Complete Guide to Fire Damage Spells in D&D 5e

Complete Guide to Fire Damage Spells in D&D 5e

by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Ah, fantasy arson. The best place to get out those intrusive thoughts about what a little match can do is in the safe imaginary world of Dungeons & Dragons. The game provides us with an abundance of options to choose how we want to burn its world to the ground. 

Looking for a flamethrower? Agnazzar’s Scorcher looks the part. A grenade launcher? Fireball easily performs the task. A subtle spark to kindle a roaring flame? Go with Produce Flame or Flame Blade! 

Here, you’ll find every spell in the game that can deal Fire damage, and a ranking of each to help you make informed decisions about the best tool for the job! 

Always Deals Fire Damage Spells by Level

The following spells always deal Fire damage when they deal damage. They can also deal an additional damage type to qualify, such as Fire and Bludgeoning damage.

Fire Damage Spells by Class

The following are in order of spell level per class encompassing any spell that can deal Fire damage. Spells with parentheses following them are accessible through the specified subclass.

Artificer

Create Bonfire

Fire Bolt

Green-Flame Blade

Absorb Elements

Flaming Sphere (Alchemist)

Heat Metal

Scorching Ray (Artillerist)

Ashardalon’s Stride

Elemental Weapon

Fireball (Artillerist)

Flame Arrows

Glyph of Warding

Elemental Bane

Fire Shield (Battle Smith, Armorer)

Summon Construct

Wall of Fire (Artillerist)

Bard

Heat Metal

Glyph of Warding

Cleric

Burning Hands (Light)

Flaming Sphere (Light)

Heat Metal (Forge)

Scorching Ray (Light)

Elemental Weapon (Forge)

Fireball (Light)

Glyph of Warding

Wall of Fire (Light, Forge)

Flame Strike

Fire Storm

Druid

Create Bonfire

Produce Flame

Burning Hands (Wildfire)

Flame Blade

Flaming Sphere

Heat Metal

Scorching Ray (Wildfire)

Elemental Weapon

Flame Arrows

Conjure Minor Elementals

Elemental Bane

Fire Shield (Wildfire)

Wall of Fire

Summon Elemental

Conjure Elemental

Flame Strike (Wildfire)

Summon Draconic Spirit

Investiture of Flame

Fire Storm

Paladin

Hellish Rebuke (Oathbreaker)

Searing Smite

Elemental Weapon

Flame Strike (Devotion, Glory)

Ranger

Absorb Elements

Searing Smite

Summon Elemental

Ashardalon’s Stride

Elemental Weapon

Flame Arrows

Sorcerer

Create Bonfire

Fire Bolt

Green-Flame Blade

Absorb Elements

Burning Hands

Chromatic Orb

Chaos Bolt

Agnazzar’s Scorcher

Dragon’s Breath

Scorching Ray

Ashardalon’s Stride

Fireball 

Flame Arrows

Melf’s Minute Meteors

Wall of Fire

Immolation

Summon Draconic Spirit

Investiture of Flame

Delayed Blast Fireball

Fire Storm

Prismatic Spray

Incendiary Cloud

Meteor Swarm

Prismatic Wall

Warlock

Create Bonfire

Green-Flame Blade

Burning Hands (Fiend, Genie)

Hellish Rebuke

Flaming Sphere (Celestial)

Scorching Ray (Fiend, Genie)

Elemental Weapon (Hexblade)

Fireball (Fiend, Genie)

Elemental Bane

Fire Shield (Fiend, Genie)

Wall of Fire (Celestial, Fiend)

Flame Strike (Celestial, Fiend, Genie)

Investiture of Flame

Summon Fiend

Wizard

Create Bonfire

Fire Bolt

Green-Flame Blade

Absorb Elements

Burning Hands

Chromatic Orb

Agnazzar’s Scorcher

Dragon’s Breath

Flaming Sphere

Scorching Ray

Ashardalon’s Stride

Fireball 

Flame Arrows

Glyph of Warding

Melf’s Minute Meteors

Conjure Minor Elementals

Elemental Bane

Fire Shield

Summon Construct

Summon Elemental

Wall of Fire

Conjure Elemental

Immolation

Summon Draconic Spirit

Investiture of Flame

Summon Fiend

Delayed Blast Fireball

Prismatic Spray

Illusory Dragon

Incendiary Cloud

Meteor Swarm

Prismatic Wall

All Fire Damage Spells Ranked Worst to Best

All Fire damage spells aren’t created equally. For your consideration, here is my ranking for the worst to best Fire-damaging spells in the game. Any spell that can deal Fire damage is included in this ranking, even if only some versions of the cast deal that damage type.
These rankings aren’t ranking the total Fire damage a spell is capable of dealing but how useful the spell will likely be on a character sheet. Let's dive in!

