D&D 5E Basic Build Series: Druid

Author: Quetzalcoatlus

The Druid is in a weird spot as far as “full casters” go. Most of its truly incredible spells are targets of common house rules that can sometimes go as far as making the class not worth picking over other full casters, but on a game that runs surprise using Rules as Written, doesn’t impose weird restrictions on the consumption of more than one goodberry per day, and at the very least gives you reasonable summons, you’ll quickly find that druids are amazingly powerful. For more on these table-by-table variations you will want to know about beforehand, check out What to Ask Before Playing a Druid). As a full caster with a capable spell list, this Circle of the Shepherd Druid (part of our Basic Build Series), intends to play at a distance in combat with its control and support spells while providing utility out of combat through the flexibility of prepared spellcasting. At first, it is going to fill in the role of a control caster with other very effective forms of support. In tier 2, it uses the combination of conjure animals and Bear Spirit to become an all-around powerhouse, capable of offense, control, and support all at the same time.

Race: Human (Variant)

Ability Score Increases – +1 Dex, +1 Wis.
Feat – War Caster. As a full caster, maintaining concentration on your spells over the course of a fight is a significant part of your combat effectiveness. War Caster makes that job much easier. 
Skill – Stealth. Stealth is frequently used by many optimized parties to achieve surprise in a combat encounter.
Languages – Common and Giant. Language choice typically doesn’t have an effect on combat, and is generally a campaign dependent roleplaying element that should be discussed with the DM. The only time it does matter is for characters that plan on using the command spell during combat. It will likely be worthwhile to ask your DM if it is possible for your character to memorize several one-word commands in several different languages that are relevant to your setting. If this isn’t allowed, then selecting a language that many of your enemies speak is the most reasonable choice here. Alternatively, it can be useful to speak different languages from the rest of the party, or to have one obscure non-Common language that the entire party shares, so you can converse without the NPCs knowing what you’re talking about.

Class: Druid

Skills – Survival, Perception. Survival works with our high Wisdom and is appropriate to our theme. Perception checks are both extremely common and important to every character.
Tools – Herbalism kit.
Druidic – Druidic isn’t the kind of thing you’ll use everyday, but it has its moments. Notably, it is a hidden message, and an unwitting foe might not even think to look for it. For example, if you find yourself imprisoned or under heavy surveillance, you can leave secret messages for your party in Druidic along with a pre-agreed upon clue or keyword. They can stumble upon it, use the clue to know they need to search for it, and decipher it with something like comprehend languages. Of course, you could also just use it to find and communicate with other Druids. Leave it at the walls of a town if you’re trying to look for one, and watch the reaction of people to see if they notice the message (maybe even ask the party Wizard to enchant an item with magic mouth and the phrase “when someone spots this message, whisper ‘Druid detected’”).
Spellcasting – Our most important feature, which defines the strength of this class.

Entangle – This spell inflicts the restrained condition on all creatures within a 20 foot square, and they need to use their action to make a Strength check to get out in case they fail their save. This is about the best control you can expect out of a 1st level spell, and will serve us very well as our biggest impact option at this level.
Fog cloud – This is a very convenient spell for equalizing bad situations. Obscurement turns attack rolls into flat rolls without Blindsight, thanks to advantage and disadvantage cancelling out, and hinders casters as many useful spells require line of sight. Creatures that don’t take the Hide action should still have their location known according to the Rules as Written.
Goodberry – A 24 hour spell that conjures 10 berries that restore 1 hit point each, they’re the ideal way of turning leftover spell slots into healing during the next adventuring day. Goodberries are premium quality out of combat healing. If your DM allows them to be administered to a fallen ally, don’t bother preparing healing word, just make sure as many of your allies have one of them going into combat as possible. In that case, prepare absorb elements or fog cloud instead of healing word; the first isn’t that necessary for now, but you’ll have to eventually prepare it anyway, and the second severely weakens monsters such as wolves or kobolds that easily generate advantage for themselves.
Healing word – Use only in case of emergency, to pick someone back up from 0 hit points. Rarely do you want to use this preemptively, and never to “top people off”; it’s just not an efficient use of your spell slots, especially when you have goodberry.
Guidance – A d4 to an ability check the target makes within the next minute. This will help us a lot since the party is at the phase where they rely the most on skill checks in tier 1. Eventually it will be more limited in use because of long duration concentration spells. 
Shape water – This spell’s ability to both freeze water into a hard surface and animate it to move around can be key in setting off traps ahead of you, crossing gaps, and creating cover in an emergency. Due to this, we take no attack cantrips until level 4, opting to instead simply throw a dart as our offensive option.

