Published: February 13, 2022

Last modified: August 21, 2023

Author: Lilith

The HexFire (and NobleFire)

Do you want to play a character that has unique movement options? To enhance the mobility of both yourself and allies? To exert your control over the pace and layout of the battlefield? Perhaps your characters takes the form of something akin to Nightcrawler from the X-Men, or is a shaman with a primal mastery over conjuration. Perhaps they are a disciple of Kossuth who has pledged to cleanse the land of impurities, or simply a commander on the battlefield, viewing encounters as a chessboard as they adjudicate where their allies can and cannot go. If any of these ideas sound appealing, then the Witchfire might be the build for you.

There are three primary reasons this build works as well as it does. The first coincides with a major appeal of the Druid core: its best spells—absorb elements, goodberry, pass without trace, conjure animals, plant growth, conjure woodland beings, polymorph (targeting allies)—do not rely on its casting ability score at all. This allows for the build to make significant investment into our second reason: the combination of eldritch blast, Repelling Blast, and Agonizing Blast as a highly impactful at-will control package that deals decent damage for a caster. The final and third reason is the Circle of Wildfire subclass, which provides this build with a fantastic bag of tricks right from the get-go due to its 2nd level feature, Summon Wildfire Spirit. Together, these options make for a character with incredibly versatile at-will options while still having abundant access to the powerful staples of Druid’s spell list.  As the cherry on top, we finish off this build with a level in Peace Domain Cleric, which is always a welcome addition to a build’s kit, but consider picking this earlier if your campaign is ending sooner than level 20, preferably after you’ve acquired the core pieces of this build. For an in-depth look into the Circle of Wildfire subclass, we explain many of its strengths and strategies in this article.

We don’t find silvery barbs a great fit in our progression, but if you like the spell, then Fey Touched, Strixhaven Initiate, or dipping a level of Sorcerer are some of the ways you can acquire it. 

On 'Tech'
Throughout this guide, certain ‘tech’ will appear where appropriate, in a box that looks like this. Tech are techniques based on the Rules as Written which may not be obvious upon first reading. Tech sometimes relies on subtle aspects of the rules which people can disagree on. Bring tech up with your DM before you use it, and be prepared to be told “no.” Communication is key! We will mention tech as we go, but tech is never assumed to be a part of our game plan because of table variance.
On Variants
We are presenting 2 progressions for this build. The HexFire favors The Hexblade patron, whereas the NobleFire favors The Genie patron, specifically the efreeti. The former splits up its levels in Warlock, whereas the latter takes them one after the other.
On Preparing Spells
Druid is a prepared caster, which means you have access to your entire class’ spell list, and the ability to change your spell preparations after each long rest to fit the day’s demand. The spell list presented in this guide acts as a daily template that try to cover as many situations as possible, but there are always days where you have other plans in mind. At the end of an adventuring day, you should always consider swapping around your preparation, be it spells of the same level that would be picked later on in this guide like grabbing sleet storm at level 6, or more circumstantial ones like water breathing, to cover specific needs.

So before we move on, which version of the build would you like to see?

The HexFire (Default)

The HexFire, named for its blend of the Hexblade Warlock and Wildfire Druid, opts for the Hexblade subclass for its expanded spell list, notably shield. As we also take Druid levels, the proficiency in medium armor and shields that is typically considered a notable boon from Hexblade does not do us much good, but it keeps us nice and safe at level 1. 

We also get Hexblade’s Curse from this dip, which is a small damage boost that becomes more noticeable when combined with spike growth, where the extra damage could be applied each time the target moves. 

For this variant we will be using Simic Hybrid for its fantastic racial movement ability, Manta Glide, which will synergize well with our Wildfire Spirit to grant easy vertical access. Feel free to pick any other race here though, as this build is not tight for feats. However, if you are starting off with a feat, we would recommend you to pick up either Resilient (Constitution) or Lucky, and pick the remaining one of the two at level 6. Fey Touched for silvery barbs is a consideration in place of Lucky as well. 

The NobleFire (Variant)

The NobleFire, named for its patronage to the efreeti, a noble genie, leans a bit more into the fire aspect of the Wildfire Druid with its levels in Genie Warlock (efreeti are native to the Elemental Plane of Fire). This is so we can obtain the Genie’s Vessel class feature, which comes with two great abilities. Genie’s Wrath, which synergizes well with our Enhanced Bond from the Circle of Wildfire Druid, will elevate our eldritch blast damage per round quite a bit, and Bottled Respite will allow us to get into a lot of shenanigans, which will be explained below.

As we would be quite vulnerable without shield, we are using the new Githzerai from Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. This new race is the perfect final piece that solves the puzzle of how to address the Druid’s lacking defenses (once we get to level 3). If you get to start with a feat, Strixhaven Initiate is a recently added source of shield to consider, which opens up your race or lineage selection.

A valid alternative for this build would be to instead go with the Undead Warlock simply for the raw strength of Form of Dread, which we detail here

Race: Simic Hybrid

Ability Score Increases – +2 Cha, +1 Con. Taking advantage of Druid’s low reliance on its primary ability score, Wisdom will not be what we will be focusing on in this build. Instead, Charisma will be of major importance to us. The +1 to Constitution sets us up to round up our Constitution score with Resilient (Constitution) later.
Darkvision – Darkvision with a range of 60 feet is valuable for any adventurer delving into dark dungeons full of monsters.
Animal Enhancement – Manta Glide.
Manta Glide This will enhance our movement abilities greatly and more. While we will be able to do more as the levels go on, we already have some fun things that we can do:

  • If you’re next to a climbable surface, climb up at half speed and glide off instead of walking, which covers the same horizontal distance, but in the air (useful for avoiding ground-locked hazard zones or difficult terrain).
  • Be impervious to most forms of fall damage.

Later, we will be able to make great use of this in combination with Fiery Teleportation, which is the main reason we picked this race.

Wavedash tech
But all of that isn’t even the most powerful use of Manta Glide. That honor belongs to a technique that definitely requires consultation with your DM and group ahead of time before you attempt it. This is a technique we’ve dubbed “the wavedash.”
When you jump, you expend movement equal to how far you have jumped. Even if your jump is really small, you don’t lose much because you spend equivalent movement. Say you did a standing high jump with 8 Strength. You’d jump all of 1 feet in the air, expending 1 foot of movement, and fall back down. If you do this with Manta Glide, you can glide 2 feet away while still only expending 1 foot of movement from the jump, and there are no rules that limit how many times you can jump in a turn. This ends up doubling the total distance we can cover per round, in a way that stacks with every speed increase, with a form of movement that can’t trigger opportunity attacks.

Languages – Common and Undercommon. The language choice doesn’t really matter, as this choice should be tailored to your table’s campaign setting. It can be useful to speak different languages from the rest of the party, or to have one obscure language that the entire party shares, so you can converse without the NPCs knowing what you’re talking about.

Class: Warlock

Skills – Arcana, Deception. Arcana proficiency will allow us to scribe scrolls during downtime. This is especially useful if there’s a Wizard in the party who can learn spells from those scrolls, but even if not, it’s nice to have extra spells on hand. If you play with the spell identification variant rule from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, proficiency in Arcana becomes even more important. We take Deception as it’s one of the more common Charisma skills, which we are good at.
Otherworldly Patron – The Hexblade. We get shield and Hexblade’s Curse, woo!
Expanded Spell List (Hexblade Feature) – Warlocks get two known spells at level 1 and we will be picking both of the spells from our expanded spell list.
Hex Warrior (Hexblade feature) – Charisma to weapon attacks doesn’t benefit us much since we will very seldom be using a weapon apart from supporting the occasional use of wrathful smite. The medium armor and shield proficiency will be nice at level one, but also redundant afterwards. For now it will give us a solid resting AC of 18 or 19, depending on armor availability. For our Hex Weapon we’ll use a staff, which can be used with a shield and also doubles as an arcane focus. Since spells like shield, which have somatic but not material components, cannot be cast with your hands full by RAW without the War Caster feat even if you are holding a focus, you’ll want to keep your staff stowed unless you’re using it, which should only be when applying wrathful smite.
Hexblade’s Curse (Hexblade feature) – This will only get more useful the further we get into our career. For now it is not looking like much, but once we get spike growth, eldritch blast scales to additional beams, and our proficiency bonus increases, this will start to do some work. Because of this feature, you are a prime candidate for a wand of magic missiles, which against a target with the Curse applied will deal quite a lot of damage.
Pact Magic Warlock spell slot progression is unique and recharges on a short rest. We are not taking more than 2 Warlock levels for this build, but you will use plenty of 1st level spells throughout the adventuring day, so getting 1-2 of those slots back on a short rest is nice. Ideally, your party should be amenable to short resting at least once, preferably twice on an adventuring day. Always use your Pact Magic spell slots first!

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: shield, wrathful smite.