F Tier: Near Uncastable

  • 40. Chaos Bolt: Chaos Bolt does less damage than it should and fails to meaningfully deliver on the promise of being a fun, chaotic effect. Most characters that take this are better off casting Chromatic Orb or any other 1st-level damaging spell than this. 

  • 39. Elemental Bane: While flavorful, Elemental Bane is a horrendous way to spend a spell slot. You need to be actively working with some other character who is routinely dealing Fire damage every round for this to start dealing damage, and more often than not, you’re getting pitiful damage numbers. The only exception is if you’re in a group that entirely does only Fire damage, in which case this might be better than some of the D-tier options above it, but you’re almost always going to be better off just casting a damaging spell over this. 

    It does have one other particularly cute interaction in builds looking to maximize the effectiveness of Scorching Ray, as it gives you a bonus bit of damage for each ray, but that doesn’t save it from being near uncastable. 

  • 38. Prismatic Spray: 10d6 damage for a 7th-level slot is a terrible rate. One in eight times, this might do twice that, but you have no control over it. Like Chaos Bolt, this fails to do anything interesting with the chaotic elements of it and feels like a waste of paper that is outclassed by most other area-of-effect damage spells in the game. 

  • 37. Searing Smite: Paladins have a feature called Divine Smite- on hit, you can spend a 1st level spell slot to deal 2d8 radiant damage. Alternatively, you could commit that slot and your concentration for a 1d6 fire damage spell instead that needs three rounds over three saves to deal as much damage as a normal smite. Searing Smite is a joke of a spell, and while it should look like a cool ignition effect, it ends up being a boring, bland, impractical way to waste a spell slot. 

D Tier: Most Sheets Don’t Want These

  • 36. Glyph of Warding: Glyph of Warding is a novel effect, but the reality of most D&D games is defensive spells you have to palace somewhere and get an enemy to trigger it are incredibly difficult to use. Adventurers are aggressors;  you’re going to be pushing into spaces far more often than holding one.

    The main practical benefit of it is using it to abuse duplicating Concentration effects that are 3rd level or lower for 200 gold per cast. If you want an hour-long spell cast to get a bonus hour-long concentration spell like a second Summon Beast or Shadowspawn, this can work, but most tables aren’t going to find that this fits their adventuring schedule. 

  • 35. Prismatic Wall: The wall spells are ticky and weird to play with, and none highlights this more than Prismatic Wall. It usually is just a tool you try to push things into to get all the effects at once. For a 9th-level spell, that is way too much work for not nearly enough payoff when things like Wish and Meteor Swarm its competition. If you can get something forced through it, you’re getting 50d6 damage with a potential restrain and blind, which is great, sure, but not anything to write home about when it comes to the best of the best spells. 

  • 34. Incendiary Cloud: 8th-level spells need to do a lot to justify their cast, and ideally do something lower-level versions can’t do. 10d8 damage from an Incendiary Cloud each round sounds great, but most of the time you’ll cast this like a Fireball that enemies have to move once to avoid subsequent damage from. Its movement is normally a minor detriment, and it is dispersed by a moderate breeze is an issue further. If you can get 20d8 damage out of it on a few creatures it can be worth it, but that’s harder than it looks. 

  • 33. Immolation: Like Searing Smite, Immolation has the goal to deliver on the ignition fantasy. You light somebody on fire, and they burn slowly and painfully to death. The problem with Immolation is the quantity of saves built-in paired with the mediocre damage on the initial cast. It only deals 7d6 fire damage on the first failed save, and each subsequent failed save add just 3d6 more damage. Two failed saves in a row isn’t all that uncommon of an occurrence, but three or more are rare. I don’t want a single target 5th-level spell that deals 10d6 damage. I can get that in an area with Fireball. If you can get it to stick for four to five rounds it can sometimes be worth it, but that’s not particularly likely to occur. 