Ability Scores

8 Str, 15+1 Dex, 14 Con, 10 Int, 15+1 Wis, 8 Cha

We want high Wisdom to prepare more spells and have our DC go up, but we’re in less of a rush to increase it than every other full caster, since most of our good spells don’t rely on Wisdom at all. We also pick up a 14 Constitution to have decent hit points and saving throws, and a 16 Dexterity to allow an Armor Class of 17 using studded leather and a shield. If you can wear metal armor or have access to non-metal medium armor, take 14 Dexterity and 16 Constitution instead. Remaining points are allocated to 10 Intelligence, but a 10 Charisma would be just fine too if you’d like to be more social (plus, both Intelligence and Charisma saves tend to be quite dramatic, so we’d rather not have a negative if possible), or even 10 Strength if you play on a grid and find yourself needing to jump 10 foot gaps often. 

Background (Custom)

Skills – Acrobatics, Arcana. Acrobatics allows our Druid to avoid and escape grapples more effectively, reducing our chances of being pinned down, especially in tier 1 before we pick up the Fey Touched feat (and thus, misty step). If your table uses the spell scroll scribing or spell identification rules from Xanathar’s Guide To Everything, proficiency in Arcana has a concrete mechanical use. If not, feel free to swap this out with a pick of your choosing.
Tools – Mason’s tools, poisoner’s kit. Switch these up if you would like.
Feature – Shelter of the Faithful. Having allies scattered across the world and waiving the healing service fee at relevant temples (you still have to provided material component cost for costly spells) are nice concrete benefits. Background features aren’t typically impactful, however, so pick one that suits your table or theme.
Creator’s Note – Making a custom background is RAW, as page 125 of the PHB states: “The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions. To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds.” Using this, we are making a custom background and using the Inheritor feature.

Equipment

Druid starting equipment

• A wooden shield
• A scimitar
• Leather armor, an explorer’s pack, and a Druidic focus

Acolyte Starting Equipment

• A holy symbol (a gift to you when you entered the priesthood)
• A prayer book or prayer wheel
• 5 sticks of incense
• Vestments
• A set of Common clothes
• A pouch containing 15 gp

Purchasing Goals

• Some darts
• A healer’s kit, and potions of healing
• Mason’s tools, an herbalism kit to brew your own potions of healing
• Diamonds worth 300 gp for when you get revivify
• Bullseye lantern

Level 1 Strategy

We mostly stay on the back and send in an entangle on round 1 while chucking some darts that we hopefully were able to purchase. Remembering the value of sparing a slot for the common occurrence of a party member going down to cast healing word is good practice, especially since that slot can simply be re-utilized as a goodberry if it isn’t expended during the adventuring day. For this and other reasons, Druids are masters of making the most out of their resources.

Level 2 Druid

Wild Shape – One of the most underestimated abilities in the game and a major focus point of the Druid class. The uses here are mostly utility but it comes in spades. Giant wolf spiders have both Blindsight and Spider Climb, allowing you to both reach difficult places and foil all kinds of visual trickery; riding horses are large and fast with good Strength, giving you access to a much bigger carrying capacity when you need it; cats and rats are both tiny and innocuous, allowing you to sneak around and spy on others (though you could spy with many other animals too, if they’re commonly seen and wouldn’t stand out in your target location); and badgers have a burrow speed, giving you both an exploration ability that’s totally unique to you and the first possibility of departing combat while concentrating on a spell. 
Wild Companion (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional feature) – But wait, there’s more! Sometimes using Wild Shape for scouting is very dangerous for your Druid. Sometimes, you really need the ability to fly or swim and you aren’t at a high enough level to do so with Wild Shape yet. If you have access to this optional feature, you can use your Wild Shape uses to cast find familiar as an action, gaining a familiar for a limited (half your druid level hours) duration. As a Shepherd, this is very thematic and often superior to using Wild Shape on yourself. For both uses of your Wild Shape, you can combine Wild Shape with this feature, so your owl can carry you (as a spider) anywhere it can fly. Bats have Blindsight, which will be very useful to be able to use in place of your own senses when dealing with invisibility or heavy obscurement.
Druid Circle – Circle of the Shepherd. At this level we get our subclass, which represents a significant jump in power.
Speech of the Woods (Circle of the Shepherd feature) – You learn Sylvan and beasts can understand your speech. Aside from potentially bypassing a wolf encounter (which tends to be quite deadly at the lower levels) or another beast encounter later on, it’s basically constant speak with animals, so you won’t ever need to prep that spell if you had it by this point. Bribing the beasts with goodberry is a good idea. Murder mystery? Ask the horse what happened. Looking for something in the woods? Ask a herd of deer. 
Spirit Totem (Circle of the Shepherd feature) – This ability gives us a 30 foot radius aura we can summon with a bonus action once per short rest. It lasts one minute or until we’re incapacitated and we can move it 60 feet as a bonus action. It gives us 3 options:

