The Most Useful Cantrips, Ranked

If you have any plans to play a spellcaster in Dungeons & Dragons, then cantrips are going to be your bread and butter. This level of spell can essentially be cast whenever you want, as many times as you want. They make for reliable damage dealers or indispensable utility and don’t cost any of your precious spell slots to cast.

With this in mind, you’ll want to build your D&D arsenal intelligently. What spells would be most useful to have on hand at a moment’s notice? Which spell attacks are most reliable? How do you get as much bang for your buck as possible? Let’s find out.

Updated December 19, 2024, by Alfredo Robelo: Cantrips are the main tool for many spellcasters, so choosing the right one is key at every level of play. The release of the 2024 Player’s Handbook made several changes to cantrips, as well as introducing a few new ones, so we have updated this article to reflect that.

21

Fire Bolt

One of the most selected cantrips for a reason, Fire Bolt does everything you need it to do: reliable fire damage that increases as you level up, by adding extra dice to the damage roll. Granted, there are many creatures that are resistant to fire damage, but usually, you’ll face those as boss fights; for common enemies, Fire Bolt will do the trick.

It is also a fast and easy way to start a fire, either for camping or to set a house ablaze. There isn’t any hidden knowledge about this spell; you just point your finger and shoot, saving spell slots for the really good stuff.

20

Elementalism

The 2024 Player’s Handbook introduced Elementalism as a way to let players control all the elements without needing several cantrips. With this cantrip, you can exert some control over the elements, like blowing candles with wind or creating water from nothing; all things that, naturally, can’t be used offensively.

The spells replaced with this spell, like Shape Water and Gust, are not present in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, and they do have some uses beyond the ones given by Elementalism. Still, with such a niche use, it makes far more sense to have a catch-all cantrip for all your roleplaying needs while keeping your character open to other possible builds.

19

Sorcerous Burst

Sorcerous Burst is a spell introduced in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, and as the name implies, it is exclusive to sorcerers. You pick the damage type from things like fire, acid, and even psychic, and roll a D8 to determine the amount inflicted.

This is one of the best spells to cast at higher levels since if you roll any eights on the dice, you can add another dice (up to your Charisma modifier). By level 11, the odds of rolling an eight are rather high, especially since, as a cantrip, you can cast this constantly on each of your turns to proc that damage scaling.

18

Mending

There’s a lot of emphasis on fighting and destruction in Dungeons and Dragons, so much so that we often forget how important it is to heal, repair, or mend what has been broken in the skirmishes and battles. The spell Mending can be super useful to any magic user, as it can repair a single break or tear in the object that the caster touches.

The break or tear must be one foot or less in dimensions, but anything that fits that range will be repaired without any evidence of it being damaged. Examples of repairable items important on quests could be a broken key, a shattered sword, or even a destroyed document.

17

Gust

One of the best D&D cantrips, Gust has found use in many a campaign thanks to its versatility. It creates a line of wind that’s 60 feet long and ten feet wide in the direction the player chooses. Any creature in the spell’s path must start its turn by succeeding on a Strength throw or else be pushed 15 feet away from the player by the line.

Creatures will use two feet of movement for every one foot they move if they attempt to move closer to the player. In addition, Gust can extinguish almost any unprotected flame, disperse gas or vapor, and gives a protected flame a 50/50 chance of being extinguished. Plus, a gust of wind can solve many puzzles.

16

Acid Splash

The benefits Acid Splash provides are less about the damage and more about its utility use. The caster hurls a bubble of acid at one or two creatures within five feet of each other, and failing a Dexterity saving throw will cause them to take 1d6 acid damage.

The spell’s damage increases upon reaching certain levels, but the importance of Acid Splash lies in how many problems can be solved by hurling acid at something. Treasure chest key missing? Hurl acid on the lock. Need a chandelier to fall to the ground? Acid. Party members trapped behind bars? Acid all the way.

15

Ray Of Frost

One of the best DnD cantrips is best served cold. Ray of Frost is an icy beam of light streaks that can attack any creature within range. If the ranged spell attack hits, the target will take 1d8 cold damage and have its speed reduced by ten feet until the start of the caster’s next turn.

Ray of Frost has good damage and utility for a cantrip and is great for keeping enemies at bay, especially ones that are heavy hitters. Once their speed is reduced, the player can simply move out of their range to avoid damage for the next round.

14

Friends

A multi-use cantrip that’s available to warlocks, bards, sorcerers, and wizards makes it easier to make friends, but not in the long term. Friends gives you an advantage on all the Charisma checks that you have with the target creature for up to one minute.

The spell only works on characters that aren’t hostile to you in the first place, and after the spell is over the subject of the spell will realize they’ve been tricked and feel some hostility towards you. On the other hand, it’s one of the best D&D cantrips for getting through a difficult encounter.

13

Druidcraft

A cantrip from the Transmutation school, the name isn’t just an expression – this cantrip is only available to the most natural of classes. Druidcraft is one of the best cantrips for when the party is exploring, camping, or traveling, and has four major effects depending on the caster’s will.

