Wizard Subclass Tier Ranking (Part 1) In Dungeons and Dragons 5e 

Always stoked for Kelly when he convinces Monty to change his vote

The many flavors of the "nope" class Evocation: no I won't stop casting fireball Conjuration: no I'm not alone Abjuration: no you will not touch me Enchantment: no i am not your enemy Illusion: no I'm not here Necromancy: no you are not dead Transmutation: no this isn't wood I swear Bladesinger: no I'm not an obligate backline class I swear War magic: no I don't need to use shield this turn Divination: no that's not happening

Big thing these guys are forgetting: when the ward takes damage, you don’t have to make a concentration check. Huge, especially when you aren’t taking very much damage

These guys are a complete clinic for how to civilly debate something. Big props to that.

‘Get outta here sorceror with your twin spell garbage’ Don’t ever ask me to twin spell haste for you two ever again>:(

Monty's example of the dragon resisting a portence roll doesnt seem like a waste. It feels more like we forced the dragon to waste its Legendary Resistance so its more open for better debuff spells

The other thing they left out of this video for the Abjuration wizard is that if the ward eats all the damage, you don't make a concentration check.

"I hope that they're okay with that, because I'm going to do it." I live for Kelly's sass.

I like watching your videos because even when you disagree, the two of you talk it out calmly and rationally and keep an open mind while listening to each other. It's nice to see.

I played a divination wizard in my campaign, and I almost never used these divinations in a fight because even if I missed an attack or they passed a save, I was confident that we could still win the fight, my party would pick up the slack. I used these divinations on things like persuasion or deception rolls when interreacting with NPCs. Or anytime that the DM had us roll for something that I knew there was no redo if we failed. This is *HUGE* because if you're playing in a campaign that isn't just a daily survival game and you actually may want to interact with NPCs for whatever reason. Portents can give you a massive advantage in so many scenarios, a fight is the last place you will want to use them.

You're right about the Enchanter. I took it for a character because it fit the character concept best and I'd always thought it was fine but then I started playing and I was like "Oh, I'm a god!"

The debate on Abjuration was glorious.

Dominate monster + modify memory? Do you want a Winter Soldier? Because that’s how you get a Winter Soldier.

As a DM one of the toughest BBEG I did was an enchantress. It was for a one shot, with a party of about 7 and they all made real strong physical fighters. Also this was for my kids and cousins so I was very generous with Magic Items. They were feeling very proud of themselves plowing through a horde of orcs and even taking down a giant without really getting hurt. They were gloating so bad about how they were unstoppable and had the best characters, and then Morgana came in and hypnotized half o them and dominated the strongest of them and sent them after the party. I taught them a valuable lesson about different types of strengths that night. Lol

How cool is it that the Enchantment Wizard can use its second level Hypnotic gaze ability to break a barbarian out of their rage?

Killgrave, the villain in Jessica Jones is great inspiration for Enchantment wizards.

So glad y'all are supporting Runesmith! He's a cool guy!

Blanket Spell Resistance at 14th level, Shield effectively as though it's a cantrip at 18th level for a minor recharge to arcane ward when it's depleted, Over 40 effective bonus HP with arcane ward. I love the Abjuration wizard.

Small correction about the Divination Wizard's 10th level feature. You can't change the sight option when you finish a rest, but instead can change it with an action 1 time per rest. This means, if you're not sure about what to take for the day, you can hold off on choosing it until you actually need it.

The enchantment school is so slept on. You can control the whole battlefield

The thing with the Abjuration wizard to keep in mind is that that defensive shield doesn't just provide temp HP or boost your max HP, "Whenever you take damage, the ward takes the damage instead." In other words as long as your ward is up you're not rolling concentration checks since you're not taking damage your ward is. That's a good amount of the benefit there.

Enchantment's Alter Memories makes Friends one of the best cantrips in the game. Auto adv on all Cha checks and the downside is negated because they simply can't remember

I thought it was weird their conversation on Abjuration revolved entirely around putting your ward on yourself. I actually completely forgot you can put it on yourself. I thought the allure of Abjuration was warding your party members.