• Bear Spirit – Every creature of our choice in the aura when it appears gets 5+our Druid level temporary hit points, and creatures within the area gain advantage on Strength checks and saving throws. This is an amazing spirit, and your most universal option. It provides at least an equal number of temporary hit points (likely more until Tier 2) as a Charisma caster with the Inspiring Leader feat, can be done in the same turn as casting a spell, and lasts until a long rest, meaning that any 1 hour break in game can be converted into value. (Summon this spirit just before the party finishes a short rest, or just after they wake up, for example.) The advantage on Strength checks and saves at first seems incidental, but can turn grappling and shoving into your party’s domain, both stifling enemies using it and making your party’s own attempts much more likely to succeed, especially at early levels when modifiers are lower. 
• Hawk Spirit – You can use your reaction to give advantage to one attack targeting a creature in the area, and allied creatures have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks while in the area. It’s hard to use the Perception check advantage because the short 1 minute duration makes casting before a fight difficult unless it’s obviously signaled, and as soon as combat starts it’s typically too late to be of real benefit. As for the advantage? One attack at advantage is just not that strong, especially when you consider the opportunity cost of both your reaction and using Bear Spirit instead. You might consider this at this level if you have an ally with Great Weapon Master and a greatsword who isn’t a Barbarian, but even then it’s questionable. Still, in the scenario where you can take advantage of both effects, or where you already have the Bear Spirit temporary hit points up, this can serve you well.
• Unicorn Spirit – You and all allies gain advantage on checks to detect creatures in the spirit’s area, and each creature in the area regains your Druid level in hit points whenever you use a slot to cast a spell that restores hit points. It’s hard to use the spell’s detection effect well, since it still has the problems of the Hawk Spirit’s Perception effect with the additional problem of being limited to the Spirit’s area. The healing on the other hand is…still pretty much outclassed by the Bear Spirit temporary hit points here at level 2, but it scales faster and so we’ll use it more later on.

Spell Changes: +thunderwave.

Thunderwave – An okay spell you should only cast occasionally, like if you need to blast a group of enemies away from yourself or squishier allies. Feel free to use this time to try out other 1st level preparations. Part of the strength of Druids (and Clerics and Paladins) that is often underestimated is the flexibility of having access to your entire spell list for niche options.

Level 3 Druid

Spell Changes: +pass without trace, +spike growth, -thunderwave.

Pass without trace – Assuming your group uses the Rules as Written Stealth and Surprise rules, pass without trace is your premier 2nd level spell and one of the best spells in the game in general. Use its hour long duration to cast well ahead of time in any environment with places to hide, watch the +10 bonus completely blitz past bounded monster passive Perception scores, and either easily surprise enemies or skip past combats entirely in scenarios where you don’t want or need to engage, possibly holding concentration on it for reuse in future encounters. 
Spike growth – Use this when you can take maximum advantage out of it, by putting it between your party and the enemies on choke points and the like, creating difficult terrain that also hurts anyone trying to get close to you. It also goes incredibly well with forced movement so the Warlock with Repelling Blast is going to love you for casting this. 
Flex pick: You could choose to prepare locate object instead of fog cloud if you believe the utility of locate object is applicable to your table. See our article on this spell and determine if it’s worth a preparation slot at this stage in your game.

Level 4 Druid

Wild Shape Improvement – We add swim speeds and CR ½ beasts to our options. We can upgrade our riding horses into warhorses with superior strength, defenses, and a Trampling Charge that’s actually a credible attack option at this level if you find yourself running low on resources. Frogs and even quippers add underwater exploration forms, and crocodiles give you access to an attack that grapples and restrains on hit, which is a powerful type of offense to have. It’s a pretty weak version of this effect, but still worth remembering as a part of your toolbox.
Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Fey Touched (+1 Wis). We’re grabbing this feat to snatch command and raise our Wisdom to a 17, which we will smooth out later. Command allows us to trigger opportunity attacks on the creature we target if they fail their saving throw and flee on their turn. This interaction makes the spell one of the most damaging first level spells, and we’re going to be specially equipped to make full use of this spell for great single target damage very soon. Since it makes the enemy move away, there is also a possibility that they will begin their turn too far away and have to take the Dash action to get up close again, wasting their turn. Tell your martial friends not to Dash after them in response, but to target something else or to Ready an attack instead. Misty step is a very nice bonus that will help us escape some dangerous situations and areas of effect.
Spell Changes: +absorb elements, +command, +misty step, +thorn whip.

Absorb elements – This is still conditional, but by this point you have enough slots and spell picks that you should probably just always prepare it. Top alternative preparations include locate object and summon beast. Summon beast is quite strong and allows you to partake in the Shepherd Druid class’s main shtick a couple levels early, but you may find it difficult to obtain the expensive spell component at this level. It is useful at levels 3 and 4 but falls off of a cliff in terms of usability after, so be sure to unprepare it for something else as level 5 rolls around.
Command – Note that command requires that targeted creature must understand the spoken command. Memorizing five one-word commands in the languages that your enemies speak isn’t impossible, but discuss with your DM if that’s a reasonable skill for your character to have.
Misty step – Via Fey Touched. Emergency get out of jail card, and you get one free cast of it.
Thorn whip – Speaking of forced movement for spike growth, this cantrip is definitely worth picking up here to combine with that and any other synergies your party might have like web or spirit guardians next level. 

