind abilities(it miss too often to be useful). Having a party member, that include the summon next to the enemies allow your rogue to do sneak attack. Self-disguise as a spell itself isn't that useful. It's only useful b'cos it can cast with item, aka p2w premium Mask of the shapeshifter. Class specific items, like the silver sword for Githyanki, Dwarfish hammet for dwarf, are likely only useful for someone who can't cast self-disguises or can't cast spell at all.

could destroy water work in the place where you have to save people from a place where it's filling with water? lol

"making targets wet is just as good in BG3 as it is in real life" bro what hahaha