Shield This is a must-have spell for any optimized build. +5 AC for a whole round is huge, and is often the difference between taking the full brunt of a monster’s attacks and going unscathed, taking no damage at all. Do not be afraid to use this, but when you do, think about what you could’ve done differently to avoid spending the valuable slot, especially at these lower levels.
Wrathful smite Making melee weapon attacks should not be your active gameplan, but sometimes a monster gets up in your face and it can’t be avoided. In such cases, it can be useful to cast this spell, swing your staff, and see if the frighten effect sticks. Frightened enemies cannot get closer to you, so with smart positioning you may be able to keep it away from not only you but your allies as well. Furthermore, since the condition to break the spell is succeeding on a Wisdom check (not save) as an action, and since frightened imposes disadvantage on ability checks, it becomes extremely difficult for most enemies to break the condition. If the enemy only has melee attacks, it is as good as dead. Not bad for the cost of a 1st level spell.
Eldritch blast The staple cantrip of Warlocks. The damage type is rarely resisted, it has great range, and it’s enhanced by Eldritch Invocations. This will be your bread and butter when you are not casting leveled spells starting at level 5. Until we get our second ray and its supporting invocations, however, magic stone is better for damage.
Magic stone For now, this does slightly more damage than eldritch blast, but what makes this truly valuable is that the stones can be handed out to your allies and minions, who can throw them using your Charisma modifier for attack and damage—it’s more than possible that throwing your magic-imbued pebble is a better attack than what your allies can do on their turn if they don’t have good ranged options of their own, and/or if they cannot do magical damage.

Race: Githzerai

Ability Score Increases – +2 Cha, +1 Con. Taking advantage of Druid’s low reliance on its primary stats, Wisdom will not be what we will be focusing on in this build, and instead Charisma will be of major importance to us. The +1 to Constitution sets us up to round up our Constitution score with Resilient (Con) later.
Githzerai Psionics – Invisible mage hand is for the most part just a free cantrip. We also get two different spells that we can cast once for free, and then cast normally with spell slots afterwards. The feature states that when you cast them with the trait, it lacks spell components, which means they cannot be counterspelled. What we are really here for is access to the shield spell from 3rd level. As icing on the cake, we also get detect thought at 5th level, though it is a lot more situational. We will be choosing Charisma as their spellcasting ability, and place them in the Warlock spell list when we have one for convenience.
The wording is a bit unclear whether casting the spells using your spell slot means they are cast with the trait (and thus without spell components).  There are two ways you can argue for this. First, you lack the ability to cast these spells without the trait. Second, detect thoughts requires a spellcasting ability for the purposes of its saving throw, but the feature specifically states the spells only have a spellcasting ability when cast with this trait. Either way, check with your DM what happens when you cast the following spells via slots.
Mental Discipline – Charmed and Frightened are common conditions that enemies can inflict that can be incredibly debilitating. Having protection against both is very useful.
Psychic Resilience – Psychic damage is not a very common damage type, but a resistance is helpful nonetheless, as it is a type not covered by absorb elements.
Languages – Common and Undercommon. The language choice doesn’t really matter, as this choice should be tailored to your table’s campaign setting. It can be useful to speak different languages from the rest of the party, or to have one obscure language that the entire party shares, so you can converse without the NPCs knowing what you’re talking about.

Class: Druid

For the NobleFire variant, we start our first three levels in Druid. As a Druid you might run into issues in regards to the “Druids will not wear armor or use shields” line they have for their armor proficiencies. We believe “will not” does not mean “can’t,” and thus we recommend you to still look for half plate. The Sage Advice Compendium states that the noted “unwillingness” was purely a flavor consideration, and the multiclassing rule explicitly encourages that multiclassed characters can represent concepts outside of the base classes.  Either way, the build does not depend on having half plate. Another consideration would be spiked armor, from the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide.
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. This allows us to make healing potions during downtime, and more.
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.

Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth.
1st Level: fog cloud, goodberry.

Racial Spells
Cantrips: mage hand.

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 special enemies and casters as many useful spells and dangerous abilities require line of sight. Keep in mind that creatures that don’t take the Hide action to conceal their noises will still have their location known if your table is following RAW, which means that you can still attack your enemies, and they can still attack you. Especially useful for fighting 3d6 wolves and, unsurprisingly, beholders. Pack Tactics crafted a great video about fog cloud that you can view here.
Goodberry A spell that conjures 10 berries that restore 1 hit point each and last 24 hours, they’re the ideal way of turning leftover spell slots into healing during the next adventuring day. In the future, once we have Warlock spell slots, and you happen to to spare some before a short rest, cast this spell for some extra healing, too. Goodberries are premium quality out of combat healing.
Mage hand Your racial trait grants a slightly improved version of this handy cantrip. Interact with things from afar, move things around, hold items…but now extra discreet.
Guidance Add a d4 at will to anybody’s ability check. Use this whenever you can. If you know combat is coming, can safely make noise, and don’t want to pre-cast a leveled spell, cast this on yourself or another caster for an initiative boost.
Mold earth A handy cantrip that can be used to quickly create a wall and/or a trench, or simply a small area of cover, if you are in terrain with loose dirt (whatever that means). If you are laying an ambush, you can use it to create a small area of difficult terrain (only two squares, but that can make a difference in the right situation).

Ability Scores

9 Str, 14 Dex, 14+1 Con, 8 Int, 13 Wis, 14+2 Cha

Our main ability score will be Charisma, and this array will allow us to get it to 18 at level 10. We need 13 Wisdom to multiclass in or out of Druid, which we will mostly be leveling in for the rest of our career. We buy 15 Constitution for hit points and higher concentration saves. Our next priority is 14 Dexterity, the highest value that we get an AC benefit from wearing medium armor. The remaining point is put into Strength to reduce your chance of instantly dying to a Shadow. 

Background (Custom) 

Skills – Perception, Stealth. Perception is the most commonly used, with concrete mechanical benefits, and thus the most important skill in the game for any character. Stealth will help us sneak up on enemies to surprise them, and will give us a nice floor on our rolls when we have pass without trace.
Tools – Mason’s tools, poisoner’s kit. Proficiency in mason’s tools will allow us to have a +5 on passive Perception involving stone structures (the most common material for dungeons!) and proficiency in the poisoner’s kit will allow us to use poisons for among other things a nice increase in DPR for weapon users in our party. We detail both of these in our Complete Guide to Tools in DnD 5E. If neither of these options feels appropriate or accessible in your game, feel free to pick another listed option that seems good.
Feature – Researcher. We might not often be the smartest person in the room, but we certainly know where to find the information we need! This background feature funnily enough comes up more the dumber you are. Maybe you are a fraud who got through college by sheer luck, who knows.
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 Researcher feature.

Skills – Arcana, Stealth. Stealth will help us sneak up on enemies to surprise them, and will give us a nice floor on our rolls when we have pass without trace. 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. Proficiency in mason’s tools will allow us to have a +5 on passive Perception involving stone structures (the most common material for dungeons!) and proficiency in the poisoner’s kit will allow us to use poisons for, among other things, a nice increase in DPR for weapon users in our party. We detail both of these in our Complete Guide to Tools. If neither of these options feels appropriate or accessible in your game, feel free to pick another listed option that seems good.
Feature – Researcher. We might not often be the smartest person in the room, but we certainly know where to find the information we need! This background feature funnily enough comes up more the dumber you are. Maybe you are a fraud who got through college by sheer luck, who knows.
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 Researcher feature.

Equipment

Warlock Starting Equipment

  • Light crossbow with 20 bolts. You can’t use this with a shield, and magic stone does more damage, eldritch blast has a better range, and both have a better damage type. You could sell this immediately, or give it to an ally that might actually have a reason to use it.
  • Component pouch. The only downside of a component pouch compared to an arcane focus is the price, and since you get this for free, that doesn’t matter. When we become a Druid, we can still use a component pouch, but wouldn’t be able to use an arcane focus for our Druid spells, so the choice is even clearer here than for most builds.
  • Scholar’s pack. We have a choice between this or a dungeoneer’s pack. The dungeoneer’s pack is likely more useful, but this has more than twice the gold value, so we could sell this for half price, buy a dungeoneer’s pack, and end up with gold to spare. This also fits well with our background feature.
  • Leather armor, a quarterstaff, and two daggers.

Sage Starting Equipment

  • A bottle of black ink
  • A quill
  • A small knife
  • A letter from a dead colleague posing a question you have not yet been able to answer,
  • A set of common clothes
  • A pouch containing 10 gp

Purchasing Goals

  • A healer’s kit, and potions of healing
  • Mason’s tools, and a poisoner’s kit
  • Diamonds worth 300 gp for when you get revivify
  • Bullseye lantern
  • Half plate
  • A shield

Druid Starting Equipment

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

Sage Starting Equipment

  • A bottle of black ink
  • A quill
  • A small knife
  • A letter from a dead colleague posing a question you have not yet been able to answer,
  • A set of common clothes
  • A pouch containing 10 gp

Purchasing Goals

  • A light crossbow or a couple slings for the early levels
  • A healer’s kit, and potions of healing
  • Mason’s tools, and a poisoner’s kit
  • Diamonds worth 300 gp for when you get revivify
  • Bullseye lantern
  • Half plate

Level 1 Strategy

In combat at this level, we’ll mostly be using magic stone (unless you need the superior range of eldritch blast) and staying at range. If extra damage is needed, throw in a Hexblade’s Curse too. Your one spell slot per short rest should be kept in reserve in case you need shield. With the hit points and spell slots of a level 1 character, wrathful smite is a gamble, because if you miss or the target succeeds on its Wisdom save, you’re left with little defenses, and even if you hit and they fail, even one opportunity attack can down you, ending the spell. Caution is the name of the game at level 1.

