The Five Best Damage Dealing Spells in Dungeons and Dragons 5e 

Kelly mentioned Fireball, you don't need proficiency in insight to see that one coming.

The opening joke is actually a double pun. "You can't say spell 'damage' without 'mage'" also has 'spell damage' in it. Peculiar.

Cast spiritual weapon It takes the form of an arrow *PC starts whistling* COME A LITTLE BIT CLOSER...

Fun fact: Animate Objects turns the objects into full creatures, meaning they can take opportunity attacks as well.

I remember once when my party and I had been commissioned to deal with a Medusa in the nearby woods. We were unaware of just how dangerous such creatures were, and so eagerly agreed. The Medusa got the drop on us, and after only a few rounds of combat, my entire party had been petrified, leaving just me (a low health wizard) to deal with a nearly full health Medusa. There was only one thing for it, and I turn to my DM and say: "I cast animate objects." Now, it wasn't rare for me to cast this on some coins when damage needed to be done, and so my DM nods to me and starts to set the scene: "You reach into your coin pouch, grabbing a handful of coins and-." "No no." I interrupt, motioning to my party. "I cast animate objects on the party." The DM considers this for a moment, rubs his chin, and then nods. "You animate the statues that were formerly your party." From there, defeating the Medusa was simple. My allies were already petrified, so couldn't be petrified further, and many of them got an AC buff from being animated in this way. Morale of the story, always pick Animate Objects. Edit: A lot of people are saying 'this isn't how the spell works' or 'that's not what the rules say'. Let me tell you all something, in D&D there is only 1 rule that matters: Everyone is having fun. The DM can bend, break, ignore, or houserule anything they want, but the entire group should always be having fun. My spell gave the DM a way to still involve the group rather than having them sit and watch as he and I rolled dice at one another to what would have likely been a TPK. To the people asking for specifics, the other players were limited to the actions of the animate objects spell. On my turn I had to give them a single command as a bonus action, and on their turn they had to carry out that command to the best of their ability. Their HP, AC, damage, and hit modifiers all became that listed under the spell. The only thing the DM changed was that we kept initiative order, this was so that the players still felt involved rather than just tacked onto my turn. Ironically, the pacifist bard in our party actually landed the killing blow, and this led to a whole story arc of him feeling guilty for killing, even though he was acting under my magical influence.

I'm 21 years old and I'm getting into D&D. I bought the Starter Pack and I'll soon be DMing "The Lost Mine of Phandelver" for my family, and then my friends. I got into D&D because of Critical Role's second campaign, but you Dungeon Dudes are the reason why I actually will try my hand at DMing. I just wanted to let you know. You're awesome.

_" ... Animate several of the coins from a Dragons hoard, which then beat it to death."_ Oh, the horrrid , delicious, karmic and hillarious irony. 😂

I swear to God you don't know how many times I'm dming a large boss monster and then the sorcerer in the back goes, "I'M GOING TO CONJURE 8 WOLVES"

"I'd like to buy some crossbow bolts." "Sure, but why? You don't carry a crossbow." Later: "Animate objects! Swarm of bolts!"

3:35 Eldritch Blast 6:28 Spiritual Weapon 8:52 Fireball 11:50 Spirit Guardians 15:13 Animate Objects 19:00 Honourable Mentions Guiding Bolt Dissonant Whispers Conjure Animals Destructive Wave

Rogues carry a bag of ball bearings. Animate Object and do a Magneto.

Part of me feels good seeing Animate Objects finally get the recognition it deserves, but part of me is a little bummed that the secret is out... my wizards bag of marbles used to be my ultimate trump card lol. There was also something just incredibly satisfying about rp-ing my kookie old spellcaster busily scurrying around after a battle re-collecting all of his lost marbles. lol

Whenever our party defeats a dragon, I harvest the dragon's teeth and use Animate Objects on those, almost like caltrops. When I fire them at an enemy my DM allows me to let the damage become magical based on the type of dragon they're harvested from (e.g. cold damage from white dragon teeth, acid damage from black dragon teeth, etc.)

we all know the best damage you can deal to a BBEG is Vicius Mockery, cuz it hurt even the GM.

I think the value of magic missile is highly underappreciated. Force damage that can't miss and can't be reduced outside of resistance. I think this is highly efficient.

Hellish Rebuke: The only damaging spell you can cast as a REACTION

Please talk to your DM to find if conjure animals is right for you.