  • 32. Investiture of Flame: As far as the Investiture spells, this might be the best one, but that’s not a ringing endorsement. Fundamentally, spending a spell slot and an action to just get a new action with a few much smaller effects on top of it is hard to justify. The 4d8 line of fire isn’t all that much better than what other spells can offer you for cheap; something like Ice Knfie gives you better range and area with similar damage for just a 1st-level slot. If you’re only hitting one creature, a mid-tier Firebolt dealing 3d10 damage is going to look like a way better option. The bonus 1d10 damage that triggers when something gets close to you or ends a turn within 5 feet of you sets it up to go alongside Fire Shield, which could be an interesting build direction to consider, but an average sheet isn’t going to regularly want this 6th-level spell. 

  • 31. Flame Blade: Flame Blade is pretty close to proficiency and decent modifiers with a Greatsword. 2d6+3 is functionally the same average damage as 3d6. The main issue, then, is the classes that get Flame Blade only ever are making one attack a round with it, and I don’t really want to commit my concentration and a 2nd level spell on Greatsword proficiency. In the lower tiers, this can feel fine, but past 4th level I can’t regularly see using this over a myriad of better concentration effects that don’t commit my action to making a melee weapon attack. 

  • 30. Hellish Rebuke: Pact Magic majorly limits what kinds of spells work well on Warlocks. Typically, they want long-duration, high-impact effects, as they’re working with few spell slots. It makes reactions like Hellish Rebuke feel pretty horrendous to use. On other characters, like Paladins, I think its actually pretty solid, as it's a place to stick your lower-level slots with a reaction. Warlocks are the primary class with access to this and lack lower-level slots to utilize it effectively.

C Tier: Have a Home on Some Characters

  • 29. Flame Arrows: Flame Arrows is kind of an upgrade over Hunter’s Mark in that it removes the need to move around your mark as a Bonus Action, opening it up to other options like Crossbow Expert or Cunning Action. That’s enough of an upside that I think this will find a home comfortably on some character sheets, but it isn’t the most exciting upgrade in the world, especially given its limited to twelve shots, or six rounds of attacks.

  • 28. Flaming Sphere: Bonus action damaging spells are fairly common these days with the poster child still being Spiritual Weapon. Flaming Sphere is so much worse than Spirutal Weapon it's painful, yet it still can be a fine addition to some characters. You’re going to regularly want to use the bonus action ram on top of putting it somewhere on cast you expert a creature will suffer through its initial damage. The end-of-turn damage effect is inconsistent, and with no initial attack, it can feel like a waste of an action in shorter fights to invest in something that’s so easy to avoid. 

  • 27. Ashardalon’s Stride: I adore the design premise of Ashardalon’s Stride; I just think they slightly undershot the damage. 1d6 damage, no save, on creatures you scoot past ends up feeling like a bit of upside on what’s basically just an improved speed you can use to dodge opportunity attacks.
    If you want a tool to play the melee-ranged skirmisher dipping in and out of a fight with 2-3d6 bonus damage a round, this enables that play pattern pretty well, but isn’t always going to work, and rarely will be an effective strategy. The bonus action cast time helps a ton, as you can get your Extra Attack with Artificer, Ranger, and Bladesinger the turn you cast it alongside its bonus damage. Still, it's going to often feel like a small melee-only upgrade to Flame Arrows. 

  • 26. Elemental Weapon: It's hard for me to say this is fine for some characters, namely because Hunter’s Mark and Hex both exist and do most of what Elemental Weapon is doing, but better in terms of dice size. +1 to hit, though, alongside making your weapon magical, makes this a massive upgrade from the mundane Magic Weapon, leaving it as something I still don’t want to have to cast, but it does improve your damage and hit modifiers meaningfully. 

  • 25. Chromatic Orb: 3d8 damage for a 1st level slot is entirely fine. Chromatic Orb is the floor of 1st level damage spells; anything less than this and it’s not getting onto my characters, especially if I’m mainly looking for a specific kind of damage to fulfill a role in creating an Elementalist or other damage-type fantasy. There are better damage options like Magic Missile available to you, but plenty of characters in the low tiers can make great use of this. 

  • 24. Green-Flame Blade: Green-Flame Blade is most interesting on characters with access to Quicken Spell or other tools to cast it as a bonus action. Making the weapon attack is part of the spell cast, and often results in Bladesingers doing their Extra Attack with some free extra bouncing damage thanks to this. Eldritch Knights can take it as well for a similar effect, just worse. Its niche, and doesn’t go on an abundance of sheets, but it is a pretty reasonable upgrade for sheets that want it, and its floor is a fine damaging cantrip for melee ranged characters. 