One thing that Monty failed to take into account. The good old "Geek the mage first" rule that Shadowrun taught us. Abjurer says "Bring it".

As a relatively new DM I can't describe how useful these videos are.

Counterspell is one of the most important spell in the game hands down. Anyone who consistently casts it effects battles greatly, managing to do so at lower levels and being able to withstand the strikes enemies lash out at you for doing so is huge. Top that off with being able to hold concentration on your other high lvl spells because your ward took the damage for you is even more impressive.

Just got to the Diviner subclass part of the video. "Can you forsee the ranking of this wizard subclass?" If it's not an S rank, I'll eat my shorts lol.

Instinctive Charm is just your character doing cutesy eyes at the opponent and saying "You wouldn't hit me would you?"

A great feat for Enchanters is Metamagic Adept with Subtle spells. It only costs 1 sorcery point, so you can cast it twice per long rest. A lot of enchantment spells cast with Subtle can be used in front of everyone and is completely undetectable. You can hold a honey in your pocket (material component) and walk straight into the throne room and cast Dominate Person. And nobody will detect you. Borderline broken

I think that with Hypnotic Gaze, people don't like having their squishy wizards in the frontlines of battle to begin with, let alone staying in the thick of things to lock down one person with their action each round. Often, they would rather use their actions to do other "cooler" stuff from the back where it's safe. To use this effectively, you need to have trust in your party to take care of things while you keep someone locked down.

There is Divination spell that deals damage. So divination Wizard low on spell slots, while in combat, can cast more spells. Mind Spike

What hurts the Conjurer for me, was that until Tasha's summoning magic felt like it had been nerfed too hard. The school appeals to me more now with the introduction of the new summoning spells in Tasha's.

I'm a simple minded fool that's always preferred the classes that are just run in and whack with a big stick but thanks to these videos I've started reconsidering magic classes.

People are kidding with the Enchanter. This SubClass is insane!

Kelly to Monty: "I reject your reality and replace it with my own."

I think it's so fitting that Illusion looks weak until you actually carefully read into the features and think of how they interact with the rest of the wizard kit and realize that Illusion is a strong subclass. Illusions can appear as another thing and only through careful and deliberate inspection can you realize what it truly is.

Way to stand your ground kelly! I love the abjuration wizard, and I'm glad you stood up for it. On counterspell, there's stuff you can use to help assist bad rolls on the check, like lucky. It makes a world of difference

I'm about to start playing an Order of Scibes wizard. Seems interesting.

I currently play a Divination wizard in my campaign and the odd time when I roll a Nat 20 for the day, I give it to our kobold paladin to give him that extra smite boost. I did this to help our party defeat a Mummy Lord when we were Level 6! And we got so much loot from his tomb after. XD However, I used that Nat 20 portent in a heavy decision to persuade Jarlaxle from TPKing my party when there was a misunderstanding with our Wild Magic barbarian (the barbarian was still killed but we made it out alive at Level 5).

"Scrying is the only 5th level divination spell I'd use". Laughs in upcasted mind spike.

I don't know, forcing a legendary creature to burn a legendary resistance is a pretty useful, if not situational, ability. I wouldn't call it a waste if used well. 20:20

Portent is not that difficult. All you need to know is your Spell Save DC. If you roll lower that number, then you are set to cast a “Save or Suck” spell. If you roll high, then use it for attacks (when you know what you need to hit), or other rolls that you want to replace. If you come up against a creature with Legendary Resistance, and you roll high, then use it on your own saves because you’ll probably need it!

Abjurer isn't just defensive for the wizard; the wizard can tank and protect allies. It really synergizes with a bard who can boost counterspelling or dispelling. Spell resistance is quite nice, too. I play an Oath of Ancients paladin in a party with an Abjurer. We do not fear enemy spellcasters. Portent won't be an encounter shutdown if the dice are middling, but it sure does get you or your buddy out of trouble... extra hit, for example. It's only sometimes mind-blowing.