Our offensive capabilities at level 1 are not great, owing to a lack of offensive cantrips and no access to a starting ranged weapon. Try to either buy or borrow a ranged weapon from an ally during this time or risk going into melee with your scimitar. We have fog cloud in our pocket, for if we ever meet wolves or basilisks (the obscurement will negate Pack Tactics and Petrifying Gaze, respectively).
Make sure to rest cast goodberry as there is little merit to waking up without having used all of yesterday’s spell slots.
We can now start to scribe scrolls of fog cloud for emergency purposes, as we will be swapping it out from our base preparations in a few levels. Once you run out, you can simply swap it back in during downtime and scribe more.

Level 2: Druid (Warlock 1/Druid 1)

We now take our first level in Druid. We do not get any additional proficiencies, but as we are now a Druid you might run into issues in regards to the “Druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal” line they have for their armor proficiencies. We believe “will not” does not mean “can’t,” and thus we recommend you still look to obtain half plate. The Sage Advice Compendium states that the noted “unwillingness” was purely a flavor consideration, and the multiclassing rule explicitly encourages that multiclassed characters can represent concepts outside of the base classes.  Either way, the build does not depend on having half plate. Another consideration would be spiked armor, from the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide.
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 our class.
Spell changes: +fog cloud, +goodberry, +guidance, +mold earth.

Level 2: Druid 

Wild Shape – One of the most under- and over- estimated abilities in the game, due to the misplaced focus the community has on making attacks in Wild Shape. However, as we will be spending most of our charges of Wild Shape on our subclass feature, this will not get too much use.
Something to do when you aren’t busy adventuring is to have your friends harvest poison from you in an animal form while you are incapacitated—by sleeping, feign death in a few levels or otherwise.
Wild Companion (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional feature) – If you have access to this optional feature, you can expend a use of your Wild Shape feature to cast find familiar as an action, gaining a familiar for a limited (half your Druid level hours) duration. While the limited duration is a strict downgrade from being able to cast the spell normally, all of our advice in the find familiar Spell Spotlight still applies. In a particularly tough fight, this can be used in tandem with Summon Wildfire Spirit, expending both of your Wild Shape charges.
Druid Circle – Circle of Wildfire. At this level we get our subclass, which represents a significant jump in power.
Circle Spells (Circle of Wildfire feature) – Revivify and plant growth are great options that are always prepared. This effectively translates to some much-needed extra preparation slots since our preparation is limited with low Wisdom.
Summon Wildfire Spirit (Circle of Wildfire feature) – This is and will stay our main shtick. We could write pretty much an entire article on this feature alone… and we did! This is our gimmick, and we will use it in a variety of ways. Check out our article here for all the details. 
Spell changes: +absorb elements, +burning hands C, +cure wounds C.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth.
1st Level: fog cloud, goodberry.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, fog cloud, goodberry.
Racial Spells
Cantrips: mage hand.

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 special enemies and casters as many useful spells and dangerous abilities require line of sight. Keep in mind that creatures that don’t take the Hide action to conceal their noises will still have their location known if your table is following RAW, which means that you can still attack your enemies, and they can still attack you. Especially useful for fighting 3d6 wolves and, unsurprisingly, beholders. Pack Tactics crafted a great video about fog cloud that you can view here.
Goodberry  A spell that conjures 10 berries that restore 1 hit point each and last 24 hours, they’re the ideal way of turning leftover spell slots into healing during the next adventuring day. If you happen to have Warlock slots to spare before a short rest, cast this spell for some extra healing, too. Goodberries are premium quality out of combat healing.
Guidance Add a d4 at will to anybody’s ability check. Use this whenever you can. If you know combat is coming, can safely make noise, and don’t want to pre-cast a leveled spell, cast this on yourself or another caster for an initiative boost.
Mold earth A handy cantrip that can be used to quickly create a wall and/or a trench, or simply a small area of cover, if you are in terrain with loose dirt (whatever that means). If you are laying an ambush, you can use it to create a small area of difficult terrain (only two squares, but that can make a difference in the right situation).

Absorb elements We likely won’t be using this much at low levels, but it will become more valuable throughout your adventuring career. Elemental damage tends to come in singular large blasts, and the option to halve that amount will significantly improve your survivability. The bonus melee damage is irrelevant, while the reaction cost should be noted since you can’t cast shield until the start of your next turn.
Burning hands C This spell can clean up the ever-popular 20 twig blights encounters in Tier 1 with ease. Outside of that, it’s simply never worthwhile.
Cure wounds COccasionally, when you want to bring someone up and Fiery Teleportation is more valuable than what you would otherwise do with your action, this can be preferable over healing word.

Level 2 Strategy

In combat our strategy has mostly stayed unchanged, however we also have fog cloud in our pocket, for if we ever meet wolves or basilisks (the obscurement will negate Pack Tactics).
Make sure to rest cast goodberry as there is little merit to waking up without having used all of yesterday’s spell slots. We can now start to scribe scrolls of fog cloud for emergency purposes, as we will be swapping it out in a few levels. Once you run out, you can simply swap it back in in downtime and scribe more.

Other than absorb elements as an additional contingency option, our spellcasting strategy remains mostly the same. However, the introduction of the Wildfire Spirit creates many opportunities for play-making, and you have access to all the techniques introduced in this article right from the get go. Note that you need sight of the position your targets teleport to.
In a particularly challenging encounter, the combined contribution of Wildfire Spirit and a familiar from Wild Companion is nothing to scoff at. And the best thing is, you can regain both their uses on a short rest.

Level 3: Druid (Warlock 1/Druid 2)

Wild Shape – One of the most under- and over- estimated abilities in the game, due to the misplaced focus the community has on making attacks in Wild Shape. However, as we will be spending most of our charges of Wild Shape on our subclass feature, this will not get too much use.
Something to do when you aren’t busy adventuring is to have your friends harvest poison from you in an animal form while you are incapacitated—by sleeping or otherwise.
Wild Companion (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional feature) – If you have access to this optional feature, you can expend a use of your Wild Shape feature to cast find familiar as an action, gaining a familiar for a limited (half your Druid level hours) duration. While the limited duration is a strict downgrade from being able to cast the spell normally, all of our advice in the find familiar Spell Spotlight still applies. In a particularly tough fight, this can be used in tandem with Summon Wildfire Spirit, expending both of your Wild Shape charges.
Druid Circle – Circle of Wildfire. At this level we get our subclass, which represents a significant jump in power.
Circle Spells (Circle of Wildfire feature) – Revivify and plant growth are great options that are always prepared. This effectively translates to some much-needed extra preparation slots since our preparations are limited with low Wisdom.
Summon Wildfire Spirit (Circle of Wildfire feature) – This is and will stay our main schtick. We could write pretty much an entire article on this feature alone… and we did! This is our gimmick, and we will use it in a variety of ways. Check out our article here for all the details. 
Spell Changes: +absorb elements, +burning hands C, +cure wounds C

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, fog cloud, goodberry.

Level 3: Druid

Spell Changes (Druid): +flaming sphere C, +pass without trace, +scorching ray C, +spike growth, fog cloud.
Spell Changes (Racial Spells): +shield.

Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, fog cloud, goodberry.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray, spike growth.
Racial Spells
Cantrips: mage hand.
1st Level: shield.

Absorb elements We likely won’t be using this much at low levels, but it will become more valuable throughout your adventuring career. Elemental damage tends to come in singular large blasts, and the option to halve that amount will significantly improve your survivability. The bonus melee damage is irrelevant, while the reaction cost should be noted since you can’t cast shield until the start of your next turn.
Burning hands C This spell can clean up the ever-popular 20 twig blights encounters in Tier 1 with ease. Outside of that, it’s simply never worthwhile.
Cure wounds COccasionally, when you want to bring someone up and Fiery Teleportation is more valuable than what you would otherwise do with your action, this can be preferable over healing word.

Flaming sphere C Even if we had the casting stats for this, which we don’t, this would still be subpar, and it eats up our concentration to boot.
Pass without trace Going by 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 most enemies or avoid an undesirable fight entirely. To make this even more reliable, your party members should pick up Stealth proficiency, even if they have a low Dexterity score.
Scorching ray CThis spell is typically equivalent to a magic missile of the same spell slot in terms of damage. That damage gets even worse for us than a typical Wildfire Druid as we only have 13 Wisdom, meaning our to-hit bonus lags behind for Druid spells. Our spell slots are more valuable when used on persistent effects like the aforementioned pass without trace or spike growth, both of which provide sizable party contribution while circumventing our low Druid spell save DC.
Spike growth A large area, difficult terrain, and some bonus damage to deter movements. Place this between your party and the enemy brutes. In a couple levels you will gain access to Repelling Blast to make this control effect even scarier. 
Shield This is a must-have spell for any optimized build. +5 AC for a whole round is huge, and is often the difference between taking the full brunt of a monster’s attacks and going unscathed, taking no damage at all. Do not be afraid to use this, but when you do, think about what you could’ve done differently to avoid spending the valuable slot, especially at these lower levels.

