Complete Guide to Healing Spells in D&D 5e
by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Bloodied and on one knee, the barbarian tilts their head towards the furious three-headed serpentine monster, eyes narrowing as they meet the central head’s gaze. As he begins to make peace with his certain demise, a warmth spreads from the center of his chest, rapidly spreading through his form, mending the bites and expunging poisons from each shutting gash. He stands, hand dragging the blood-caked axe, briefly turning to his cleric ally, only offering a momentary nod of appreciation before facing the beast and roaring with fury matching that of the wounded monstrosity.
Healing magic is iconic to Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy battles. It can turn the tide of a fight, healing over the most grievous injury to keep yourself or an ally up to keep up the good fight. 5th Edition has a mixed bag of healing effects and an abundance of non-magical ways to regain all of your missing hit points. Knowing what healing spells are worth taking and what ones you may want to steer clear of can give your sheet a big boost in utility. To help, here is a comprehensive breakdown and ranking of every healing spell in D&D 5e!
Healing Spells by Level
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | - |
| 1st | Cure Wounds, Goodberry, Healing Word |
| 2nd | Healing Spirit, Prayer of Healing, Wither and Bloom |
| 3rd | Aura of Vitality, Life Transference, Mass Healing Word, Vampiric Touch |
| 4th | Aura of Life |
| 5th | Enervation, Mass Cure Wounds, Summon Celestial |
| 6th | Heal, Soul Cage |
| 7th | Regenerate |
| 8th | - |
| 9th | Mass Heal, Power Word Heal, Wish |
Healing Spells by Class
The following are in order of spell level per class encompassing any spell that can deal Healing. Spells with parentheses following them are accessible through the specified subclass.
Cure Wounds
Healing Word (Alchemist)
Mass Healing Word (Alchemist)
Mass Cure Wounds (Battle Smith)
Cure Wounds
Healing Word
Mass Cure Wounds
Regenerate
Power Word: Heal
Cure Wounds
Healing Word
Prayer of Healing
Aura of Vitality
Life Transference
Mass Healing Word
Aura of Life
Mass Cure Wounds
Summon Celestial
Heal
Regenerate
Mass Heal
Power Word: Heal
All Healing Spells Ranked Worst to Best
All Healing spells aren’t created equally. For your consideration, here is my ranking for the worst to best healing spells in the game.
These rankings aren’t ranking the total amount of damage the healing a spell can undo, but how useful the spell will likely be on a character sheet.
Context of Healing Spells
Before ranking every healing spell, first I want to quickly establish what the goal of healing in 5th Edition normally is: enhancing your team’s action economy in a fight. This comes in two forms- getting a creature from unconscious to conscious and preventing a creature from going down outright.
Preventing Death. The prior is the most common form of action advantage healing offers. When the fighter goes unconscious from getting crit, spending a resource to get them off of zero and back into the fight produces your team more actions than they had before. The cheaper and more efficient you can do this, generally the better.
Preventing Dropping Outright. Preventing creatures from going down outright is a bit trickier to make happen, as there’s a ton of variance involved. Most creatures deal more damage with a single attack than a 1st level healing spell restores in hit points. Upper-tier fights deal more damage and tend to out-pace single target healing. Larger healing effects that restore a ton of hit points can provide multiple extra turns where characters can take damage without dropping, functionally netting additional actions in the form of actions not lost to being dropped. This can be the more “action efficient” option, as it can be done prior to a fight, leaving all of your actions free in the fight. It also can be a waste of a resource if the creatures wouldn’t have gone down without the bonus hit points, and with the opportunity cost of a spell slot, there is a decent chance an effect that reduces enemy hit points or bolsters allies in a different way could lead to that outcome faster.
With these ideas established, we can see two clear kinds of healing spells that will be valuable: cheap, action-efficient healing to get a character from 0 to 1 or more hit points, and massive swaths of hit points. Let’s get into it!
F Tier: Near Uncastable
20. Life Transference: Wizards and Clerics aren’t exactly the hardiest characters in the world. You’re spending a 3rd-level spell and an action to deal 4d8 necrotic damage to yourself; some characters can’t even afford to cast this at 5th level when they unlock it. Wizards have 4d6+6 hit points with a neutral Constitution, an average of 2 more hit points than the average damage Life Transference deals you. This is inefficient, expensive, and only nets your team a total of 4d8 hit points while putting you in a position where dropping, and thus losing actions for your team, becomes far more likely. This spell is about as uncastable as you can get.
19. Vampiric Touch: Vampiric Touch does so many things wrong it's hard to know where to start. Spending an action for a new action is a tough sell already, and you’re only getting 3d6 damage out the gate for it. In order to make these attacks, you need to be in melee range, and you really already want to be injured to immediately benefit from this.