My first 5e Wizard was a Lawful Good Tiefling who was born to a retired adventuring cleric of Bahamut and grew up wanting to protect people despite lacking the physical might. So he compensated with using the power of his mind to help keep others safe in the name of The Platinum Dragon.

I think Chronurgy is S tier, there are a few in B-C tier like OotS, Transmutation, Conjuration, and everything else is packed together as as solid A. So much of a wizard's power level comes from the base class spell-casting abilities the subclasses can only vary the power level so much.

I ran a castle siege adventure recently with a Rakshasa as the big bad. I gave him all the class features of a level 10 Enchanter Wizard to make things a bit spicier. It was super fun!

Conjuration's "Focused Concentration" is insane and totally underrated

I've been playing an enchantment wizard for about 2 years now. It is incredibly powerful. Being able to use dominate person on 2 people at once can lead to some very lucrative scenarios. The lower level abilities also make it easier to survive as a squishy wizard. I would definitely consider giving it a chance, and I absolutely see it as an S-tier subclass

One thing I appreciate abt these tier lists is that they actually use every ranking level. I feel like most of the time (at least in semi-serious tier lists) they only ever use the extremes

The point with the divination wizard is it makes divination spells incredibly cheap to cast, you're never worried about spending a spell slot to find out a bit more information because you just get one back

To defend the Conjuration Wizard a little bit, it's a subclass that wants to cover all aspects of the school, and I think it does it really well. i feel that you went into it thinking it's supposed to be a summoner subclass, when it's really not. It's a bit more spread out than just being a Summoner.

I'm really surprised at the Enchantment School's lack of support...

4 part series and 40 min videos of Monty and Kelly talking about wizards??? I'm here for it 🙌

Enchantment Wizard BBEGs are probably one of the most terrifying foes you can face in a campaign. Especially when you remember that Power Word Kill happens to be an Enchantment spell and thus qualify for split enchantment. Or just as bad, double Feeblemind.

Also, with the School of Abjuration. It doesn't only protect the Wizard, the ability to project it to protect your allies is also excellent.

About the enchantment school: the people don't like most of the control aspects of the game. Generally just wants to strike with a lots of damage.

benign transposition & misty step: you misty step up to a boss monster then swap position with the fighter. with the wizard most likely acting before the fighter the fighter can move after the bampf

I never would have thought the enchanter was so useful, I'm convinced

I don’t know why, but I just completely love the spells Temporal Shunt and Reality Break. I probably love reality break because it’s so good, but I imagine temporal shunt as looking similar to the scene in Dr. Strange when the ancient one astral projects dr.strange, and I always imagine it looking so cool.

Great video! You guys have come up in my suggested feed dozens of times, but I only pulled the trigger now that I’m looking at playing a wizard for my next game - glad I finally did! Looking forward to watching the rest of the series in the next couple days!

Ahh yes. The best D&D class

Kelly’s speech about Abjuration wizards may be his finest moment. I’m sold. Solid A

Man, I almost had an aneurysm when they were throwing a B-tier for Divination, especially when it was because in entirely hinged on DMs screwing you over in particular (any school of magic or character can be similarly shut down). I also disagree about Portent being wasted when legendary resistance is used, it’s a depletion of resources, and you can always hold on using Portent until you know they’ve used all of them. In addition, Portent stands out as one of the few features in the game where any roll is a good one so I disagree about it being hard to use sometimes. 1-4? That’s for an enemy save (with any ability you can see, including allies spells) 5-9, useful for enemy ability checks or saves that you suspect them to be poor at. 10-15, death saves, or crucial saves you or someone is proficient in but cannot risk failing, 16-20, well that’s for attacks that really need to hit. Edit: also, mind spike is a solid divination combat spell that gives you back a use of shield after you applied mage armor at the beginning of the day. Just a nice little combo which is useful at many levels. I am glad they saw enchantment magic as the powerhouse it was. I remember having a similar realization one day and I was stunned (or was I hypnotized?) Enchantment wizards make one of the best BBEGs, with their role-playing capabilities with alter memory, and their combat prowess with dual-targeting high level spells. Their thoughts on conjugation and abjuration are pretty spot on, and Kelly has the right of it regarding abjuration wizards. Better to use your high level spell slots on acting that just trying to stop the enemy. In addition, the bonus to that ability check provides a benefit when you’re trying to counterspell or dispel enemy magic that is more powerful that your wizard can currently cast.