Chill Touch is my favorite cantrip, as it stops the regeneration of almost every creature. Might not do much damage, but stopping enemies from healing is even better.

I am currently playing a divine sorcerer and he has access to almost every one if these spells, plus the metamagic... Let me tell you, It is called Divine for a reason...

Our Party had a Bard which was kind of a trickster, he carried Marbles with him so he could animate them with Animate Objects! Every single villain underestimated that spell, but one of our hardest fights against an Arch Demon was won due to those little marble balls. RIP Kemmotar

I'd also like to add Shatter to your honorable mentions. I like to call it the "poor man's fireball". It doesn't set everything on fire, makes use of its smaller size for working around allies, deals thunder damage that's seldom resisted, and most importantly can be used to attack stone, glass, or metal structures (all of which are crystalline). This last feature has been used repeatedly to collapse tunnels, break walls, drop stalactites, collapse cliffs, collapses delicate building structures, destroy/ loosen locks and hinges, break aquariums, drop glass from skylights onto foes, knock foes free of their handholds on walls (spiders, ropers, etc.), and other such chaos. This is a great spell for combat and utility, especially in the hands of a Tempest cleric, who makes this spell stronger than fireball with their channel divinity. It's very destructive, without being as wantonly destructive as the fireball spell. Burning the assassin's contract and other important papers is one of many very unfortunate side effects of fire.

Tl;Dr - The wizard destroyed a pirate ship with Animate Object, and it was magnificent. There was a pirate ship in the river attacking the party in the city, and he animated the cannons and blew a hole into the bottom of the ship, then had them crash through the hole on his next turn.

Ive always considered Heat Metal to be one of the best ones, I mean it really depends on circumstance, but its definitely a high ranking damage spell when you are fighting a heavy plated paladin

Oh man Conjure Animals is just my favorite. I killed a hydra with a swarm of giant badgers once. It was brutal.

Animate Objects on 10 coils of rope. Now the enemies are bludgeoned, tied up, and/ or strangled by the ropes. ten 30-ft ropes makes for 300-ft of lassoing glory. I heard of a guy that hid them in the rafters of a room, and yanked the enemy soldiers up into the rafters with nooses. This spell is crazy useful. Never go anywhere without it, if you can. I never thought of the coin idea. I also love the thousand-yard stare that Kelly gave when you described killing his dragon with his own hoard... priceless. Don't worry, Kelly, you'll get him back when he's the DM. There's always an unexpected use for a spell. For instance, Plant growth creates a field of tall grass at the feet of a zombie hoard, which can then be set on fire to kill every one of those brain-dead idiots. That was the easiest 600 kills I ever made.

I never thought of Animate Objects as a good spell, much less a great one. It's little gems of knowledge like that that keep me coming back and watching your new videos. I am already excited to use it now!

One of my favorite damage dealing combinations is just two cantrips, but it also requires two feats to really lay down the hurt. Create Bonfire, Thorn Whip, Sentinel, and War Caster. You lay a bonfire under your targets feet while they're in melee with you, it does its damage. When they get their turn they'll probably try to move out of that square because standing in fire is a bad idea. So you use war caster to make your opportunity attack with thorn whip, which does _it's_ damage, and lets you drag them back into the square with the bonfire, which does it's damage _again_ because they're entering the square. Then Sentinel drops their movement to zero, so they have to end their turn in that square, at which point the bonfire does its damage *_again._* so that's one thorn whip damage and three bonfire damages in a single round. At 17th level that's 16d8 damage from two cantrips. Because of sentinel they can't even Disengage to avoid this nonsense.

At 9th level I once crit a 5th level inflict wounds and a 4th level spiritual weapon in the same round while I had a 4th level spiritual guardians up. That drow did not have a good day....

