D&D 5e Druid Subclasses Ranked Worst to Best
by Prince Phantom
Druids are one of the strongest classes in the game just thanks to their spell list alone. This gives you a lot of freedom with your subclass selection, which is fantastic as there are plenty of great options here. Unlike most classes, I actually had trouble determining a clear front runner, so don’t take my word as gospel here. Most of these subclasses can be built to be a fantastic character, it’s just that some play styles are inherently more powerful than others.
7: Circle of Dreams
No expanded spell list, and our first feature is basically healing word a bunch of times each day. Level 6 is basically just a ribbon feature, though I do quite like the 10th level feature. Bonus action teleports that still let you cast a leveled spell on the same turn are kinda hard to come by, and the flexibility to teleport someone else is very nice too. Circle of Dreams isn’t a bad subclass, it just doesn’t give us much to be excited about, especially given its competition.
6: Circle of the Land
This subclass gives a bonus cantrip, which is nice, the wizard’s ability to recover a few spell slots on a short rest, a few ribbon features, and a long list of choices for which expanded spell list you want. There are a ton of choices here, and the main reason for picking this subclass is for the expanded spell list that you want, so…
Time for a lightning round ranking all the different Circle of the Land sub-subclasses!
8: Swamp: This option is as stinky as the place it’s based off of. Ironically, Darkness is the only bright spot here, and even that spell is only useful in certain team compositions.
7: Desert: The only decent spells here are ones that are already available to the Druid.
6: Forest: Basically all Druid spells, but there are some nice things here to have automatically prepared so you can pick other things with your actual preps.
5: Grassland: Invisibility is the big pickup here, though getting Pass Without Trace for free is nice too. And no, Haste is a bad spell. It does not make this list rank higher. Druids have dozens of better spells to concentrate on than risking using Haste for little benefit.
4: Coast: Misty Step is why you’d pick this one, as Druids lack low level teleportation. Mirror Image isn’t bad either, and having Control Water prepped for free means you’ll always have it when you need it.
3: Mountain: Spike Growth and Wall of Stone prepped for free, and Lightning Bolt is a great addition due to the Druid’s lack of blast spells.
2: Arctic: Great options at 2nd and 3rd level, and that’s enough to put this at number 2. A few of these are already Druid spells though, which keeps this from being #1.
1: Underdark: Why isn’t Web a Druid spell?! That spell alone would make this the clear winner, but we also get Greater Invisibility! Yeah some of the spells aren’t great, so just cast the ones that are! Seriously, how is Web not a Druid spell…
Back to your regularly scheduled ranking!
5: Circle of Spores
Circle of Spores is a subclass with a lot going for it that is just held back in a few small ways. For example, Symbiotic Entity is an amazing defensive feature that grants a boatload of temporary HP, but it requiring an action to use is a bit costly in the middle of combat. You can try to set it up before combat begins, but this can be tricky.
Fungal Infestation would be fantastic, though it can only affect beasts and humanoids. You should be able to use this on your own summoned beasts through spells like Conjure Animals, so that’s at least one consistent way to make this feature see use. Building toward the extra d6 damage on melee weapon attacks is tricky. You definitely want to multiclass, but multiclassing makes Symbiotic Entity worse.
Animate Dead as an additional spell is quite the bonus, allowing you to assemble your own shambling mass of fungal undead if you so choose. I’ve been trying to come up with a build I’m satisfied with for this one, and I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.
4: Circle of Stars
Circle of Stars is a subclass that gives you a bunch of small things that are all individually pretty great, though don’t really have any synergy or features that change your playstyle. The three transformation options at 3rd level are pretty great, with Archer and Dragon being the best two.
Essentially having Guiding Bolt as a cantrip is neat. Eventually gaining flight through dragon is great, as is the small amount of dice manipulation at 6th level. All together, there’s plenty to love here, and this is a great subclass if you aren’t exactly sure what you want your Druid to play like, as it’s very flexible and will work with most any build.
3: Circle of the Moon
Circle of the Moon is really hard to rate. At level 2-3, it’s undoubtably going to be the best character in your party, maybe even best in the game. Sadly, the scaling here is atrocious. Basically CR 2 beasts are only slightly better than CR 1, and that stays true for all CR levels. This makes this subclass wonderful at level 2-4ish, but one of the weakest until level 10, when we get another jump in power thanks to being able to transform into one of the four Elementals.
Those are really good forms, so now you’ll feel powerful again. Once again however, there’s no scaling, and a lack of good high CR beasts will leave you feeling bad again until 20th level where you can choose to be invincible by just constantly refreshing your HP by infinitely wildshaping into elementals. The sheer power of this subclass makes it have to place high on this list, but the lows are just as common as the highs for this one.
2: Circle of the Shepherd
Do you want to be the best summoner in the game? Well I sure hope so, because that’s Circle of the Shepherd’s entire MO. Our summons are more durable, we have features to protect and buff them, they overcome resistance to non-magical damage, and if we drop to 0 hp, we summon a ton more creatures to keep us safe! All that being said, pretty much all of these features are dependent on us summoning, so if you aren’t planning on doing that with your Druid, this isn’t the subclass for you.
1: Circle of Wildfire
Yep, I ranked the fire based subclass that doesn’t get Fireball at #1. Sue me, because who needs Fireball when you’ve got a flaming pet that can teleport and bring along TWO friends AT WILL. Circle of Wildfire may not get Fireball, but we do get a pretty great expanded spell list even without it.
Past that we get some enhancements to our wildfire spirit, a neat trick to heal allies or damage enemies, and a free revival when we drop to 0. The flexibility of the teleport is why this is the winner, as it basically makes you and your party immune to grapples, movement reduction, restraints, wall spells, and that’s not even to mention the out of combat utility. Fireball who?
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