Level 4 Strategy

After clearing a dungeon, you can prepare detect magic and locate object to scour every corner of it for magical goodies and the like, if you have the time.

Level 5 Druid

Spell Changes: +conjure animals, +plant growth, –fog cloud.

Conjure animals – The premier offensive Druid spell. Up until this level, we were playing as a support caster who did a bit of control and out-of-combat healing (with the addition of the amazing benefits from pass without trace), but now we have just about the most consistent and highest single target DPR of the entire game at this point (we can also use command with it to add even more damage with 8 opportunity attacks from your summoned creatures if the target fails their saving throw). 
Plant growth – This spell creates a 100 foot radius area in which creatures need to spend 4 feet of movement for every 1 feet they move, so pairing this up with difficult terrain (that your spike growth can create), speed debuffs from your teammates (such as ray of frost, Lance of Lethargy, or Tentacle of the Deep), or forced movement options (Repelling Blast, Pushing Attack, Crusher, Open-Hand Technique, Telekinetic, etc) is going to spell doom for most enemies. As noted in our What To Ask Before Playing A Druid article, this spell can be interpreted in several ways. At a baseline assumption that you fight in enough areas with plant coverage and that squares in the area with plants become quadruple movement, we recommend picking up this spell as an additional layer of non-concentration battlefield control. If your DM rules this spell in a way that is less favorable to you than the above interpretation, we recommend preparing revivify, sleet storm, or dispel magic here instead.

Level 5 Strategy

For this build (and generally on Tabletop Builds), we assume you will have worked with your DM to come up with a list of conjures that is appropriate for your campaign, rather than using the most literal ruling from Sage Advice that implies a DM should choose every single time the spell is cast. We believe that this approach (where the DM still has the final say and players provide suggestion, but the timing of the decisions is away from the table) is the most fun and balanced. This approach speeds up play, and the DM is still welcome to disallow the most powerful summons or creatures that are not appropriate for their world. When a player can choose from a DM curated list, they can prepare for their summoning turns while other players are taking their turns. When playing on a virtual tabletop, players can have their “staple” summons dice macros set up far in advance. The DM doesn’t have to spend any cycles deciding on summons while they are already managing everything else. And it’s more fun being able to choose! 

For a more in-depth guide, check out our article on top 5 spells that do damage. If your DM doesn’t let you choose the animals, but keeps the options you summon reasonable, conjure animals will still be your staple, but expect slower play. This build works perfectly fine with that option, although admittedly becomes a little less versatile if you can never choose. If your DM is prone to giving you 8 quippers in a big fight on land or other such shenanigans, then stay away from Shepherd (and maybe Druid in general, since they have multiple spells that usually fall victim to adversarial DMs. For more information, check out our article on what to ask before playing a druid, which was also linked at the introduction of this article).

Level 6 Druid

Mighty Summoner (Circle of the Shepherd feature) – This feature not only gives your summons a bit more hit points (wolves go from 11 to 15, giant owls go from 19 to 25, constrictor snakes go from 13 to 17, etc.), it also makes their attacks count as magical for the purposes of overcoming resistances and immunities, which solves one of the biggest problems with conjure animals at later levels. Those 2 benefits combined make this an excellent feature, and one of the main draws of this subclass.
Spell Changes: +revivify.

Revivify – Newly available to Druids since Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, it’s nice for at least one member of the party to have this prepared assuming you can get the material component for it. A Cleric might be able to spare the preparation slots for this more than you, so if someone already has it covered consider sleet storm or dispel magic. Sleet storm covers up some edge cases where conjure animals may not be the best answer, such as against blasty enemy casters or in locations with awkward maneuverability for your summons.

Level 7 Druid

Spell Changes: +conjure woodland beings, +polymorph, -entangle.

Conjure woodland beings – The fey version of conjure animals, for this build, we make similar assumptions as we had made for conjure animals: you worked with the DM to choose what fey you get. Generally speaking, upcasting conjure animals will be superior for damage; the benefits of this spell come from its myriad utility options. 
Polymorph – This allows us to take an ally and make them into a pretty powerful beast. At this level, the giant ape is our best option, next level, we could also think of the huge giant crab or the tyrannosaurus rex. The most important advice we can give when it comes to using polymorph as a buff is this: Be proactive! Do not wait until players have already taken damage to cast polymorph on them. Turn somebody into a big beastie before the fight even begins (after all, the spell lasts an hour) and send them ahead to wreak havoc. If for some reason you can’t do that and you still see this spell as the best move, cast it on turn 1 and no later than that. You’ll end up wasting both the spell’s ability to soak up damage and its powerful attacks if you wait for the enemy to make the first move.