Concentration paired with a draining effect is clunky, as you want to take damage to benefit further from this, but doing so threatens to end the effect. 3d6 damage for an action in the mid-tiers is a horrendous rate on top of it all, leaving this as a clunky, tragic tool with a cool name and little to no practical uses.
18. Enervation: Enervation takes notes from Witch Bolt and Vampiric Touch in the worst possible ways. Out the gate, it's only 4d8 damage to one target for a 5th-level slot. If you want to deal more damage, you have to commit actions to it, and a creature can end the effect by just moving out of the fairly low range or moving briefly behind total cover. It also ends if you decide to do anything except use it, and you’re paid off with 2d8 healing per turn at most, which you likely don’t even benefit that majorly from. This thing is so clunky and inflexible that it almost doesn’t function.
D Tier: Most Sheets Don’t Want These
17. Aura of Life: This spell escapes F tier for the rare situation where you’ll want to prepare it for the resistance it offers you and your group. Necrotic damage is a rare damage type- if you know you’re going against an onslaught of shadows, it can have some value, but the rest of the text is near meaningless. Creatures regaining hit points from 0 can be achieved in far cheaper and more efficient ways. You don’t ever want to spend an aciton on this in a fight, either, meaning you’re going to need to cast it prior and expect your allies to go down without you breaking concentration.
16. Soul Cage: I adore Soul Cage. It's just way to expensive for what it does. You get a fun mini-game where you start caging souls and consuming them as a resource in one of four ways up to six total times. Six uses of 2d8 hit points aren’t that compelling to me, even as a bonus action, as it only blocks three to four attacks for a lot of bonus actions. The other modes offer a neat information gathering tool akin to Speak with Dead, a glorified bonus action self Help action, and the coolest memory production reconnaissance tool that spies on places the soul had visited. You might notice none of these effects are close to being worth a 6th level spell slot, even for six uses.
If this was a 4th level slot, I’d take it a lot. As a 5th-level spell, I’d at least consider it on Warlocks, but a 6th-level slot? No thanks!15. Power Word: Heal: I don’t want to spend a 9th-level slot getting one character to full, but this does do that if I absolutely need to. Normally, there are lower-level spells that produce enough healing that this isn’t necessary. On top of that, there are two competitor 9th-level healing spells that pants Power Word: Heal. If you’re specifically a Bard, and want a top-end healer fantasy, this is kind of it for you, and that’s a bummer.
14. Regenerate: In total, Regenerate can heal 633 HP. That’s easily the highest single target healing spell in the game, dwarfing higher-ranked effects. The core issue is that it does it slowly, and isn’t something you are particularly eager to use in combat. Plus, it costs a 7th-level slot. You’ll regularly prefer casting anything that has a bigger splash on a fight or exploration for this slot. That being said, if you can get a barbarian back to full health two or three times, it looks pretty appealing. Most tables aren’t going to ever be facing that quantity of damage, though, and if you are, it probably is directly to challenge a damage-resistant character paired with Regenerate.
13. Prayer of Healing: Ten minutes is a long time in D&D. The difference between taking a ten-minute break and an hour break isn’t that large as far as various circumstances that’d allow for one, but not the other. This leads to effects like Prayer of Healing, which acts similarly to a short rest in terms of healing, to getting overlooked for the latter option. Many tables aren’t taking frequent short rests, either, often because the action prevents these extended breaks, or the group doesn’t feel they need to. If you don’t need a short rest, you probably don’t have any major reason to use Prayer of Healing, leaving it as a fairly niche option without much room at any table.
12. Cure Wounds: In a vacuum, without any other healing in the game, Cure Wounds is a way to get an ally off of zero and back into a fight for one action. That is a fairly pricey order, but perhaps necessary if there aren’t better options. Unfortunately for Cure Wounds, every character that gets access to it has alternative options that serve its role far better. The two largest options that surpass it are Goodberry and Healing Word, which we’ll cover soon, but even for options like Celestial Warlock or Paladin that lack these healing spells, they have WAY better and cheaper healing resources always accessible to them.
Cure Wounds is the worst solution to the problem of keeping up unconscious allies, as the difference in healing it provides over its competition is minimal in relative scale to the damage creatures are likely going to take. If you take anything away from this ranking, take away that Cure Wounds is a last resort the vast majority of characters want to be nowhere near.