  • 23. Produce Flame: 1d8 fire damage for a cantrip mixed with Light makes this an entirely unremarkable, yet entirely usable damage cantrip. Its outclassed by two other Fire damaging cantrips higher on this list, but only one of those is available to Druid, and Druids care a lot about their concentration, which it uses, making Produce Flame a pretty appealing option for Wildfire Druids. 

  • 22. Aganazzar’s Scorcher: 3d8 damage is close to an up-cast Ice Knife or Burning Hands. Agnazzar’s Scorcher is that, in an awkward line. I love lines. They’re my favorite spell shape. That’s really the only reason this spell escapes D-tier. In reality, you probably don’t want this on your sheet if you have any area of effect 1st level damage spell. If you want a Fire line, though, this is a cheap way to get one.

  • 21. Wall of Fire: Wall of Fire does 5d8 damage on cast for a 4th level spell with the potential to do 5d8 bonus damage a turn. 10d8 is a great damage rate for a 4th-level area-of-effect damaging spell, and 5d8 is a terrible rate. This makes this spell particularly fickle- if you can’t get the subsequent damage out of it, it's near unusable, but if you can ever force a handful of creatures to save twice, it’s excellent. Some creatures will force themselves through it to try to get to you, and others will be in positions you can augment to take damage from this using pushes and pulls. Without that kind of support, I generally would rather have a more consistent area of effect damage spell, and there is no shortage of excellent options for that. 

  • 20. Fire Storm: As a 7th-level spell, Fire Storm is doing a bit more damage than an up-cast Fireball with a better area you can shape. I don’t rate the tiny bit of damage increased nor the area upgrade worth enough to justify putting this spell on my sheet. If you don’t have other great instantaneous damage options, which many Clerics and Druids lack, it does serve a pretty reasonable role as your big, splashy damage effect, but Sorcerers probably don’t ever need, nor want this. 

B Tier: Solid Options on Many Characters

  • 19. Fire Shield: What makes Fire Shield excellent is what mechanic is omitted from it: concentration. You can take as much damage as you’d like without worrying about losing the spell, rebuffing the attackers with 2d6 Fire damage per hit. It fits best on characters like Artificers and Bladesingers who can build to take more attacks, but can be a great option for any mid-ranged caster who expects to take five or more hits before it expires. 

  • 18. Melf’s Minute Meteors: These cute little meteors blast about for a bonus action, and while not as consistent as some of its competition, I really like Melf’s Minute Meteors. You’re getting a great chunk of damage for a 3rd level slot, but it's spread out over bonus actions and multiple rounds. If you’re tired of doing one big blast at a time, or just want a consistent source of firey impact round to round, I would recommend trying these out. It isn’t groundbreaking, but it is a great place to put your bonus action and concentration. 

  • 17. Scorching Ray: Like Melf’s Meteors, Scorching Ray fires multiple blasts of burning flames instead of a single instance of damage. What stands out to me about this is its instantaneous nature paired with multiple attacks, letting it scale with some weird effects like Hex and Elemental Bane. Its the kind of spell you can build around, but doesn’t tend to scale particularly well. It can do fine work in the low tiers on its own, though, as a sidegrade to Magic Missile. 

  • 16. Delayed Blast Fireball: If Fireball is a grenade, Delayed Blast Fireball is a mine. You set it, wait, and BAM! Big area of damage! It's a bit funky to to get to work exactly as you’d like, but from stealth, this can deal a silly amount of damage, and at its worst it's literally just an up-cast Fireball. That’s a great place for a spell to be. 

  • 15. Dragon’s Breath: Investiture of Fire struggles to justify its slot; when you drop the damage by a d6 and make it a 2nd-level spell, I’m suddenly much more interested. A bonus action setup for a repeatable 15 ft. cone of damage will stretch your resources in the early tiers, as you can just commit to one 2nd level spell for a fight and not need to mess around with the far worse damaging options cantrips tend to cover. Past 5th level I probably would stop casting this, but early on, this spell’s stellar. 

  • 14. Heat Metal: Heat Metal introduces a kind of niche power I love. It excels in some encounters, is useful in most, and isn’t going to work in others, and its all relative to the kind of weapons and armor enemies you’re facing have. A vengeful death knight clad in the plate it died in is going to boil every round. A bandit might have to drop their weapons or face scalding burns. A hydra doesn’t give a shit about this. Given how strong consistent, and guaranteed damage is for how cheap it is to use, this range feels great to play with and alongside.