Level 7 Strategy

There are a few quite good options for conjure woodland beings, so let’s discuss the ones we think stand out the most:

8 Pixies – This option is completely insane, and your DM is probably going to ban it. Look at the spell list and remember you get 8 of each of those spells for your single 4th level spell slot.
2 Dryads – Each dryad has Innate Spellcasting, allowing for 3 casts of goodberry per day, meaning 2 dryads can heal your party up to 60 hit points in-between combats, almost as much as the 6th level heal spell. Not only that, but they also each have pass without trace so you can conserve a few of your slots. After you have squeezed them out of resources and the duration is running out, you can just send them into combat with shillelagh and let them soak a few hits before dying.
4 Reflections – In case you’re wondering what these are, they were introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, and they’re basically the fey version of the shadow: a handful of good damage resistances and condition immunities, with Hide as a bonus action and a no-save Strength Drain. Those are great for when you’re not out in the sunlight, and you’re likely to get great mileage out of them. Do check with your DM before using them.
8 Boggles – They’re only CR ⅛, but they can layer down their oil puddles from a safe distance to create difficult terrain that triggers multiple saves on those who try to get through it and get to the party, creating rifts in space to move freely so they can place those puddles optimally. These are great options for when you find yourself in cramped spaces that restrict the path enemies can take.
4 Satyrs – Satyrs are actually kind of bulky, with 31 hit points each (45 with Mighty Summoner) and they have ranged attacks, making them a very durable option if you want to keep your summons up for longer periods of time. Being ranged also means that they can safely speed up the cleanup of enemies caught in hazard zones such as a web or Evard’s black tentacles created by your party members, making conserving the spell through multiple combats even easier.
2 Quicklings – We wouldn’t actually actively choose this option, but decided to include them if your table has the DM pick the summons. They’re not particularly strong, but they do offer a higher than average damage output compared to most conjure animals options (they lose to 8 wolves (or better), however, unless you can buy the quicklings advantage by proning or restraining their target somehow) while fitting in much more cramped spaces. They also have a higher than normal AC, enemies constantly have disadvantage to hit them, and they have Evasion. Their main weakness is having only 10 hit points, which is somewhat alleviated by Mighty Summoner and Bear Totem (bringing their hit points to 16 with a buffer of 12 temporary hit points).
1 Darkling Elder – This is very much of a situational pick, but with darkness and Blindsight, it is still doing somewhat good damage, albeit very much less than your usual conjure animals picks. The situations where we can see it being useful is against advantage seeking monsters (which are probably not a threat to you at this point), casters that are trying to constantly counterspell your party’s casters (or rely on other spells that need to have its targets be visible to take effect), or a large creature whose vision you could obscure by having the darkling elder cast darkness at the creature’s eye level, leaving your party with normal vision and thus with free advantage. All in all, though, you should probably stay away from this most of the time.
1 Sea Hag – Swim speed, a low DC frightened effect versus humanoids (beware the friendly fire), and a low DC conditional save or die. Especially strong now if you can combine the sea hag’s Death Glare with a party member that spreads the frightened condition around a lot like an Oathbreaker Paladin or a Warlock with the Undead patron. Where this option really becomes strong is upcasting for a coven, which we will discuss later in the build.

Level 8 Druid

Wild Shape Improvement – We finally unlock flying forms and add CR 1 beasts to our options. The bad news is that enemy health, AC, and damage have scaled faster than our Wild Shape, and we have many more spell slots available, so using Wild Shape to attack has gone from a niche option to almost entirely irrelevant despite getting the giant octopus’s much better on hit grapple. The great news is access to flight. In combat, this gives us a very consistent alternate escape route to protect concentration on our most powerful spells. Out of combat, the giant eagle’s high carrying capacity (between its high Strength and large size) is very useful in combination with it’s fast fly speed to quickly get things from place to place, while smaller fliers with special senses like owl further improve Druid’s ability to disguise itself and scout an area.
Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Telekinetic (+1 Wis). With this, our Wisdom increases to 18, and we get a reliable forced movement or ally repositioning option activated off of our bonus action that we can still freely use during Wild Shape. This can be used to instantly disengage our allies or break them out of grapples, or force enemies into walls of fire or spirit guardians cast by our allies, or into web, Evard’s black tentacles, sleet storm, etc. It also lets us learn mage hand while making it invisible, and this is bound to have some value, but it’s nothing but an okay bonus for us. Also, an even Wisdom score means an additional preparation.
Spell Changes: +fog cloud, +locate object, +divination, +mage hand, -spike growth.