I very much appreciate the way the two of you communicate with one another regarding your reasoning for each of these choices. It's a lost art form in a way, the ability to have differing opinions while still understanding and seeing the value in other views. Great video, guys.

Hm, I think that the Benign Transposition from the Conjuration Wizard is more valuable than they gave it credit. This ability gives the Wizard the ability to instantly break out of something holding them down, without having to use a spell slot. More importantly though, if an ally is in a situation like this, and can't break out, the wizard can switch places with them and then teleport themselves out with Misty Step, completely negating the ability used by the enemy creature, and then still being able to use the ability after. Plus the increase to the Wizard's mobility and not having to use the Disengage action, means even less spells being used for defense.

What i will say about the conjuration wizard is that you can use that lvl 3 ability to create spell components as well as long as you've seen it, and it can be worth any amount bc it doesn't have a monetary limit. For example a diamond worth 500 gp as long as it's less than the allotted size and weight

Just be careful with the Divination wizard's "Antagonize DM" feature.

This is the most careful and wonderfully thought out video in this whole series so far! Nice job!

If I can offer a counterpoint on the conjuration wizard: you seem to be focusing a lot on the idea of conjuring creatures and you may want to think bigger than that to the overall added utility. First, take another look at the list of conjuration spells. There's a lot more on there than you'd think at first glance. Flaming Sphere, Web, Stinking Cloud, Black Tentacles and Cloud Kill are all conjuration spells. Yes, those may not benefit from the extra HP ability you get at level 14, but they certainly benefit from not having to make concentration checks to keep up at level 10. That means you're not wasting an action on your turn to recast them and you're not wasting an additional spell slot either. If I don't have to waste another high level spell slot recasting Cloud Kill, that's one more slot I can keep in my back pocket for an upcast counterspell. Likewise, benign transportation may be an action but it also doesn't need a spell slot. This is great if you're out of combat and don't want to waste a slot to get past a trap, climb up to a ledge, cross a ravine, or get through a locked gate. Who cares if it's an action if you're just in exploration mode? That's one less spell slot I need to waste out of combat on teleportation. Last, consider minor conjuration through the same lens that you view the minor illusion cantrip. Sure, the object is visibly magic, but the trade off is that it's tangible. Think of all the benign objects you always have on hand. Did someone forget to buy a crowbar? Poof! You have one. Need to secure a door? Poof! You have a three foot wooden board or chain. Do you want to set an ambush? Poof! You have a glowing magic object sitting in a room that no self respecting guard is going to ignore while your barbarian hides behind the door with an axe. I'm not trying to say that the conjuration wizard is top tier, but the sheer utility a creative player can get out of it combined with the improved economy of action and spell slot usage make it a solid choice. Frankly, I'd give it an A rank.

I think my favourite part about hypnotic gaze is that you get the charmed condition for advantage on all charisma checks against them, without the downside from friends of at the end they realise they were manipulated by magic and are likely to look back on what you asked negatively. It's actually hypnosis.

I was looking forward for the wizard ranking video and it didn't disappoint. Incredible job, 40 fantastic minutes from beginning to end.

The fit of that hoodie is perfect. Weird thing to notice I guess, but it's a great looking hoodie.

YAY rune smith...I love to see my 2 favorite D&D content creators supporting each other 😁

Step 1: Take Abjurer Step 2: Take Eldritch Adept (Armor of Shadows) Step 3: Have a permanently topped up Arcane Ward (ie Profit!)