The Druid casts a spell with a 30-foot radius that can snuff out or light a campfire, open a flower or seed pod, and predict the weather in that location for the next 24 hours.

12

Create Bonfire

This spell is useful in a variety of ways, as well as the obvious heat source. Create Bonfire allows the user to make a bonfire on any ground that they can see within range. It fills a five-foot cube, and anyone in the space when the spell is cast (or they move into the bonfire for the first time) must succeed in a Dexterity saving throw. If they fail, they will take 1d8 fire damage.

The bonfire will also set any non-equipped or held items in the area on fire. The best part about this spell is that it grows in strength when the player levels up, increasing by 1d8 at level five, 11, and 17 for a total of 4d8 damage.

11

Spare The Dying

We all know that clerics are often the only thing that stands between their reckless party members and certain death. They’re vital in a support role in any well-rounded party. They can hand out buffs and healing to make an already formidable group of adventurers downright unstoppable.

But what happens when your barbarian takes a big hit and drops to zero hit points when you’ve already spent all your healing juice? Well, as long as you can lay hands on your injured friend, you can cast Spare the Dying and pull them back from the brink.

10

Prestidigitation

Finally, a cantrip appears on more than one class spell list. Lots of characters can get in on the Prestidigitation train which, along with being one of the most difficult spells, is also one of the best D&D cantrips. You can conjure tickets, create lights or puffs of smoke, make something clean or dirty, and heat or freeze things.

If you can get creative and your DM is willing to play along, there’s a lot you can manage with this one little cantrip, from lighting a fire to causing a distraction to give yourself an edge while bluffing.

9

Vicious Mockery

In many ways, a bard’s greatest weapon is their voice, and it’s never as clearly demonstrated as it is when they make use of their signature cantrip. Vicious Mockery can literally insult an enemy to death.

Your Bard can find just the right weakness in their minds, call them ugly in a particularly cutting way, and literally cut them down. It doesn’t have the most impressive damage, but it also gives the target disadvantage on their next attack as they ponder their life choices.

8

Thaumaturgy

A Transmutation spell available to clerics, Thaurmaturgy can be very handy or too situational depending on what kind of adventure you’re having. This spell allows the caster to manifest several minor magical phenomena, and exactly what is up to the DM and the dice.

Effects of this cantrip include but are not necessarily limited to making your voice louder, changing your eyes, making lights flicker or dim, and running light tremors through the ground. This versatility makes Thermaturgy one of the best D&D cantrips.

7

Shocking Grasp

Shocking Grasp is a potentially life-saving spell for your typical squishy spell-slinger. If you find yourself in melee range of an enemy, which is always a dangerous place for a wizard, you can touch them to deliver a burst of lightning damage. But more importantly, the zap prevents the target from taking reactions, including attacks of opportunity.

It essentially replaces and improves upon your disengage action when fighting a single opponent, allowing you to put some distance between them and you while also dealing a little damage. It even benefits allies who want to get away too, since the effect lasts until the target’s next turn.

6

Light

There will be some parties where this spell will be essentially useless, and those are parties with a bunch of nonhuman and monstrous characters that all have Darkvision. We know how it is, and who wants to play a human?

We already have to play humans in real life, but on the off chance some members of your group can’t see in the dark, Light is invaluable. You don’t have to worry about running out of torches, and the light produced can be instantly hidden just by covering the glowing object without dealing with flames.

5

Message

Message is great for stealth missions, or when you want to gossip about your friends behind their backs. This cantrip enables you to point at a person and send them a short message telepathically, which they can then respond to in kind.

Because it’s a cantrip, you can have entire silent conversations this way. It can also be cast through solid objects, which can allow your spellcaster to coordinate the moving parts of a heist or communicate with an imprisoned party member.

4

Eldritch Blast

This cantrip is limited to warlocks, but it is so integral to pretty much any warlock build that we had to include it. This spellcasting class has very limited spell slots, and their cantrips are especially important.

Warlcoks get a great offensive option with extremely long range and a juicy 1d10 force damage. Its level-up improvements do not just increase damage output but multiply the number of beams you can shoot, making it that much more versatile. Eldritch Blast is absolutely worth a cantrip slot.

3

Mage Hand

This is another spell that requires a little creativity from the caster but can be used to do a wide variety of useful things. In fact, Mage Hand is even more useful than it was in previous editions. Not only did they increase its carry capacity from 5 lbs to 10 lbs, but they crucially left out that it can only affect “unattended items.”

So, now in addition to disarming traps or tying off ropes, your sneaky Mage can also potentially use Mage Hand to steal an enemy’s weapon or tie their shoelaces together. The possibilities are endless for this cantrip.

2

Minor Illusion

There are better Illusion spells you can cast they create more convincing images, but you’d need to spend a pretty powerful spell slot to use them. Minor Illusion, on the other hand, is completely free and even comes as a bonus trait for some races.

You can create a small illusory sound or image for a wide variety of possible uses. The kind of image you can make is limited but could be useful for disguising a small trap or pretending you are armed when you aren’t. The sound is even more useful, and we’ve seen players do everything from mimicking the sound of an approaching monster to fooling guards into obeying the sound of their commander.