Divination – This can be used to get useful information about something your party plans to do. It’s a ritual, so it doesn’t use a spell slot, but it does have a material component with a gold cost which is consumed, so stock up on that incense. The DM gives you a truthful reply to your question, but expect table variation in how interpretable or cryptic the responses will be. If you don’t feel that this spell will be useful, feel free to keep spike growth instead, or prepare sleet storm or dispel magic instead.
Fog cloud – We add this back because it’s a good spell to have that unfortunately drops in and out of our base daily preparations because other spells just edge it out. Nothing about why it’s good or how it’s used change.
Locate object – This is circumstantial utility, but the circumstance is actually quite common, and it can be incredibly useful when you need it. Locate your campaign’s MacGuffin, or a magic item, or any plot related object. Think there might be lead in the way? Locate lead containers. Thought about preparing locate creature? Don’t. Cast this instead, looking for their armor, clothes, magic items, or special trinkets. You can really go wild with it, especially now that you have lots of spare slots.
Mage hand – Via Telekinetic.

Level 9 Druid

Spell Changes: +antilife shell, +wall of stone, -divination.

Antilife shell – If you’re battling against non-undead and non-constructs that happen to have no spells, reach, or ranged attacks, you win. This is what’s known as a “default kill.” A default kill is an encounter where the enemies have absolutely no counter-play, and automatically lose. However, even if your enemies have ranged attacks, those tend to be way less deadly than melee ones, so the spell still works great in said situation. In short, it is situationally great and this serves us well. You definitely won’t cast this every adventure, but sometimes it just wins, and you have a lot of preparations.
Wall of stone – This is the next best thing in terms of 5th level wall spells after wall of force, and we don’t have access to wall of force as a Druid. Use this to imprison opponents, divide their forces, and deal with encounters in a more controlled manner. The save to avoid being surrounded by the wall also takes away their reaction, which means casters that used their reaction on the save can’t use shield to defend themselves from your martials, nor can they use absorb elements or counterspell to prevent or mitigate a fireball. The contrary is also true, and so creatures that have already used their reactions this round will just automatically be surrounded without being offered a save. You could also consider dispel magic here, if you find yourself wanting that spell.
If your plant growth isn’t useful in your game, you want other area of effect control spells. In that case, we recommend transmute rock instead of wall of stone. Your plant growth preparation slot could then be flexed into dispel magic or sleet storm (which has particular synergy with transmute rock, see below).
Transmute rock – A non-concentration control spell that has the same base effect of plant growth, but adds a Strength save for the restrained condition whenever someone starts their turn in the area. They can end the restrained condition with an action, but that cost means they have basically no way of leaving the affected area aside from flight or a teleport such as misty step (dimension door still works because they can still cast the spell while restrained). Since you never want to use this spell on flying creatures, teleports are one of the only reliable ways for creatures to escape. If your DM rules that a transmute rock cast on a ceiling (all discussion until now considered the spell being cast on the floor) then becomes the floor of that area (since the mud falls on the ground), it also doubles down as a soft AoE, but even without this added benefit it is still a fantastic spell.
Sleet storm – Often good enough to cast alone, but we pick this up now for the powerful combination of the spell with transmute rock. You make a very large area incredibly difficult to leave by making it difficult terrain, heavily obscuring the area (which means that misty step no longer works since they need to see the space they teleport into, but dimension door still does) and even proning flying creatures. Because of the mechanics of the effects, the way that enemies will typically escape this horrifying spell combination is individually or in small groups, which the party can easily pick off one by one.

Level 9 Strategy

At this level, we have plenty of spells with huge impact on the battlefield. Use conjure animals and conjure woodland beings as your main concentration options, and use command to achieve great value opportunistically without the need for concentration. Also remember that pass without trace is still an excellent option to leave an impact with low cost whenever the opportunity presents itself. When you have downtime, remember to unprepare one of your spells to use awaken and get a little ally (if someone in your party is using planar binding, then get conjure elemental instead).

Another big thing to remember at this level is that conjure animals upcast with a 5th level spell slot can deal massive damage while occupying up to 16 squares and threatening up to 128 more (on ideal conditions, although they should exert some control over the battlefield regardless), so it becomes a serious consideration whether to use wall of stone or conjure animals with your 5th level spell slot. Wall of stone or wall of fur?

Level 10 Druid

Guardian Spirit (Circle of the Shepherd feature) – Every time your beasts or fey end their turn in your aura, this provides just a small boost in durability. While minor, this can help your summons survive one more hit and combines well with the Bear Spirit temporary hit points, so its impact is not irrelevant. 
Spell Changes: +divination, +druidcraft.

Divination – We removed this from our base list of daily preparations because we value combat utility more highly. If you don’t feel that this spell will be useful, feel free to add greater restoration instead (or dispel magic or sleet storm).
Druidcraft – Minor utility. Check the weather forecast. Go on a date with an NPC and make a flower bloom for them. 

Level 11 Druid

Spell Changes: +heal, +heroes’ feast, -polymorph.