Animate Objects combos with Crusader’s Mantle for ungodly damage and radiant damage gets around most monster resistance. My all Hexblade group has a Divine Soul Hexblade and a Sword Bard Hexblade that both took this spell, and a Devotion Paladin Hexblade for CMantle. We also have a Lore Bard Hexblade that took Destructive Wave with Magical Secrets. The party Eldritch Knight took Crossbow Expert, Polearm Master, and War Caster to constantly spam Eldritch Blast in and out of melee. In terms of roleplaying, our campaign is heavily Witcher/Taoist Monk inspired. The Hexblades are a True Neutral sect of monks who operate as itinerant knight-errants, picking up contracts to slay monsters. Each multiclass type represent a different school of fighting style, Sorcerer=Ravens, Paladin=Eagles, Bard=Owls, Fighter=Herons, etc. Mechanically we all fight with arcane focus staffs shaped like a lacquered wooden sword covered in eldritch runes (common Taoist trope as well), all with War Caster for shield and for somatic component purposes. Hex Warrior is themed as a chakra/chi based martial art, Eldritch Blasts are forcewaves from sword slashes, Spirit Guardians are swirling blades of light, Spiritual Weapon is a chakra sword. There are also shenanigans like Booming Blade into Dissonant Whispers into multiple Booming Blade opportunity attacks, or Animate Objects surround into Dissonant Whispers 10x opportunity attacks, Aura of Devotion+Hypnotic Pattern spam.

I just imagine a Bard animating 10 coins and then making finger gun motions as he has them attack the enemy.

Having the spell level show up on the graphic of the spell's name would make this video a LOT better.

Call lightning is my favorite when playing a druid, apears early, scales nicely and does plenty of damage

For a build, maybe go for an ecclesiastical lore bard? Take Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians at 6, get Animate Objects on your list, take fireball and EB at 10. Hooray, you've got the whole list!

Flaming sphere has always been a favorite of mine. It’s second level, sticks around for a minute, and lets you slam it into enemies using your bonus action.

Heat Metal is one of my favorite spells. It just really can help with an encounter when someone is wearing armor or powerful weapon.

Since this afternoon, when I first used the ability in combat, I'd like you all to consider adding to the list the Channel Divinity of the clerical Light domain, Radiance of the Dawn. Sure, I might use the term spell loosely here, but the cleric channels energy into magical effects, so to me this makes it kinda of a spell. Why is it so awesome? 1. Huge area of effect. A whopping 30 feet radius. 2. It discriminates between friendlies and hostiles. Only the baddies are hit. 3. Sure, half damage for constitution saves, which are pretty common, but base damage is great. 2D10 plus cleric level. 4. It deals radiant damage. Not a very common immunity 5. It recharges after a short rest. 6. It's available to a Light cleric at 2nd level.... Read that again... 2nd level. I used it today in the middle of an ambush by 20 skeletons. I was a 3rd level cleric at the time, and I easily topped doing a 100 points of damage with my level 2 spell/spell ability. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a better spell at that level. As for the videos you guys do: they're great. Keep up the good work.

As an older player and GM, thanks for the time stamps to quickly get to the spells, but also I tend to see many of the "powerful....whatever" videos containing classes or specialties that i and many of my fellow players don't ever see or nobody picks. thanks for you time.

"I'd like elk, i have the stats right here" "You get bunnies" "Fine, please look up the statistics of the creatures in the MM for me" Seems like you could encourage your DM to give you what you've planned for.

My favorite routine with my Dwarven War Cleric Round 1: spiritual guardians (for battlefield control and damage). Round 2: spiritual weapon + sacred flame; Round 3 on: cure wounds as needed (my current group is made of big sacks of HP, so I cure rarely) and guiding bolt (cast at many different levels) to pin down foes AND give advantage to attacks made by other party members (the rogue just LOVE this spell).

Devine Soul Sorcerer Human with Magic Initiate (Warlock) & Ritual Caster (Wizard)

Divine Soul Sorcerer 18/ Hexblade Warlock 2 is a monstrous combination for a damage-dealing spellcaster

When it comes to spells you can't go wrong with a Lore Bard

“Fireball” is often mistaken for “grenade”

I just wanna say you guys have been an incredible resource for me about the classes, spells, overlooked rules, etc. I've only been playing about two years but I've started writing crazy one shots and your class guides are just untouchable on RU-vid.

I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned with eldritch blast: the Spell Sniper feat enables you to pick up a cantrip from any of the primary spellcaster lists, including Eldritch Blast. It also makes it ignore 1/2 and 3/4 cover, and doubles its range (which is already impressive. My bard took this feat and it is amazing to use as my action while my bonus action provides inspiration dice to my comrades.

My dm *hates* spirit gaurdians.. I've ruined so many of his plans with that spell. >^•^< he finally decided that it's not castable in another God's temple to stop me... Idk..

Gentlemen, your product continues to improve steadily. This was a very informative and well done video. Keep up the excellent work.