C Tier: Have a Home on Some Characters
11. Mass Cure Wounds: Mass Cure Wounds fits on a few sheets that lack better or cheaper ways to get multiple allies up at once for just an action. On Bards in particular, this spell is a reasonable mid-game option to pick up to help the entire group survive fights as they progressively grow more lethal. There are cheaper options I rate a lot higher to get this effect, but at minimum this also comes with a solid chunk of hit points and is the only option some sheets have access to.
10. Heal: I can’t ever get excited about spending a high-level spell slot on a healing spell given that there are so many other epic options available. If you need a character to get up and stay up, Heal does provide a good chunk of hit points that can enable that to happen. Its range is a major boon to it, as you don’t have to endanger yourself to make it happen. If you want to play the dedicated healer, this is a solid chunk for a single action and will get an ally up for an extra two or three rounds in the mid-tiers in most fights. Consider also that they may never have gone down to begin with if you spent this high a spell slot on a proactive spell.
9. Wither and Bloom: What makes Wither and Bloom stand out is its class lists. It is accessible to two classes not given access to much of any allied healing effects worth using. If you’re ever in a scenario where this damages an enemy or two and gets an ally off of zero by letting them heal a hit dice, its spectacular, especially for its cost. It isn’t particularly useful outside of that scenario, though, as I’d much rather have a higher damage area of effect option when trying to down multiple enemies over giving a few allies a small chunk of hit points back that isn’t likely to change the action economy in that fight.
8. Aura of Vitality: As a spell to use in combat, Aura of Vitality isn’t great. I don’t want to spend a 3rd level spell slot and my concentration on a limited range Healing Word that doesn’t necessarily change combat math that much. Normally, I’m happy with a lower-level option.
Out of combat, when you can ensure you’re getting the full heal, it's a lot more appealing, as it can read as a one minute cast time 20d6 hit points divided as you need. That’s an average of 70 hit points, meaning you’re spreading out a Heal’s worth of hit points for half the slot over the minute. 35 hit points to two creatures can keep them up for an extra couple of rounds. It's still expensive in the mid-tiers, but if you’re playing particularly grueling or lethal encounters that are majorly taxing hit points, this is a quick way to heal between fights if ten minutes to an hour isn’t looking like a realistic option, especially when the worst case scenario is entering into a fight with it up.
B Tier: Solid Options on Many Characters
7. Goodberry: What sets Goodberry above most other effects is its play at larger groups, or groups using summoned allies like familiars. It spreads out the resource of a single 1st-level spell slot to give a ton of people one hit point versions of Cure Wounds, which is normally about as good as a Cure Wounds is anyway. On a familiar, it doesn’t even take a character’s action to use, just the familiars to deliver. It even provides a safety net for the healing character, as if they drop, you can feel safe knowing your spell can bring you up, too.
An important note: it's pretty well established that rules as intended, you can feed Goodberries to allies, but rules as written that isn’t explicitly stated. I’d make sure your DM agrees with the rules as intended ruling or this spell is basically unusable.
6. Mass Healing Word: Mass Healing Word isn’t the most critical spell to have access to, but it does do something you can want in some fights: get multiple allies up at once. There aren’t many spells that can give you an action to dash, hide, disengage, or otherwise interact with the world in a non-spell way and give your allies an opportunity to regain consciousness and bail on a fight that’s not going to plan. At 5th level, the slot cost is pretty steep, but past 7th it becomes a lot easier to bank a slot for this or Revivify, at which point it's typically solid to keep prepared.
5. Healing Spirit: A bonus action cast time is a great place to start, and at its best, this can act as a multi-round Healing Word that gets multiple allies off of zero as the fight continues. It is kind of like a safety net you can toss down when a fight is going badly, get an ally up at the start of their next turn, which is nearly the same as Healing Word, and subsequently hold onto a few spare dice to get that same ally up again or move it to another downed ally.
Its largest issue is Concentration; if you drop concentration on a crucial effect through damage, though, having this as a fall-back level two spell to pivot to when a fight is going poorly can be pretty effective.4. Mass Heal: Like its non-mass counterpart, I really can’t get excited about spending high-level slots on healing. That being said, Mass Heal heals a LOT of hit points to the whole group. One cast easily can get your entire party topped up on hit points from close to death. One action resets all damage the group has taken is an excellent rate, and while I still would rather have Meteor Swarm, True Polymorph, Wish, or Time Stop, I can’t deny Mass Heal will have a massive impact on some games worthy of the slot.
A Tier: Excellent Spells for Anyone
3. Summon Celestial: Summon Celestial isn’t just a healing spell, but an ally that comes with three attacks a round you don’t need to do anything beyond concentrate on to make work. It's usually the best summon effect good-aligned clerics have access to, and while the healing it provides isn’t the most critical element of it, it definitely still counts!