Heroes’ feast – If you’re playing in a game where gold flows freely, stock up on gem-encrusted bowls (the material component for this spell) and cast it every night before the party goes to bed if you haven’t used your 6th level slot. Or, provided nobody is secretly a Mogwai, cast it into the rest to give everyone a midnight (or 5am) feast, powering them through the next night’s rest. Advantage on Wisdom saves, immunity to poison and the frightened condition, and an increase to everyone’s maximum hit points (which stacks with those from aid, as, unlike with temporary hitpoints, there is no rule preventing this type of hitpoint buff from stacking) is a very nice package indeed. If gold is scarcer in your game you might not be able to do this every night, but if you know you’re facing a green dragon the next day, this is an instant win button. It’s well worth it if you expect to face any kind of big enemy that affects the mind; Wisdom saves are by far the most common of the mental saves.
Heal – A panic button for when things have gone very badly in combat. It’s not amazing in terms of raw healing output, in fact, using conjure woodland beings with a 6th level spell slot would provide 120 hit points worth of healing with 4 dryads by making them spam goodberry, and that’s going to be our main option for our 6th level spell slot usage. The advantage of the heal spell is that it can be done to take an ally from 0 to 70 hit points with a single action in the middle of combat, whereas our conjure woodland beings option will be used for out of combat healing (or offense and even control, with different summon options), so this is going to be our quick press-during-emergencies button. 

Level 12 Druid

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Alert. Going first is big for any controller, because it’s often the difference between a monster getting 1 turn where they can be effective and 0 turns. Surprise is also a big party killer, so having the controller immune to that is great. Unseen attackers not getting advantage is also nice; this can come up from time to time since we don’t have Darkvision.
Spell Changes: +commune with nature.

Commune with nature – Here we get our final divination spell, with some more druidic theming than its predecessors. Information is power, and even though you can’t cast this within constructions, you can still explicitly gain knowledge of them from outside their borders. Additionally, unlike its sibling commune, you can just cast it over and over to gain arbitrary facts in all its categories at no consequence besides time. We’ll be removing and adding this list to our daily preparations because knowledge is power, and having more information is always good, but probably not as good as a useful in-combat spell. Still, we’ll want to have it where we can.

Level 13 Druid

Spell Changes: +mirage arcane, +conjure fey, -commune with nature.

Mirage arcane – This is a truly insanely good spell, because the illusions it creates can be interacted with physically, and there is no restriction on which kind of interactions. Lower level illusions such as major image specify that the illusions can’t do damage, while this clause is nowhere to be seen on mirage arcane. With a range of sight and an affected area of a mile, you can use this spell to create a complex net of adamantine walls, pitfalls hundreds of feet deep, lava pools, difficult terrain, and other creative uses to absolutely demolish any tactical advantage your enemies might have. It even works on enemies with Truesight!
Conjure fey – We can get a beast or fey creature of CR equal to the spell slot we use this spell with, we didn’t take it at 11th or 12th level because CR 6 could afford us a mammoth at best (though if you have access to the dusk hag from Eberron, it is an amazing option at CR 6). As a 7th level spell, however, we have some amazing options that make this spell into a very interesting spell choice. Depending on your party, conjure fey also provides a number of very strong options to planar bind in downtime with multiple spellcasters working together (Druid doesn’t have access to magic circle). 

Level 13 Strategy

Some options for conjure fey that are especially interesting:

Bheur hag – This hag has a magic broom that flies and has enough room to give you or another party member a ride, while also being capable of using wall of ice (a good 6th level spell) and cone of cold (a rather decent 5th level blast, especially when paired with flight) 3 times per day each. This creature allows us to essentially trade our 7th level spell slot for 3 6th level ones and 3 5th level ones (she can also cast ice storm 3 times per day, which is not a particularly good spell by itself, but we can use it to fill-in her actions by blasting some more and creating difficult terrain at the same time).
Korred – This monster has resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-magical weapons, a whopping 120 foot Tremorsense, a 30 foot burrowing speed, at-will stone shape that he can use to create cover for your party members, great ranged attack capabilities, and he can use conjure elemental to get a galeb duhr, which can in turn animate 2 boulders so that you effectively have 4 creatures under your control with a single slot, and they’re all reasonably bulky and powerful. The downside is that the korred needs to maintain concentration on the elemental, so you’d better instruct him to stay as distant as possible (maybe burying himself between turns) and throw some rocks (which they’re really good at doing) while the galeb duhr is summoned.

Level 14 Druid

Faithful Summons (Circle of the Shepherd feature) – At this point in the game, going down shouldn’t be a common occurrence, and being incapacitated shouldn’t be all that common either, but getting a 9th level conjure animals when that does happen (up to once per long rest) is an amazing effect, which packs an unreasonable amount of power behind it and makes you feel very glad to be a Shepherd.
Spell Changes: +commune with nature.

Level 15 Druid

Spell Changes: +antipathy/sympathy, +firestorm, -commune with nature.