"This well-loved spell is available exclusively to warlocks" _Laughs in Bard_ -though Eldritch Blast is only really good with invocations-

Spiritual Weappn, Spirit guardians, and Animate Objects? Forge Clerics are beast

Glad to see you guys backing making mechanics videos. Session vids are great too though.

In terms of fun with summoning spells, one of my favorites was conjure minor elementals. I summoned several mephits, and my DM ruled that, when the spell ends, mephits always detonate as though they had died. I know this is ruling oriented, but smoke and magma mephits breathing fire, then erupting in a blaze was always pretty great.

Always coming back to old videos to get ideas for characters! Thank you for the time stamps.

Combine, Eldritch spear invocation and the spell sniper feat... Gains a range of 600ft

Spiritual weapon is also available to warlocks in "unearthed arcana" with the pact of the Raven Queen

You guys are great I did subscribe you have given me a lot of great ideas and helped explain a lot of rules and features. Keep up the great work!

best combo ever for damage 2 levels tempest cleric 18 levels lore wizard (ua) lore wizards can change any non weapon damage type into any other non weapon damage type. tempest cleric can use there channel divinity to maximize lightning or thunder damage. cast 9th lvl meteor swarm change fire damage to lightning or thunder damage and get a spell that deals 20d6 +120 damage. honorable mention is do the same for disintegrate, change force damage to lightning or thunder, maximize with channel divinity deal up to 154 dmg to a single target ( cast with 9th level spell slot)

I'm glad you talked about Destructive Wave. I have a Tempest Domain cleric who maximizes the thunder half of of the spell. That's 30 damage before you even roll the 5D6 Radiant damage.

Dissonant Whispers totally saved the day on my first Adventurer League styled adventure. I had been saving my little warlock girl's spell slots until the final area of a maze we were going through and this massive crustacean beast- an Ankheg I think- was messing with the party. So after exhausting my daggers and finding little luck with Eldritch Blast hitting, I targeted this presumably weak-willed monster's Wisdom with Dissonant Whispers. It hit, the beast fled, causing the two melee combatants it was fighting to get opportunity attacks that killed it. What we didn't know was that there was actually a Specter possessing the Ankheg. It flew out of the corpse and would have killed us all had we not been given an escape route by some Drow. But it was amazing to hear from the DM that the Specter's high Wisdom was the stat I was actually targeting, and that the Specter had rolled a gosh darned 1.

Surprised nobody mentioned lightning bolt as an honorable mention. It's basically fireball, but hits less people. And personally, I much prefer the flavor of it to that of fireball. Other honorable mentions IMO include Flaming Sphere, Hex/Hunter's Mark, Heat Metal, Melf's Minute Meteors, and Insect Plague.

This is the second-most rewatchable vid I have come across on RU-vid. Chock FULL of info and ideas outside of the spells noted. And poor Kelly's face when you guys are discussing Animate Object. Ya mad, bro?

Moonbeam at low level against minions holds its own

Steel wind strike. 5 attacks and teleportation each attack does 6d10 dmg

I'm really glad they mentioned Destructive Wave, reading it's description it just sounds so cinematic. I pictured all the aspects of a nuke going off without the fireball, the flash followed on a delay by a deafening boom.

Really appreciated the overview of Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, and Animate Objects. Rad.

To get everything you listed you would have to be Divine Soul 18/ Great Old One Warlock 2.

I really wanna try Animate Objects and see the light fade from my DM's eyes some day, but no campaign I've been in ever got far enough for me to reach that level. :c

Nice work on the video this format is so concise!

Ok. My wizard needs to buy some marbles

One extra point in EB's favor is the repelling blast's potential to combo with environmental/battlefield hazards. Push people into cloud of daggers or spike growth (not to mention higher-level spells) and get huge guaranteed damage!

Great video guys!

Great Video dudes you've opened my eyes

Animate- I never realized the potential!

Personally, I think inflict wounds is one of the more powerful 1st level spell. 3d10 necrotic damage with a 1st level spell. The only thing limiting it is the fact it is touch and is limited to clerics and oathbreaker

"eldrich blast is exclusive to warlocks" me: laughs in magic initiate

fantastic councels as always! Thanks!

Great guide! I’d just add in conjure woodland beings, for 8 pixies casting polymorph...

Fun Fact: The classic 2/18 (Divine Soul) Sorlock has access to every single spell on that list.

How to become Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy: 1. Cast spiritual weapon, and have it become an arrow. 2. Whistle. 3. Profit.