Welcome to part 1 of our 598-part series ranking the wizard subclasses! Seriously, though, keep up the great work guys! Mad respect for all the work that goes into your vids.

I really enjoyed the extended back and forth discussion on the divination wizard! Really interesting how experience with a class gives you a very distinct insight.

Divination Wizard is also really good as an NPC ally. It's nice when a player is having bad luck in a fight and you can just gift them a good roll.

I'm sure Necromancer is going to be B if not C tier. But I'm enjoying playing mine even though all my bodies are unused (animated; but hidden in a bag of holding 🤣)

You guys are amazing! I love playing wizards, both as a PC or as DM, and I feel especially as DM I've played so many out-of-box campaigns that are lacking spellcasting NPCs by early or mid level to provide a non-martial challenge to make my players think outside the box. Your comments about that creative thinking are entirely on point; I found myself nodding in agreement with so many takes where you rank subclasses as "this is super cool buuuuut it requires inventive thought, which not to be mean but is often lacking." My friends and I are constantly debriefing sessions in which we wish we had done cool new things but end up resorting to what we know just maximizes damage rather than having some eureka moment. Anyway this is all to say I really appreciate the experience you show and balance between what is possible versus what is likely in terms of optimization. This is the video that inspired me to join your Patreon, but every one is outstanding, honestly. Drakkenheim is so dope too. [doffs cap] Keep up the good work, you are an inspiration!

Like watching the back-and-forth. This is a good discussion and brings up points I had not considered. Thank you!

Yes, the DM can shut down a Divination Wizard - technically, A DM can shut down ANY class or subclass in the game.

It's sooo good to see the Enchanter get some love! Great job Dudes!

I think your guys subclass tier rankings are the absolute best videos for DnD players. They are nearly invaluable for creating a new character. Love them all.

You guys dont know how long I have waited for this video. Thx dudes, u are awesome!

Divination is a tricky subclass because it’s meta in its nature. You need a DM who will work with you, and you don’t always get that.

Minor Conjuration: Your rogue lost his shortbow? Just conjure up a new one!

I have genuinely been waiting for this video since last year. So happy to finally get it

I am getting ready for my first time beening the DM. Your videos are great been watching a lot past 3 weeks. Very informative. And helpful.

This has been such a great series, can't wait for the BladeSinger, thanks Dudes!!!

As for Divination, I'd like to remind people that Mind Spike is a fantastic SILENT spell that deals damage and gets you back a first level spells slot for things like shield. Use Mind Spike, it's amazing.

Really appreciate the extended discussion on Divination wizard; I think it deserves the ranking it gets, but you're right: it's not an "omniscience subclass": it won't always tell you whatever you want to know. I appreciate the nuance in the discussion

Just started watching you guys,,,, and not having part 2 ready RIGHT AWAY like the rest of the classes, is sad!!! love you two tho! great content

- Kelly went hard on the mind whip spell, I don't quite remember what it does. Wait a second. *reads* -Oh. Ohh. Ohhhhh....

The one I’ve been waiting for! Divination = S Tier

I've been waiting for this moment for so long. Thank you 😁

Ahhhh I'm so excited you finally got to wizard! 😊 I'm recently playing one and have been waiting for this.

The only wizard I've played so far was Evocation, but I've been wanting to play a Divination wizard for a while (although I'm slightly worried that I'll forget to use portent rolls at critical moments lol). I hadn't given much thought to the Enchantment wizard, but I've taken a second look after hearing you guys discuss it and I'm quite impressed. I'm currently playing an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer with a similar play style, so I would definitely consider playing an Enchantment wizard sometime.

Kelly’s really holding his own today!

As a DM, I had a player bring a spell from an unearthed arcana - mindsliver. And I allowed it. It taught me that the incapacitated condition will absolutely wreck any monster who is ecologically a loner. The illusionists ability to incapacitate something is super clutch, as the incapacitated condition is in my opinion underrated

I love this series, all of the classes reviewed, thanks guys.