Antipathy/sympathy – Use antipathy to make you and preferentially your party members into walking control machines, making creatures of a certain type have to succeed on a Wisdom save once they get within 60 feet or be frightened of the target and as such be unable to approach any further, which spells doom for most creatures. Maybe use divination to have an idea of what type of monsters you’ll be fighting in the next week, and use this to take appropriate precautions. If your party is rocking a School of Necromancy Wizard or a tiny servant spammer, you should consider preparing animal shapes on adventuring days and antipathy/sympathy on rest days, so you can turn their horde of skeletons into giant scorpions (which you can use an action to transform into some other CR 4 or lower beast at-will), but this is more of an edge case scenario (if you have access to beasts within Ghosts of Saltmarsh, the giant coral snakes makes this especially worth it, since they can inflict short term madness).
Fire storm – Sometimes we want damage, and we want it fast, even if its at the cost of spell efficiency. Fire storm is a non concentration option that does this job, with huge potential in big battles. If we get caught unaware without pass without trace this is a fantastic option, and with the flexible AoE we won’t often need to damage our friends. Fire might be a pretty bad damage type, but Dexterity saves stay low across monsters even into Tier 4, so if you aren’t against creatures immune to Fire, you should be fine.

Level 15 Strategy

Your 8th level spell slot on adventuring days will end up being mostly used on an 8th level conjure woodland beings, probably to get 3 sea hags. This isn’t clear in the rules, but it’s a very reasonable interpretation that 3 hags that were individually summoned can still be commanded to make a coven once they’re together, giving them access to the equivalent of a 12th level spellcaster with the 3 of them combined. Hags in a coven have their CR increased to above what you can summon, so a DM can reasonably block this maneuver, we are of the opinion that if you call them and they become a coven once summoned, it doesn’t make sense that you’d be unable to conjure them, or that you’d lose control of the hags (the fact that they form the coven on the spot means that they don’t have enough time to create the hag eye, so keep that in mind) or any house rule like that. Still, expect table variance over how this is ruled and whether or not you can get a coven under you. If the DM rules otherwise, you can either prepare animal shapes, or upcast conjure woodland beings for a different array of creatures, such as 6 dryads or 12 reflections. 

Level 16 Druid

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Lucky. More saving throw protection, which constitutes the most dangerous threats at this level. 
Spell Changes: +commune with nature.

Level 17 Druid

Spell changes: +foresight, +shapechange, -commune with nature.

Foresight – A very good non concentration buff that lasts for 8 hours. A good candidate for rest casting and a good way to use our 9th level slot without burning our concentration. It’s just strong in a very straightforward way, so there isn’t much to talk about. 
Shapechange – We get this because turning into an adult gold dragon that still has Spellcasting and all of your other class features is fun, and if we ever want to use our concentration on our 9th level spell without managing 32 stat blocks, shapechange is a reasonable choice. That said, you can pick whatever you want and have fun at this level. Part of the joy (and power) of prepared spellcasters is mixing things up each day. 

Level 17 Strategy

You rest cast foresight, but now you’re in an especially tough fight and need to bring out the big guns? Conjure animals cast using a level 9 slot is practically an army of your own to command. This represents an astonishing amount of damage on average, and though they can die to a single damaging area of effect at this point, even a single round of 32 angry beast attacks can pull you out of a lot of perilous situations. 

Level 18 Druid

Beast Spells – Wild Shape preemptively and still cast most of our spells during battle. A downside to it is that you remain unable to use some magical items in this form, but this is usually minor.
Spell Changes: +commune with nature.

Level 19 Druid

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – +2 Wis. This maxes out our Spellcasting Ability Score at 20, meaning our spell save DC is now a 17. 
Spell Changes: +plane shift.

Plane shift – A quick escape option for you and your party, or a method of travel into other planes whenever you have the need to. Picnic on Bytopia, anyone?

Level 20 Druid

Archdruid – Now we can Wild Shape whenever we want, which really doesn’t change all that much beyond letting you make some animal jokes whenever you want. However, the second benefit, which allows us to ignore V, S, and non-costly M components is basically like Subtle Spell Metamagic! One of the best Metamagic options in the game, that Sorcerers have to spend a resource to use? Yeah, you just get that for free. All the time, on everything, with all the benefits that come with that. Tied up? In silence? Someone trying to counterspell you? Someone trying to notice you casting in public? You just get one of the best Metamagic options on almost all of your spells forever, no biggie. An unquestionably amazing capstone.
Spell Changes: +animal shapes.

Animal shapes – We prepare this in hopes that getting animals to transform can be done with the Speech of the Woods feature you gained at 2nd level. Convince a murder of crows, a congress of baboons, a business of ferrets, or even an embarrassment of pandas to join you for the day with bribes and mount a small army of CR 4 or lower beasts for up to 24 hours! If you had picked this up already at the level we picked antipathy/sympathy feel free to pick the latter and enjoy your 20th level character!