Level 3 Strategy

Other than absorb elements as an additional contingency option, our spellcasting strategy remains mostly the same. However, the introduction of the Wildfire Spirit creates many opportunities for play-making, and you have access to all the techniques introduced in this article right from the get go. Note that you need sight of the position your targets teleport to.
A technique specific to Simic Hybrid is combining the Wildfire Spirit with Manta Glide. You can teleport yourself up 15 feet diagonally with an additional 30 feet of falling movement for a total of 45 feet of displacement, which can even be done reactively by having your spirit hold its action. With this, you end up being incredibly mobile on the battlefield.
In a particularly challenging encounter, the combined contribution of Wildfire Spirit, a familiar from Wild Companion, and to a much lesser extent, Hexblade’s Curse, is nothing to scoff at. And don’t skimp on using these abilities, considering you regain all of their uses on a short rest.

We gain access to shield and round out our core defenses, which means we can be the ideal “tank” when holding up a choke point, since very few will get past a dodging character with our high AC.
We want to prioritize pass without trace before combat because having extra turns against enemies is simply too valuable at all levels, but we will also be casting spike growth in big encounters where it has the potential to shine. 

Level 4: Druid (Warlock 1/Druid 3)

Spell Changes: +flaming sphere C, +pass without trace, +scorching ray C, +spike growth, fog cloud.

Level 4: Warlock (Druid 3/Warlock 1)

Otherworldly Patron – The Genie (Efreeti). Since we are only going 2 levels into Warlock, the Genie option won’t make a huge difference but we pick Efreeti as it provides bonus fire damage, which has minor synergy with Circle of Wildfire’s Enhanced Bond at later levels.
Expanded Spell List (Genie Feature) – Nothing to write home about in the levels we are taking.
Genie’s Vessel (Genie feature) – Note that touching the vessel doesn’t require a free hand, just physical contact. Among the options from the suggested table, a ring would be most convenient.
Bottled Respite A fascinating ability. It is your personal demiplane, your emergency bag of holding, your get out of jail free card, or just a very comfortable space with personal furnishing. Put what you want in the vessel, break it for emergency retrieval, get inside it to escape anything you don’t like to deal with (and emerge with just a bonus action), and have a Wild Companion familiar or any of your minions carry the vessel around.
Genie’s Wrath – This bonus fire damage counts as extra damage for your attack, as opposed to a separate damage instance like the one from Swarmkeeper Ranger’s Gathered Swarm feature, which means you can apply the bonus from Enhanced Bond later on. Encountering fire resistance is not a big deal since it is only a 1-2 points of damage difference.
Pact Magic — Our spell slot progression is unique and recharges on a short rest. We are not taking more than 2 Warlock levels for this build, but you will use plenty of 1st level spells throughout the adventuring day, so getting 1-2 of those slots back on a short rest is nice. Ideally, your party should be amenable to short resting at least once, preferably twice on an adventuring day. Always use your Pact Magic spell slots first!

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, fog cloud, goodberry.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray, spike growth.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray, spike growth.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield.

Flaming sphere C Even if we had the casting stats for this, which we don’t, this would still be subpar, and it eats up our concentration to boot.
Pass without trace Going by 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 most enemies or avoid an undesirable fight entirely. To make this even more reliable, your party members should pick up Stealth proficiency, even if they have a low Dexterity score.
Scorching ray CThis spell is typically equivalent to a magic missile of the same spell slot in terms of damage. That damage gets even worse for us than a typical Wildfire Druid as we only have 13 Wisdom, meaning our to-hit bonus lags behind for Druid spells. Our spell slots are more valuable when used on persistent effects like the aforementioned pass without trace or spike growth, both of which provide sizable party contribution while circumventing our low Druid spell save DC.
Spike growth A large area, difficult terrain, and some bonus damage to deter movements, and you can combine this with Hexblade’s Curse to make its damage far from ignorable. Place this between your party and the enemy brutes, and double down with Hexblade’s Curse to threaten even greater punishment. In the next level, you will gain access to Repelling Blast to make this control effect even scarier. 

Hex Hex is a decent damage buffer and can last multiple combats. Keep in mind that rider against checks can be potent in the right scenarios and your allies will appreciate you.
Protection from evil and good – This spell is admittedly highly situational as there are only a few creature types that are affected by it at all, but it excels against them, and this is the best we’ll get from low level Warlock spells. Disadvantage on attack rolls against the spell’s target, as well as inability to be charmed or frightened, can turn a crippling defeat at the hands of a vampire or aboleth into a narrow escape.
Eldritch blast The staple cantrip of Warlocks. The damage type is rarely resisted, it has great range, and it’s enhanced by Eldritch Invocations. This will be your bread and butter when you are not casting leveled spells starting at level 5. Until we get our second ray and its supporting invocations, however, magic stone is better for damage.
Magic stone For now, this does slightly more damage than eldritch blast, but what makes this truly valuable is that the stones can be handed out to your allies and minions, who can throw them using your Charisma modifier for attack and damage—it’s more than possible that throwing your magic-imbued pebble is a better attack than what your allies can do on their turn if they don’t have good ranged options of their own, and/or if they cannot do magical damage.

Level 4 Strategy

We want to prioritize pass without trace before combat because having extra turns against enemies is simply too valuable at all levels, but we will also be casting spike growth in big encounters where it has the potential to shine. If your melee allies want to reach an enemy in the spike area, hand them some magic stones. If an enemy had to be wary of walking in your spike growth without our Hexblade levels, then they will definitely think twice more with Hexblade’s Curse on them. 

Our spellcasting strategy has mostly stayed unchanged, but we can now either use or give away magic stones for some better ranged damage.

Level 5: Warlock (Warlock 2/Druid 3)

Animal Enhancement Carapace, Manta Glide.
Carapace – Our best option here is +1 AC, which is not very interesting, but as we are not wearing heavy armor this is straight up an upgrade. Nimble Climber is also not a terrible option, however, as it would enhance our movement abilities even more (especially in combination with Manta Glide if we climb up something and then glide down).
Eldritch Invocations Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast.
Agonizing Blast Our eldritch blast now has two rays, and we get to add our Charisma modifier to the damage of both of them. A noticeable boost to our at-will damage output.
Repelling Blast Forced movement without a saving throw is huge, and doubly so for this one because it can be applied twice if both your beams hit. The combat utility of this cannot be overstated. Blast an enemy over a bridge or a ledge. Blast an enemy into an environmental hazard such as a web spell. Blast a ghoul charging your party and force a Dash action. Blast a zombie out of melee range of your caster ally away so your ally can move around without having to Disengage or take an opportunity attack. Blast a wolf out of the Polearm Master Barbarian’s reach so they get another opportunity attack next time it approaches. This is also guaranteed to break a grapple unless the grappler has extra reach to spare. Normally we would not recommend splitting attacks between two enemies, but in the right circumstances it can be more valuable to push two enemies back 10 feet each than to focus fire (for example, if you can push both of them into a web or off a cliff).
Spell Changes: +protection from evil and good.

Level 5: Warlock (Druid 3/Warlock 2)

Eldritch Invocations — Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast.
Agonizing Blast — Our eldritch blast now has two rays, and we get to add our Charisma modifier to the damage of both of them. A noticeable boost to our at-will damage output.
Repelling Blast — Forced movement without a saving throw is huge, and doubly so for this one because it can be applied twice if both your beams hit. The combat utility of this cannot be overstated. Blast an enemy over a bridge or a ledge. Blast an enemy into an environmental hazard such as a web spell. Blast a ghoul charging your party and force a Dash action. Blast a zombie out of melee range of your caster ally away so your ally can move around without having to Disengage or take an opportunity attack. Blast a wolf out of the Polearm Master Barbarian’s reach so they get another opportunity attack next time it approaches. This is also guaranteed to break a grapple unless the grappler has extra reach to spare. Normally we would not recommend splitting attacks between two enemies, but in the right circumstances it can be more valuable to push two enemies back 10 feet each than to focus fire (for example, if you can push both of them into a web or off a cliff).
Spell Changes: +detect thoughts, unseen servant.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray, spike growth.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray, spike growth.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Protection from evil and good – This spell is admittedly highly situational as there are only a few creature types that are affected by it at all, but it excels against them, and this is the best we’ll get from low level Warlock spells. Disadvantage on attack rolls against the spell’s target, as well as inability to be charmed or frightened, can turn a crippling defeat at the hands of a vampire or aboleth into a narrow escape.

Detect thoughts GP Via Githzerai Psionics. A rather circumstantial spell from our racial trait, but we do have a free casting of it each day. Handy for information gathering, and can double as a creature scanner.
Unseen servant Create a mindless, shapeless force which acts at your command within 60 feet of you for an hour. Can be quite handy even without ritual casting, and can double up as a preemptive, budget healing word if you arm the servant with healing potions. 