I devised my own damaging cantrip- when I use a thrown weapon action, I cast bounce as a bonus action, it makes a spell attack on nearby foe, if it hits, it attacks the next, bouncing as many times as regular cantrips at level get dices. Its not very efficient for a regular caster, but its fun, and my character is using Whelm :)

Your videos are always informative and entertaining. Thank you for your time.

"You can't spell Damage without Mage" sure you can ~ dmg.

i never thought to use animate objects like that lol. It kind of reminds me of a player i had who was a storm sorcerer with the catapult spell. He had a bag of 1,000 ball bearings which he used for ammo and destroyed a few of my bosses with it.

for evocation wizards that reach 10th level, magic missile can do some pretty nice damage as the bonus is added to the single damage roll, max out your INT so that it deals 1d4+6 for each missile and then use your highest spell slots to get as many missiles as you can

Love your series. So great to see some fellow Canadians making their mark in the DND multi-verse. Though it isn’t an overly complex topic, I would love to see you guys do a video on how spell scrolls work - if you want to flush it out you might consider combining it with something else - maybe with best common magical items? Keep up the good work!

I feel like Green-Flame Blade is a very underrated cantrip for spellsword characters

Animate Dead is an underrated damage spell. You can accumulate a platoon of skeleton archers that deals massive amounts damage. Especially nasty with a Paladin who has Crusader’s Mantle.

Idk why this intro in particular gave me the serotonin boost I needed, but thank you Dungeon Dudes.

I looked “uses for animate objects”, and this was the first video that came up. It was worth the time to watch the video

My DM uses the same strategy every encounter. Lots of enemies. Swarm! I cast spirit guardians with extended spell. They all die within a few rounds. He gets so mad but never changes it up. It's annoying.

I had that issue when I was running a sorcerer and all my spells dealt fire damage and the party was attacked by magma mephits

SO! How about, if you're a cleric, you first cast Spirit Guardians and on your next round, cast Sanctuary on yourself. :^) I mean, it sais that the sanctuary breaks if you "make an attack" but technicly, you already made your attack. Now you can get to prepare actions for healing,

Really love your new filming set up. you guys look great

Another pretty good 2nd lvl spell is Dragon's Breath from Xanathar's guide. It's only really worth it if you have a familiar tho. It's 15feet range cone 3d6 of a chosen damagetype per round for a total of 10 rounds if you can keep concentration. Since it's a touch spell you can also cast it through your familiar on itself at range and since it's not actually using an attack, just an action, you familiar can use it to deal damage as long as you keep concentrating. Not as strong as Spiritual Guardians but more versatile and doesn't require you to be in the middle of things and risk breaking concentration. Oh and it's +1d6 per lvl above 2nd, which is pretty neat

I know its not a 5th or lower spell, but Forbiddance is probably my favorite spell due to one instance. We were standing outside a tomb and we knew it was filled with Undead. I decided to pray for 10 minutes and cast this spell. 40,000sq ft of ground was turned into essentially holy ground dealing heavy radiant damage to everything in the area. Which was the entire tomb and then some. I wiped out the Gm's entire dungeon in a matter of 12 in game minutes (spell cast and the time to kill everything in there) with a single use of a 7th level spell slot and some patient players. They didnt know this spell was a thing, so it took about 20 minutes of discussion after to figure out what happened and how much exp/loot we got from the tomb. Needless to say, that spell is now banned from our group, but boy does it hold a place in my heart.

I have a 12 dwarf tempest cleric of Marthammor Duin. Destructive wave + the channel divinity that maxamizes the thunder damage = big numbers.

I really like Crown of Stars. For 7 turns you can hurl a 4d12 projectile as a bonus action. I just really like for aesthetic reasons though. For flavour I had the lights be rosey pink and be connected by thorny green vines to give me a crown of roses. Combine that with a glowy sword and you've got yourself a celestial looking queen of roses!

Eldritch blast is my hands down favorite spell of all time. One time I was tracking a theif who eventually ran into a tool shed... So I blew it up with eldritch blast. 😂

what about half elf sorcerer with the feat Magic Initiate, pick warlock class cantrips eldritch blast...does ist get the multibeams ?

As a Great Old One warlock you gain access to Eldritch blast, Dissonant whispers, and Hellish rebuke (the only damaging spell that can be cast at a reaction) with the latter two scaling as your level increases because of the fact that the level of a warlock's spell slots increases as his level does, so you can do 6d10 damage as a reaction once you reach level 9...

Great vid guys!