  • 13. Fire Bolt: 1d10 damage for a cantrip is a rate established by Fire Bolt. You get a big range and a reasonable dice size for that. It scales with the game, but isn’t something you’re that excited to have to use past 5th level in place of 1st through 3rd level spells. If you want an early damaging spell, this is entirely reasonable. 

  • 12. Create Bonfire: Where Firebolt is a fine attack roll, Create Bonfire is a fine little save with some other uspide. It either forces a creature to move or consistently burns them round after round. That kind of ability on a cantrip is useful. Paired with Fire Bolt early, you can set up areas where you’re getting more damage on your turn than you’d get with just the prior. As soon as you have something better to concentrate on you probably want to get this off your sheet, but until then, it's a great little damage boost to play around with. 

  • 11. Burning Hands: 3d6 area damage for a 1st-level slot is established by Burning Hands. Its a bit tricky to position, but when you hit three to five kobolds at once with this, you feel legendary. It's a huge chunk of damage for a 1st level slot that feels like hitting with three to four attacks at once at its best, which is crazy action-efficient while encouraging a bit of risk/reward play. As far as early game area of effect damage goes, this is one of the best options you can take.  

  • 10. Illusory Dragon: Despite you literally creating an Illusory Dragon that flies around and blasts breath weapons at people, this spell works closer to an Arcane Hand than a Summon Draconic Spirit. In that context, though, Illusory Dragon is one of the best bonus action damaging spells in the game. An 8th-level spell needs to be dealing north of 14d6 damage to justify casting it as a damage spell; this spell gives you half that damage each turn it out. Getting two uses from it isn’t a particularly high bar, and should anything opt to waste actions trying to discern this is an illusion instead of attacking you, you’re getting even more out of it. 

    The short duration, cost, and concentration component are holding this back from A tier. Casting an 8th-level spell for one round of 7d6 damage before losing concentration and getting nothing further is rough. As long as you get three rounds from this, though, it’ll be superb. 

A Tier: Excellent Spells for Anyone

  • 9. Summon Elemental: Summon Elemental is about as bog-standard a summon spell as you can get. It's a big chunk of hit points with some resistances and some varied speeds depending on mode. I generally prefer its competition to it in the Summon department, but a conjured ally with multi-attack you don’t need to spend actions on will usually be excellent, and this is no exception. 

  • 8. Conjure Elemental: Conjure Elemental usually produces a Fire, Water, Earth, or Air elemental, and all of those are way better than the elemental stat blocks presented in Summon Elemental. The only catch is that should your concentration break, you’re now pitted against the summoned creature. I’m a big fan of taking this risk, but you may not be. If you’re prepared to face the consequences of dabbling in more dangerous magic, I’d take this over Summon Elemental when you’ve got the choice. 

  • 7. Summon Construct: Summon Construct has a mode where the construct deals on hit fire damage, as well as fire damage when a creature touches it. It's one of the more inflexible summons, though, usually acting as a chunky melee-only meat shield. It's still a summonable ally, though, and absolutely worth casting. 

  • 6. Summon Fiend: Want a frolicking devil to sling blasts of flame round after round? Summon Fiend is here for you. Three attacks a round with a fly speed and optional other abilities depending on form makes Summon Fiend as reasonable an option as its predecessors but with a bit more evil. 

  • 5. Summon Draconic Spirit: Summon Draconic Spirit is an upgrade on Summon Fiend, and it's a whole spell level lower, giving it bonus flexibility. It has a breath weapon you can opt to be Fire, giving you the area effect Fire damage round after round on top of two, three, or four attacks based on the spell slot used. It's large as well, meaning if you’re medium and want a flying mount, you’ve got it here. It lacks the slow, but come on. You get a fire-breathing dragon buddy. That’s sweet. 

  • 4. Absorb Elements: Absorb Elements is cheap to cast, using only a reaction and a 1st level slot, is on a ton of spell lists, and reduces incoming damage substantially. The bonus elemental damage you then deal on hit is gravy; the main use case of this is helping you survive enemy Fireballs. Any character that can put Absorb Elements on their sheet, especially those past 5th level, will benefit from having it. 

  • 3. Conjure Minor Elementals: Steam Mephits come in groups of eight when summoned with Conjure Minor Elementals, and each of those comes with a ton of utility and damage options. Each gets a once-per-day Blur, claw attacks that deal hybrid fire and slashing damage, and a 1d8 15 ft. cone Steam Breath for that comes back every six rounds (ish). Plus, they explode on death, and are rocking 21 hit points a pop, giving you potentially 168 total hit points worth of monsters to eat enemy attacks with on top of their damage and out-of-combat utility. This spell is utterly nuts, and Steam Mephits are one of the best options you have access to. 