2. Healing Word: This is probably the only healing spell you’ll ever need if you take it. A bonus action at a 60 ft. range can enable you to take other actions safely from a distance while getting a threatened ally a chance to return to the fight or bail. It can save somebody from otherwise certain death, and does so in about as cheap a way you could ask for. I wouldn’t ever recommend up-casting it, and most characters won't need any other healing option option for the majority of their campaign.
1. Wish: This is kind of cheating, as Wish rarely is getting used to heal, but it does do a better healing effect than Mass Heal, and does so on classes that don’t get other healing options while also being every 8th level or lower spell in the game, giving allies immunity to a spell, undoing a recent event, or, you know, anything you’re DM says “okay” to. It's a horrendously busted 9th-level spell, and unsurprisingly, the best healing spell in the game.
Best Classes for Healing Spells
9. Warlock: The Celestial grants the class a healing mote feature that is actually a great healing option akin to a pool of Healing Words. If you want to heal as a warlock, that’s definitely how you do it, because even Cure Wounds on that list doesn’t save this option from having literally no other healing options worth casting.
8. Wizard: With only Wither and Bloom providing some meaningful healing in the early tiers and Wish to close things out, Wizard squeaks ahead of Warlock, but not by much. You still don’t have cheap enough healing options that set you up to regularly and consistently get allies off of zero or provide big chunks of hit points when needed. Wish definitely isn’t happening in enough games for me to let it affect this ranking either.
7. Sorcerer*: Sorcerer’s base spell list is worse than Wizard’s in terms of healing access. A single subclass changes this from the worst to tied for the best: Divine Soul.
Divine Soul lets you learn from the Cleric spell list, meaning you get access to everything they do that makes them the best healing option in the game. With metamagic and Wish, Sorcerer can be the best healing class in the game, but the vast majority of sorcerers are going to be roughly the same as wizards, meaning basically worthless at healing. I think ranking it one higher seems like a fair compromise.
Outside of that, Sorcerer definitely has one of the shortest and worst lists for healing.
6. Paladin: Lay on Hands makes healing spells a harder sell to me on Paladins; you don’t really need other healing options when you’ve got a resource always dedicated to it. Still, Summon Celestial is a great top end fantasy, and Aura of Vitality can provide a good chunk of hit points outside of combat if you’re finding the massive pool of hit points still isn’t enough.
5. Artificer: Alchemist carries Artificer over Paladin with access to Healing Word. While that subclass isn’t particularly playable, it still also comes with Mass Healing Word agnostic of subclass, and that’s a pretty reasonable option to get. Cure Wounds on its own isn’t the worst thing ever to need to take; if there is one class that wants it, it's probably artificer.
4. Ranger: Goodberry and Healing Spirit both are pretty reasonable options to heal with on Ranger. You probably don’t need both, but either will act as a reasonable tool that can funnel hit points into unconscious creatures while you continue your regularly scheduled programming of firing out arrows while sneaking about. You really don’t need that much more than what Ranger gets to have enough healing, but other options do get cheaper and more efficient options.
3. Bard: Healing Word is literally the only spell you need to get to 3rd place, and that’s basically what Bard gets. Mass Cure Wounds will serve a noble purpose, and those two elements combined give bards basically all they’ll ever need in the healing department, especially on sheets that have other non-spell actions they like taking.
2. Druid: Druid not only gets Healing Word and Goodberry, but it has a robust list of reasonable options for 2nd level and higher healing. Often, I’m happy with just Healing Word and Wither and Bloom, which plays great alongside Summon Beast and other conjuration effects. This list has more flexibility than Bard, and because of the concentration dependence of the class, you’ll often find a few lower-level slots lying around you’re pretty happy putting into getting downed allies back up and into the fight.
1. Cleric: Cleric gets the best, cheapest healing in the game on top of the best top-end healing outside of wish with Mass Heal. Summon Celestial is stelar on this class, as the class lacks other meaningful summon options, and crucially, it gets Mass Healing Word which is the cheapest way to get multiple creatures off of zero at once. I’d recommend steering clear of domains like Life that empower healing, as you definitely get more than enough in terms of powerful healing options. With just two or three of these on your sheet you’re likely going to have more healing options than you’ll ever need.
A Little Healing Goes a Long Way
There may be twenty options, but you don’t need twenty different ways to heal. Just one or two of these on your sheet over the course of a campaign is going to be more than you need.
Take from this Healing Word, maybe Goodberry, and something like Mass Healing Word, forgo Cure Wounds, and stay as far away from Vampiric Touch and Enervation as you can. Good luck staying alive out there!
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