Level 5 Strategy

Our at-will options are now much more robust with Repelling Blast in play and eldritch blast scaling to two beams just in time. In addition to our Wildfire Spirit, you can exert much greater control on battlefield positioning. 

Our level 5 “capstone” is the combination of Repelling Blast and spike growth, with Hexblade’s Curse as a bonus. Repelling Blast not only keeps enemies further stuck in the difficult terrain, but also adds some nice damage. Hexblade’s Curse will amplify this damage even further, making this spike field rather deadly. Eldritch blast, pushing an enemy with Hexblade’s Curse 10 feet in spike growth, can do an average of 27.5 damage on a hit. And at this level, we have two beams (34.1 average damage when accounting for hit chance)!

Our level 5 “capstone” is the combination of Repelling Blast and spike growth. Repelling Blast not only keeps enemies further stuck in the difficult terrain, but also adds some nice damage. The damage bonus from Genie’s Wrath increases with your proficiency to 3, pretty nice. 

Level 6: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 4)

Level 6: Druid (Druid 4/Warlock 2)

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 an inferior use of a Wild Shape charge compared to Summon Wildfire Spirit or Wild Companion, but still worth remembering as a part of your toolbox.
Ability Score Improvement – Resilient (Con). Adding proficiency to concentration saves is the big draw for us, but other Constitution saves are quite common too, including most saves vs poison, paralysis, and effects that do necrotic or cold damage. We also get +1 to Constitution, giving us 16 and bumping up our modifier to +3. That means that overall this feat increases our bonus to Constitution saves from +2 to +5, decreasing the chance that we’ll fail a DC 10 save from about 1 in 3 to about 1 in 5. We’ll get additional increases when our proficiency bonus goes up. The Constitution increase also gives us a few more hit points.
Spell changes: +healing word, +thorn whip.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray, spike growth.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray, spike growth.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

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. This is a good option for scrolls though, as there will be quite some moments where it will come up.
Thorn whip While this is not a reliable staple because of your low Wisdom, it can sometimes be handy to have. At this point, feel free to pick up any cantrip you like instead. 

Level 6 Strategy

Same game plan as 5th level, but with better concentration protection.

Level 7: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 5)

Level 7: Druid (Druid 5/Warlock 2)

Spell changes: +conjure animals, +plant growth C, +revivify C.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray, spike growth.
3rd Level: conjure animals, plant growth, revivify.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray, spike growth.
3rd Level: conjure animals, plant growth, revivify.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Conjure animals The premier all-purpose 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 would like to reiterate that it is crucial you check how summoning spells work at your table. We have a section on this specifically in our article on questions to ask your DM before playing a Druid, including ways to speed up relevant gameplay if that is one of the leading issues.
Plant growth C This spell creates a massive area in which creatures need to spend 4 feet of movement for every 1 feet they move, which is absolutely debilitating. 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.
Revivify C If someone happens to die, you definitely would want to have this prepared, and Circle Spells makes sure we do! 

Conjure Airstrike
If your game uses Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything’s optional rule for Falling onto a Creature, you can turn conjure animals into conjure airstrike by dropping 8 beasts 60 feet over an enemy, dealing up to 48d6 damage spread across multiple DC 15 Dexterity saving throws, and this number can be increased if the beasts have a fly speed and go higher. “That’s a lotta damage.”
Phantasmal Plant Growth
RAW plant growth affects its entire 100 foot radius area, no matter if there are plants or not. This makes it into a really insane spell, but even if your game rules this differently, it can end up being great in situations where there are plants present. Since this spell is frequently ruled differently depending on your DM, remember to ask how it works for your campaign.

Level 7 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 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 suggestions, but the timing of the decisions is away from the table) is the most fun and balanced. This approach speeds up play, sets clear expectations, and the DM is still welcome to disallow options that are too powerful or not appropriate for their world. This way, the Druid player can prepare for the summoning turns while other players are taking their turns. When playing on a virtual tabletop, players can have dice macros for their “staple” summons set up far in advance. The DM doesn’t have to expend exorbitant effort to pick and run 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 this build (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).
At this level, conjure animals is our big gun option, which can potentially last through multiple encounters. Some beast options like constrictor snake can grapple enemies on-hit to set up your Repelling Blast plays. You can also supply your summons with magic stone for extra range (again, check with your DM to see what forms are applicable) and to get around resistance/immunity to non-magical attacks.

An additional Wildfire technique you can do with conjure animals, or any creatures for that matter, is to reactively body block an enemy. You can only move through a hostile creature’s space if the creature is at least two sizes larger or smaller than you. By having the Wildfire Spirit ready its Fiery Teleportation, you can move your animals to block an enemy’s movement at a more controlled timing, ruining their original action plan. 

Our wolves have one enemy surrounded, but another is using its movement to run towards us!
But we were smart and anticipated this movement from our enemy, and commanded our Wildfire Spirit with our bonus action to Ready a Fiery Teleportation if an enemy approached us!
Our Readied Fiery Teleportation goes off, completely body-blocking the enemy creature from approaching us!

Level 8: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 6)

Level 8: Druid (Druid 6/Warlock 2)

Enhanced Bond (Circle of Wildfire feature) – The main benefit of this feature is the ability to cast spells from the spirit’s space. Do note that while it lets you get around cover for your spells, you still need to abide by line of sight requirements, unlike what the Order of Scribes Wizard’s Manifest Mind ability can do. This acts as extended range for your spells, but it also opens options like casting revivify on someone from far away, or using Repelling Blast from different angles.  

Enhanced Bond (Circle of Wildfire feature) – The main benefit of this feature is the ability to cast spells from the spirit’s space. Do note that while it lets you get around cover for your spells, you still need to abide by line of sight requirements, unlike what the Order of Scribes Wizard’s Manifest Mind ability can do. This acts as extended range for your spells, but it also opens options like casting revivify on someone from far away, or using Repelling Blast from different angles. Lastly, the fire damage bonus from Genie’s Wrath lets you also add the 1d8 bonus from Enhanced Bond to your attack cantrips. 

Spell Changes: +sleet storm, +locate object, –spike growth.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, locate object, pass without trace, scorching ray, spike growth.
3rd Level: conjure animals, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, locate object, pass without trace, scorching ray, spike growth.
3rd Level: conjure animals, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Sleet storm You make a very large area incredibly difficult to leave by making it difficult terrain, heavily obscuring the area (which means that most teleportation effects including misty step no longer work since they need to see the space they teleport into, dimension door still does). The terrain effects are so overwhelming that even if enemies make their save against falling prone with your low Wisdom score, they will still have a very bad day. Additionally, again even with your low save DC, enemy spellcasters will still have a hard time keeping their concentration in its radius. Because of all these 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. 
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.

Level 8 Strategy

While the bonus fire damage doesn’t suddenly make you a dedicated damage dealer like a Ranger with Archery Fighting Style, Crossbow Expert, and Sharpshooter, it is nice to have. For reference, this gives you 16.2 DPR at will against AC 16, compared to the 24 DPR from a subclass-less, zero resource consumption Ranger with Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter.

With Repelling Blast, you can push an enemy further into sleet storm, or push enemies that escaped back in, further enhancing the value of this spell. If you can add plant growth to the mix, enemies caught within the effects might as well stop trying to move.
While we would typically keep the Wildfire Spirit nearby for reactive movement or emergency escape, it might be worth sending it further out at times for that perfect Repelling Blast angle using Enhanced Bond to push people into an area of effect, or off a cliff side, or even “pulling” enemies towards you by sandwiching an enemy. You can additionally use Enhanced Bond for thorn whip from the air to drop a creature prone, though note your behind-the-curve to hit bonus. 

Level 9: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 7)

Level 9: Druid (Druid 7/Warlock 2)

Spell Changes: +aura of life C, +conjure woodland beings, +fire shield C, +polymorph, –locate object.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, locate object, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, polymorph.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, locate object, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, polymorph.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Aura of life C There are only a few situations where the spell’s benefits are worth your concentration and 4th level slot compared to your other options. One such niche use is described here, but it’s only available at a much later level.
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.
Fire shield C The main merit for this spell is that it is non concentration, but compared to absorb elements, this only saves you a couple reactions at best, while costing significantly more in terms of spell slot. The damage in melee is irrelevant and should not be what you aim to use it for, either.
Polymorph This is very powerful, even if a little less so because we get it late. You’ll often use this on an ally to turn them into a giant ape, which both improves their offense and gives them a big pool of hit points to absorb any damage they take before their own health is touched. This spell has a very long duration, so if your party has scouted ahead and knows a fight is coming you can cast this proactively and have your allies begin combat immediately as polymorphed beasts (which are likely as strong as or stronger than your party’s martials, and certainly more durable due to the massive health pool despite low AC), to save you from having to use your action in combat.

Everlasting Impertinence
If the line “hit point maximum can’t be reduced” from aura of life applies to the reduction of your hit point maximum at the end of the duration of aid and heroes’ feast, you can use the former spell to grant your party permanent increases to their hit points. Additionally, as the spell durations do not overlap, you can cast the spells again to keep on gaining more and more hit points. Finally, you can have enough hit points to be mauled by a Tarrasque unperturbed. Talk to your DM about this though, as this is probably not healthy for your game.