  • 2. Meteor Swarm: Meteor Swarm isn’t just the highest fire or bludgeoning spell in the game, but the highest damage-dealing spell out of all the damage types, and by a huge margin. 40d6 damage in three massive areas instantaneously is ridiculous. It slays armies. It's what a 9th-level damage spell should look like. 

    The only reason it's behind another spell is its six whole spell levels higher in cost than the number one option and doesn’t have nearly as high an impact on how D&D works. 

  • 1. Fireball: Fireball is the default damage spell I check basically every other spell in the game against. A 5th level character unlocking what is functionally a bazooka will change how encounters can be run for the rest of time. Now, enemies with lesst than 15 HP will be able to be outright killed REGARDLESS of save result. Its got a massive range, easily up-casts without feeling to bad, and often is going to be one of the few damage spells you’ll have to lean on to get through an entire campaign.

Best Classes for Fire Damage Spells

  • 9. Bard: You’d think that with this many Fire damaging spells, Bard’s would get at least a handful, but nope. They get Heat Metal and Glyph of Warding. Heat Metal is a great spell, for sure, but literally every other class in the game has far better access to fire damage than this.

  • 8. Paladin: Paladin earns it spot thanks to Elemental Weapon giving them regular access to Fire damage, and Oathbreaker’s bonus spell, Hellish Rebuke. Rebuke really fits best on non-warlocks, making it a particularly appealing option for paladins who have the slots to burn on it, and want to get hit anyway. Its a win-win, but still the second worst in terms of fire damage.

  • 7. Ranger: Absorb Elements and Summon Elemental easily stick Ranger above Paladin. Elemental Weapon is as usable here as it is there, and you also get access to some niche, yet fun effects like Ashardalon’s Stride for a skirmisher fire fantasy.

  • 6. Cleric: Light Domain is packed full of great Fire damage spells, highlighted best by Fireball. Flame Strike and Fire Storm as top-end options also stack the class up well. Outside of Light, you’re basically getting nothing unless you go forge until the upper tiers, but Light is so good at Fire damage I think it earns a spot over Ranger and Paladin.

  • 5. Artificer: Create Bonfire and Fire Bolt play great on Artificer in the early tiers, and Green-Flame Blade extends the martial fantasy to the class in the early game. Artillerist gets access to Fireball and Wall of Fire, with all of the other subclasses getting some decent fire-based effects to challenge enemies with. There is no shortage of flame options for artificers of any subclass.

  • 4. Warlock: Warlocks are similar to Artificer early, with Create Bonfire and Green-Flame Blade providing versatility in build direction. A ton of subclasses offer bangers like Burning Hands, Fireball, Fire Shield, and Wall of Fire. Summon Fiend as a top-end fantasy option supports the demonic and diabolic fires of hell kind of vibes the class often goes for. Pact Magic also makes spells like Scorching Ray particularly interesting to play around with. Warlock has a lot of nifty directions to explore when it comes to arson.

  • 3. Druid: As wardens of nature, Druids play surprisingly well with fire even beyond Circle of Wildfire. Create Bonfire, Produce Flames, Heat Metal, Conjure Minor Elementals, Wall of Fire, and Summon Draconic Spirit all provide ample tools for any druid to build around flames. Wildfire pushes it over the top with Fire Shield, Scorching Ray, and Burning Hands, making it only really missing Fireball from having all the best low-tier fire spells I could ask for.

  • 2. Sorcerer: Sorcerers innately get Fireball, Meteor Swarm, Burning Hands, Dragon’s Breath, and so many more excellent instantaneous options. Metamagic doesn’t actually work too well with most of these effects, but twinning Chromatic Orbs can be an easy way to get multiple instances of fire damage out at once. What holds it back is its single summon effect in Summon Draconic Spirit.

  • 1. Wizard: Wizard, of course, gets the number one spot for Fire damage thanks to the additional Summon and Conjure spells on its list over Sorcerer. You not only have a robust suite of explosive spells to rain fire on your foes, you can contract that out to a dozen different creatures with Summon Construct, Elemental, and Draconic Spirit, Conjure Minor Elementals and Elemental, and Illusory Dragon.

From Sparks to Flames 

Who doesn’t want to play with fire in the comfort of our imagination? D&D is packed with ways to light things up. With this list, you can sculpt the exact repertoire of spells to burn the world in just the right way. Thanks for reading! 

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