Level 9 Strategy

Staple options for polymorph include: Giant Ape, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Huge Giant Crab, and situationally, Sperm Whale. This is best used early on as both a mild damage increase and a big hit points soak, but casting it on someone who is taking damage to keep them from going down is good too.
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 or put a severe limit on it. Look at the spell list and remember you get 8 of each of those spells for your single 4th level spell slot.
8 Mites – This is quite a fascinating creature from Mordenkainen’s Fiendish Folio. While it is squishy and lacks any real damage option, it has a climb and burrow speed, and decent Stealth bonus to keep itself safe. It imposes disadvantage to Dexterity checks and saving throws to non-Fey creatures it can see in a 30 feet radius. On top of that, its Blood Boiling Hex ability is an excellent debuff to basically any d20 the enemy rolls (e.g. saving throws). This is highly potent in a party with multiple spellcasters.
2 Dryads – Each dryad has Innate Spellcasting, allowing for 3 casts of goodberry each, 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 Strength Drain on hit. 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 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 combat encounters 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 unless you can get 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, as they rely entirely on their Evasion and speed to survive.
1 Darkling Elder – This is very much of a situational pick, but with darkness and Blindsight, it is still doing somewhat good damage, albeit a lot less than your usual conjure animals picks. The situations where we can see it being useful is against advantage seeking monsters, 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, another valid option instead of the Genie. Where this option really becomes strong is upcasting for a coven, which we will discuss later in the build.

The Greatest Gifters of All
We can now prepare conjure minor elementals during downtime and use it to our hearts content. You cast the spell in a space where only Tiny creatures can fit so that the only thing you can get is chwingas. They can subsequently give you or your friends 8 supernatural charms, for a single spell slot. We have an entire spotlight on the spell here

If you aren’t expecting any combat during a day, you can prepare divination and spend your slots on goodberries.

Divination This can tell us about a specific event that will happen within the next 7 days, which can give the whole party time to gather important information, solve plot points, and prepare against worst case scenarios and impending catastrophes. A well-informed party always has better chances against the odds. 25 gp should be very cheap at this point, hopefully.

Level 10: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 8)

Level 10: Druid (Druid 8/Warlock 2)

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’ much better on-hit grapple. While this Wild Shape option is still competing with Summon Wildfire Spirit, flight can be useful at times. As a Simic Hybrid with Manta Glide, you can fly up high before dropping the animal form for a massive movement burst.
Ability Score Improvement (Feat) +2 Cha. We’re improving our Charisma here since our eldritch blast will scale to three beams next level. Otherwise, feel free to pick up other feats you prefer to match your table’s game.
Spell Changes: +wall of fire.

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’ much better on-hit grapple. While this Wild Shape option is still competing with Summon Wildfire Spirit, flight can be useful at times. 
Ability Score Improvement (Feat) +2 Cha. We’re improving our Charisma here since our eldritch blast will scale to three beams next level. Otherwise, feel free to pick up other feats you prefer to match your table’s game.
Spell Changes: +wall of fire.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, polymorph, wall of fire.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, polymorph, wall of fire.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Wall of fire The classic “push people into things” spell with great flexibility. While it allows for a save to take half damage when the wall appears (1d8 bonus from Enhanced Bond can apply to this damage instance), after this the wall does not allow any saves. You are guaranteed 5d8 fire damage whenever another creature enters the wall on a turn, or ends its turn within 10 feet of the side you designated to emit heat.
Although the spell says nothing about the wall having to be a straight line (normally walls aren’t restricted as such), which would in fact allow us to bend our wall of fire, Jeremy Crawford seems to think otherwise. There is some ambiguity here, so check with your DM.

Level 10 Strategy

With wall of fire in our arsenal, we can deny a large area, push enemies into it, and bail any ally who is caught within it out with Fiery Teleportation. Enhanced Bond also allows for pushing from different angles, greatly increasing the area you can threaten. Note that the damage for standing in the heat zone is applied at the end of the target creature’s turn, whereas the damage on entry can be applied once on each turn. Repelling Blast and other forced movement effects from your party can trigger this damage multiple times in a round.

Level 11: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 9)

Level 11: Druid (Druid 9/Warlock 2)

Spell Changes: +antilife shell, +flame strike C, mass cure wounds C, +wall of stone, –polymorph.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, polymorph, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, polymorph, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Antilife shellIf 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 state where the remaining enemies have practically no counterplay, and automatically lose. If your enemies have ranged attacks, that isn’t a default kill situation, but enemy ranged attacks tend to be way less deadly than melee ones, so it’s a still a state of enormous advantage for your party. You definitely won’t cast this every adventure, but sometimes it just wins the fight on its own, and you can afford to prepare the spell at this level.
Flame strike C Tiny area of effect, horrible damage, split damage type is irrelevant. How did this spell get printed?
Mass cure wounds C Might be somewhat useful if you need to bring up multiple allies. However, even just having your summons from conjure animals and Wildfire Spirit deliver potions is likely both cheaper and more effective.
Wall of stoneThe next best wall spell for the level, we can potentially shut hallways with it, or make monsters that have high value reactions such as counterspell or shield to waste them trying to make the save (or getting automatically imprisoned in case they already used those).

Level 11 Strategy

At this level, we have plenty of spells with huge impact on the battlefield. Our eldritch blast package is also 50% more potent—with 3 beams instead of 2.
Use conjure animals and conjure woodland beings as your staple options. Also remember that pass without trace will still greatly swing any fight in your favor whenever it’s applicable, while sleet storm can cover a massive area and disrupt enemy spellcasters.
When using antilife shell, you can push enemies out of your way with Repelling Blast so you don’t end the spell by moving spell’s effect into them.
Use wall of stone to split up the encounter, create cover and platforms, or trap enemies. Pay attention to the reaction usage of creatures in the encounter. With your low save DC, you might even use this spell to grant an ally extra movement with their reaction, using Wildfire Spirit to bail them out if they fail the saving throw.
At around this level, there’s another venue of long term improvement to your party, in the form of semi-permanent summons.
You can prepare awaken to start amassing tree friends. If your party can access planar binding or they have summons that can be bound by you, however, there’s a lot more to work with. You can supply conjure elemental, or in 2 levels, conjure fey, while other casters can supply options from summon greater demon, or conjure celestial. Some minion options to go for include: dybbuk, babau, bheur hag, korred, earth elemental, which are excellent bodies with strong utilities for the long term. Of course, you have a lower save DC for planar binding than usual, so it’s best that you leave this role to the other caster.
At some point, with enough downtime, you can amass enough minions to send out and clear dungeons for you on their own. Consider the amount of summons you bring along that would be appropriate for your table’s gameplay.
If plant growth is not applicable due to unfavorable terrain or rulings, consider preparing transmute rock in place of wall of stone.
We now get to prepare both or either of divination and commune with nature during downtime. 

Commune with nature 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. If you don’t expect this to work well in your game, take greater restoration instead, which we detail at level 16.

Level 12: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 10)

Level 12: Druid (Druid 10/Warlock 2)

Cauterizing Flames (Circle of Wildfire feature) – Some extra healing or extra damage. If you have ways to move an ally’s unconscious body to the spectral flame, such as with the help of summons, the healing might be used to revive them with just a reaction. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work.

Spell Changes: +dispel magic, +shape water.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Dispel magic A great addition to our spell selection, since it allows you to defend your party members and foil enemy spells. Typically not as good as preventing the spells entirely the way counterspell can, but since you can focus an individual, you can erase multiple spells on the same target, be they debuffs on allies or buffs on enemies. The 120 feet range also makes it more broadly viable.
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.

Level 12 Strategy

Heading into the later tiers of play, resistance and immunity to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from non-magical attacks are more common, but definitely not universal. Conjure animals becomes less of a staple, but as previously stated, you can supply your animals with magic stone (which is Charisma based), and you still have many other spells that control enemies or buff your party, along with Repelling Blast and Fiery Teleportation reliably providing value.

Level 13: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 11)

Level 13: Druid (Druid 11/Warlock 2)

Spell Changes: +conjure fey.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Conjure fey We can get a beast or fey creature of CR equal to the spell slot we use this spell with. Our options using a 6th level slot aren’t great, but as a 7th level spell 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 solid 6th level spell) and cone of cold (a rather decent 5th level blast, especially when paired with flight) 3 times per day each. She can also cast ice storm 3 times per day, which while not a particularly good spell for its level, looks quite appealing on this discount package as some extra no-concentration blast and difficult terrain.
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 distantly as possible (maybe burying himself between turns) and throw some rocks (which they’re really good at doing) while the galeb duhr is summoned. Don’t forget to prepare your divination spells again during down time. In preparation of a particularly challenging day or whenever you can afford the material component, swap in heroes’ feast to beef up your party before the day begins (if survival is a greater concern, consider picking up heal, which is described next level).

If you do not have a Cleric in your party heroes’ feast can be very useful.

Heroes’ feast In this tier of play where gold flows more comfortably, 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 5 A.M.) 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 hit points, there is no rule preventing this type of hit point 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 packs more than attack rolls and damage spells—Wisdom saves are by far the most common of the mental saves after all.

Level 14: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 12)

Level 14: Druid (Druid 12/Warlock 2)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Lucky. This gives us a way to reroll critical saves that we fail the first time. We are picking this over War Caster, but feel free to pick that instead if you are having component issues, or if you are getting hit hard enough or often enough such that maintaining concentration is becoming a significant issue.

Spell Changes: +heal.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.

Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.

Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Heal This one’s pretty straightforward: you heal yourself or an ally for 70 hit points. Unlike most healing spells, this one is actually pretty impactful for its spell slot. Heal gets relatively more valuable the stronger your party’s defenses are.

Level 15: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 13)

Level 15: Druid (Druid 13/Warlock 2)

Spell Changes: +mirage arcane.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.
7th Level: mirage arcane.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.
7th Level: mirage arcane.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Mirage arcaneThis is a truly insanely potent spell, because the illusions it creates is 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 limit is removed on mirage arcane, and in fact, Jeremy Crawford has confirmed the design intent that this spell can have real, physical, and even lethal effects. 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. This spell does not care about your spell DC, and it even works on enemies with Truesight!

Level 15 Strategy

In the event we have 10 minutes of setup time before a fight, or we have a consistent home base where we might encounter enemies, laying down a mirage arcane can provide a massive tactical advantage. Of course, upcasting conjure animals or conjure woodland beings is still a worthwhile consideration.
If you have some downtime, or simply want extra protection for your base camp, you can prepare spells like symbol or druid grove to make your base extra secure.

Portable Landmines
Unlike glyph of warding, which received an errata to prevent the spell’s effect being carried around, the glyph from symbol does not break if it is cast on a surface and the surface is moved around. This lets you keep the effect (or multiple of it) around for as long as you want until it is triggered.

At this level we can prepare plane shift, and while we won’t be using this every day, it is definitely a potent tool to have in your backpocket. Refer to level 18 for how this spell is used.

Level 16: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 14)

Level 16: Druid (Druid 14/Warlock 2)

Blazing Revival (Circle of Wildfire feature) – Some extra survivability. While the extra hit points you restore is better than death ward, this does make you fall unconscious and drop whatever you’re concentrating on.

Spell Changes: +greater restoration.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, greater restoration, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.
7th Level: mirage arcane.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, greater restoration, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.
7th Level: mirage arcane.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Level 17: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 15)

Level 17: Druid (Druid 15/Warlock 2)

Spell Changes: +antipathy/sympathy.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, greater restoration, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.
7th Level: mirage arcane.
8th Level: antipathy/sympathy.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, greater restoration, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.
7th Level: mirage arcane.
8th Level: antipathy/sympathy.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Antipathy/sympathyUse antipathy to make anyone who carries the item you cast it on 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. Its long duration means you can have multiple castings for different creature types stocked up. The various divination options in our class’ spell list help us target even more precisely. A single casting will generate you value for the next 10 days, and while your DC for this spell is not particularly high, enemies who made the save will still have to save again the next minute. 

Level 17 Strategy

Your eldritch blast now scales to four beams! You possess very potent at-will options with Repelling Blast and Wildfire Spirit in play, and they are also especially useful in circumventing common Legendary Action options by keeping allies away from their range after the creature’s turn.
There are not a lot of great 8th level spells, but you can simply upcast conjure animals or conjure woodland beings if extra firepower is necessary. Note that conjure woodland beings at 8th level can create three Sea Hags to form a coven. 

Level 18: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 16)

Level 18: Druid (Druid 16/Warlock 2)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) +2 Cha. As usual, you can tweak your feat choices to your table, options like War Caster, Alert, Fey Touched for gift of alacrity are worth considering. 

Spell Changes: +plane shift.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, greater restoration, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.
7th Level: mirage arcane, plane shift.
8th Level: antipathy/sympathy.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, greater restoration, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.
7th Level: mirage arcane, plane shift.
8th Level: antipathy/sympathy.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

Plane shiftTake your party to a general location of your choice on another plane (which requires a tuning fork attuned to that plane, whatever that means). This spell serves as both an escape plan for the party and a way of getting around. It’s better than teleport because it doesn’t have a chance of failure, and you can use it to go somewhere on the plane that you’re on by entering the extradimensional space of a rope trick first, as you are no longer on the same plane.

Level 19: Druid (Warlock 2/Druid 17)

Level 19: Druid (Druid 17/Warlock 2)

Spell Changes: +foresight, +shapechange, –healing word*.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, greater restoration, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.
7th Level: mirage arcane, plane shift.
8th Level: antipathy/sympathy.
9th Level: foresight, shapechange.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry, healing word.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, greater restoration, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.
7th Level: mirage arcane, plane shift.
8th Level: antipathy/sympathy.
9th Level: foresight, shapechange.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.

ForesightAn effective non concentration buff that lasts for 8 hours, which simply makes your target better at everything they do for the day. A premium candidate for rest casting and a straightforward way to spend our 9th level slot without burning our concentration. 
ShapechangeWe get this because turning into an adult gold dragon that still has Spellcasting and all of your other class features is fun.

Level 19 Strategy

If we spend your resources wisely, we will likely have our 9th level slot to spare at the end of the day for rest casting foresight. In especially tough fights, conjure animals can be cast using a level 9 slot, which practically gets you your own army to command. This represents an astonishing amount of damage potential, 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. If we ever want to use our concentration on our 9th level spell without managing 32 creatures, shapechange is a reasonable choice. 

*Healing word is no longer as important for us. Between healing word scrolls, healing potions delivered by summons, heal, and Cauterizing Flame, you have many ways to bring up an unconscious ally. Another option is to just cast cure wounds (perhaps through Enhanced Bond) and save your bonus action that turn to activate Fiery Teleportation.

Level 20: Cleric (Warlock 2/Druid 17/Cleric 1)

Level 20: Cleric (Druid 17/Warlock 2/Cleric 1)

Divine Domain – Peace Domain. One of the highest value dips in the game. Its pièce de résistance is Emboldening Bold, which is all we are after.
Implement of Peace (Peace Domain feature) – Persuasion. We finish off the duo of Persuasion and Deception on our “face,” pretty handy with our high Charisma.
Emboldening Bond  (Peace Domain feature) – This feature gives you and your allies a 1d4 bonus that is applied once on each turn, so the saving throw benefit functions basically like half a Paladin’s Aura of Protection—and we all know how valuable that is. As icing on the cake, the bonus to ability checks can apply to dispel magic, and counterspell checks, as well as rolls for initiative. The bond lasts 10 minutes and scales with your proficiency both in number of targets and uses (6 at level 20), which ensures very consistent uptime. Unless your party is extremely spread apart, being within 30 feet of any other bonded ally should not be an issue at all. 
Spell changes: +detect magic, +healing word, +heroism, +sanctuary, +mending, +resistance, +thaumaturgy.

Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: protection from evil and good, shield, wrathful smite.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, greater restoration, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.
7th Level: mirage arcane, plane shift.
8th Level: antipathy/sympathy.
9th Level: foresight, shapechange.
Spells Prepared: Cleric
Cantrips: mending, resistance, thaumaturgy.
1st Level: detect magic, healing word, heroism, sanctuary.
Spells Prepared: Druid
Cantrips: guidance, mold earth, shape water, thorn whip.
1st Level: absorb elements, burning hands, cure wounds, goodberry.
2nd Level: flaming sphere, pass without trace, scorching ray.
3rd Level: conjure animals, dispel magic, plant growth, revivify, sleet storm.
4th Level: aura of life, conjure woodland beings, fire shield, wall of fire.
5th Level: antilife shell, flame strike, greater restoration, mass cure wounds, wall of stone.
6th Level: conjure fey, heal.
7th Level: mirage arcane, plane shift.
8th Level: antipathy/sympathy.
9th Level: foresight, shapechange.
Spells Known: Warlock
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone, mage hand.
1st Level: hex, protection from evil and good, shield, unseen servant.
2nd Level: detect thoughts.
Spells Prepared: Cleric
Cantrips: mending, resistance, thaumaturgy.
1st Level: detect magic, healing word, heroism, sanctuary.

Detect magicA handy ritual that every party can make use of. Another good option is ceremony to remove things that mess with alignments.
Heroism D While fear effects become more and more common at high levels, we probably have better things to concentrate on.
Sanctuary D A bonus action casting time spell that forces any enemy that tries to target us with an attack or harmful spell to make a Wisdom save or redirect or lose the attack or spell. While this does take away some pressure from your target, the low spell DC means you’re better off saving your slots for shield and absorb elements instead.
Mending Repairing objects or some specific constructs is a bit of neat utility. Artillerist Artificers and the like will thank us. This also opens up some thrifting opportunities.
Resistance This is guidance, but for saving throws. Especially now, we might want to be prepared when handling strange artifacts out of combat. 
Thaumaturgy This is mostly fluff and minor utility, as it doesn’t have defined mechanical benefits, but DM-willing you might be able to use it to make yourself more intimidating, create distractions, or trick people. Pick whatever here, we mostly care about this not being keyed off of Wisdom.

Level 20 Strategy

This build, while sharing many common traits with the basic Druid chassis, will feel remarkably different in play. 
We possess the defensive package of 19 AC, shield, absorb elements, with some tail protections provided by Lucky and Blazing Revival.
We boast superior mobility that extends to your party with flight options from conjure animals, the fantastically versatile Fiery Teleportation ability, and Manta Glide.
We have a powerful package of offense and control, with spells like pass without trace, conjure animals, and conjure woodland beings, which are all powerful staples from start to end. Spike growth, sleet storm, wall of fire, wall of stone, and plant growth all provide excellent area control, further enhanced by Repelling Blast. Antipathy/sympathy and antilife shell are amazing cheat codes whenever they are applicable. Additionally, none of these spells rely heavily on your spell DC to generate good value!
We have many miscellaneous tools that allow us to deal with a multitude of problems that might come up during adventuring. Our preparation options include locate object, dispel magic, revivify, greater restoration, heal, divination, commune with nature, and plane shift, which are all spells that can get you and your party out of many troublesome situations. 
And with just how efficient our spell slot usage is, we have several venues to fully maximize our leftover magic reserves. Goodberry, foresight, heroes’ feast will keep your party healthy and protected throughout your career. 

19 Replies to “Witchfire: Wildfire Warlock Build Guide”

  1. Love the build, this looks like it would be a ton of fun to play. Two things I noticed while reading. First, the HexFire side appears to be missing the Ability Scores section. Second, at level 9 in the NobleFire side you mention Sea Hags and that you’ll discuss summoning 3 of them to form a coven later in the build. The only thing I see later on is a brief mention that it’s possible with an 8th level spell slot; is that meant to be the extent of the discussion?

  2. I like the build a lot but I’ve a question about the eldritch invocation though: the standard choice is agonizing blast+repelling blast, because you want to move enemies away from you. But in this build, you can fire from your wildfire spirit, which may be right in the middle of the enemies group, or even behind them. In this case, wouldn’t you rather want grasp of Hadar ?
    Granted it is only once per turn (but you only have to blasts per turn until level 11 anyway), but it allows some very nice opportunities : cast it from a flying spirit to add fall damage, put the spirit at the center of a web or wall of fire and force back the enemies as they try to escape…

    1. Hi.
      Race Faery with Flying Speed and grasp of adar and Flight above the target multi target with a lot of eldritch blast lift the enimy in the Sky for more folling damage and prone they

  3. Looking at the NobleFire variant, the description reads “and Bottled Respite will allow us to get into a lot of shenanigans, which will be explained below.”

    However, the only real mention of the “shenanigans” is a very small paragraph at Level 4 of the build. Is the extend of the tomfoolery just storing stuff in your vessel and shattering the vessel to get that stuff quickly? I have a hard time understanding what all the fuss is about, in that case.

    1. It’s a more compact space that you can get into and be moved around more easily, that’s the general use. In terms of shenanigans, there’s already plenty to work with depending on your situation, such as breaking out of effects, bringing your party in with a bag of holding, early flight, sneak and spying potential,…
      The other part is that it functions like a personal demiplane, which is a spell that we do pick on some of the flagship builds. Store glyphs of warding, planar bound minions, and the likes.
      That’s already quite plenty for a minor feature of a 1st level ability.

      1. Yeah, that’s quite an awesome list! Thanks for the reply.

        It seems like, since this build never reaches a level where we can bring friends into the vessel with us, it’d be almost impossible to store Glyphs of Warding or Planar Bound minions in our vessel. A Glyph of Warding cast into a book/object would probably still go off if the vessel was moved more than 10 feet, and a Planar Bound minion would have to be summoned *inside* of the vessel to be bound there (and, since we cannot bring a friend, we couldn’t cast Planar Binding while concentrating on the summoning spell at the same time).

        It seems like the main use of the Bottled Respite ability, at Warlock Level 2, would be the early flight (through the help of your Familiar or Wildfire Spirit), as well as being a Bag of Holding. Bringing your party along in their own Portable Hole would be very DM-Ruling dependent, as the vessel likely counts as a “similar extraplanar space” that would cause the Bag of Holding to burst.

        Does that seem accurate to you? Or am I overestimating how limited the Bottled Respite feature is with only two levels of Genie Warlock?

        1. “A Glyph of Warding cast into a book/object would probably still go off if the vessel was moved more than 10 feet, ”

          No

  4. Have you considered going warlock 1 + Eldritch Adept instead of 2? I’m playing a witchfire right now and really feeling the slower spell progression. I know it’s just one level, but that’s the difference between feeling behind monoclass spellcasters all the time, vs only half the time – since druid 5 and druid 6, for example, have the access to level 3 spells.

    1. Eldritch Adept does not allow you to take any Eldritch Invocations that have a prerequisite from the Warlock class. So, you won’t be able to take any Eldritch Invocations that require you to have Eldritch Blast with Eldritch Adept, even if you have met those prerequisites. So Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, and Grasp of Hadar cannot be taken with Eldritch Adept.

  5. So I’m looking at your witchfire build and while it’s interesting. If you had to make a more melee focused version of this how would you go about it? Cause I’m looking to make a pyromantic spellblade/knight using wildfire druid. And I do want to be more on the frontlines screwing the enemies up with more melee centric attacks and fiery blasts of spells

  6. How viable would Tortle be for this kind of build? It would let you have a higher wisdom since dex wouldn’t be needed. I know the point of this build is that most of the best druid spells don’t use wisdom, but I feel like there are plenty enough good ones that do that having a higher wisdom could be worth it. Would mean the Genie version wouldn’t get Shield without a feat though and initiative would be lower so I definitely get there’s downsides

  7. Not sure if this is the place to mention this, but your tag for the level 20 heading has the wrong id (it duplicates the level 19 id).

  8. Just Spowned:
    Wildfire Druid Enhanced Bond + Voice of the chain master.
    Send your Sprite Familiar and your Wildfire Spirit around the city to spown all type of spells with range other than self for 1 hour.
    Gease on the BBG? It’ll Work?

  9. I’m playing a fairy Wildfire druid Genie efreeti build.
    My thorn of whip deals 3d6 piercing + 5 Fire + 1d8 fire and can ha e origin from my wildfire Spirit.
    My wildfire Spirit and my pact of the chain Sprite can team up for scouting and engage in Advance the enemy and give the chance ti the party to have a Surprise turn.
    For example share the familiar sense e use the wildfire Spirit as origin of my MOST used spell, summon fey upcasted, so the Sprite stay invisible, and the summoned fey and the wildfire Spirit distract the enemy until the rest of the party arrive.
    Also I can be in the genie Vessel for short rest while the party move somewhere whithout slow they down. Also can use armor of agathys, darkness pair White Devil sight, mirror image or invisibility
    In the dungeon I have the Sprite invisible haed, when sense and enemy i summon fey and the wildfire Spirit, me the fey and the Spirit surround an enemy, next turn, dissonante whispers upcasted, i have warcaster feat, so from me or from the wildfire Spirit thorn of whip originate so the enemy take damage and fall prone to the, the fey made the AO, at the end ad my turn the fey made her Attack and later the wildfire Spirit can provider to all a Better position.
    So damage if all lands:
    7d6 psychic + 3d6 magic piercing + 1d6 bludgeoning + 5 Fire + 1d8 Fire + 3d6 piercing + 3d6 force + 21 piercing + 1d6 Fire + 5 Fire for a Total of 18d6 + 1d8 + 31 damage at cost of a 4th level spell cast out of combat and a 5th in that turn for average 98.5 damage.

  10. Proficiency in mason’s tools will allow us to have a +5 on passive Perception involving stone structures (the most common material for dungeons!)

    Where does this come from? That’s not what it says in xanathar’s and you don’t mention it in the tool prof article

    1. Xanathar’s gives you advantage on the check if you have tool proficiency AND skill proficiency.
      The general rules for Passive Scores give you +5 when you have advantage

  11. Hey there, you have a basic misinterpretation of RAW for the combination of Genie’s Wrath and how it interacts with Enhanced Bond.

    Genie’s Wrath: “Once during each of your turns when you hit with an attack roll, you can deal extra damage to the target equal to your proficiency bonus”

    Enhances Bond: “Whenever you cast a spell that deals fire damage or restores hit points while your wildfire spirit is summoned, roll a 1d8, and you gain a bonus equal to the number rolled to one damage or healing roll of the spell.”

    Unfortunately, Genie’s Wrath does not cause the SPELL to do the fire damage. It is EXTRA damage tagged onto the spell. The “cast spell” need to have been what dealt the fire damage.

    This means that you can’t tag Enhanced Bond damage onto Eldritch Blasts (or other non-base fire or healing spells).

    I’d love if this worked RAW. But it doesn’t. You need to note this in your tech as a non-RAW interpretation. This is very misleading to people as-is.

    1. I disagree with this being a “basic misinterpretation of RAW”; at worst it is ambiguous. When you cast a spell and deal extra damage, it’s still the spell doing that damage (meaning the spell is dealing the fire damage). Nothing in Enhance Bond mentions that the spell needs to deal fire damage by default or something along those lines.

      1. “Whenever you cast a spell that deals fire damage” is right there.
        mentions the casting a spell that deals fire damage. it’s unambiguous.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *