Wizard Spell Mastery & Signature Spells

Author: pandaniel

Wizard is the number one class in D&D 5e. While most classes gain quite a lot of their power through their class and subclass features, this class is carried almost entirely by two aspects: ritual spellcasting and a fantastic spell list. Nevertheless, at 18th level, Wizards gain Spell Mastery, and at 20th level, Signature Spells, two potent features that elevate the spellcasting prowess of high-level Wizards even higher. Spell Mastery reads as follows:

At 18th level, you have achieved such mastery over certain spells that you can cast them at will. Choose a 1st-level wizard spell and a 2nd-level wizard spell that are in your spellbook. You can cast those spells at their lowest level without expending a spell slot when you have them prepared. If you want to cast either spell at a higher level, you must expend a spell slot as normal.

By spending 8 hours in study, you can exchange one or both of the spells you chose for different spells of the same levels.

With this feature, Wizards can spam the chosen low level spells without additional cost. This changes the way one plays their character, as it greatly increases their total power budget, allowing for even further conservation of resources. It is important to select spells that you expect to be able to cast a sizable amount of times on any given day.
At 20th level, Wizards gain Signature Spells, and while this feature is not as powerful as Spell Mastery, it once again increases the total output of a Wizard over the course of a day.

When you reach 20th level, you gain mastery over two powerful spells and can cast them with little effort. Choose two 3rd-level wizard spells in your spellbook as your signature spells. You always have these spells prepared, they don't count against the number of spells you have prepared, and you can cast each of them once at 3rd level without expending a spell slot. When you do so, you can't do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

If you want to cast either spell at a higher level, you must expend a spell slot as normal.

This allows you to both prepare more spells as well as cast more spells. A wonderful capstone for a master of the arcane. While it is no longer important that you need to be able to spam these spells to great effect, it is useful to pick spells that you will cast at least once per short rest to get the biggest bang for your buck. Obviously, the spells should also be powerful.
In this guide, we will highlight and suggest top picks for both of these features. We take into account both the amount of times a spell may come up, and its power, however, this may be different in your campaign for one reason or another, which is something to keep into account. Note that we will mention Dunamancy spells from the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, marked like This*, but keep in mind that these spells are only eligible pickups for Graviturgy and Chronurgy Magic Wizards by default.

Spell Mastery: 1st Level Spells

Absorb elements (★★★★☆)

Reaction cast in response to taking acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage, 1 round duration. Confers resistance to the triggering damage type until the start of your next turn.
Elemental damage becomes both more common and more dangerous in later tiers, and halving such damage without spending a spell slot is incredibly potent for our defenses.

Shield (★★★★★)

Reaction cast in response to being hit by an attack or targeted by magic missile, range of self, 1 round duration. +5 bonus to AC until the start of your next turn and negate magic missile.
Even more common than elemental damage are attacks directed at us. The enemy to-hit has grown substantially from the first point you could pick up this spell, while your AC has largely stagnated. This means you don’t have the near-impunity this spell provided early in your career. However, there will be a lot of attacks that will miss you when casting shield, and each of those attacks is much more dangerous than they were at low levels. This makes shield both effective and frequently applicable, which makes it the perfect spell for Spell Mastery.

Silvery barbs (★★★★★)

Reaction cast, 60 ft range, forces reroll of a successful attack/check/saving throw by an enemy and gives advantage on the next attack/saving throw/ability check to one ally.
This spell is so good, we’ve got an article evaluating it! Since its relatively recent introduction, it has become the best conventional pick for your first level Spell Mastery option. It is an excellent way to support your team and make more enemies fail saving throws. Being able to spam it without resource expenditure ensures you can use it when dropping big spells or other effects if you don’t need alternative reactions in those rounds like shield or counterspell.

Unseen servant (★★★★★)

Action cast (ritual), 60 ft range, 1 hour duration. Create a invisible, mindless, shapeless, servant that follows your commands
This spell is powerful as a ritual, but with the ability to cast it as an action, you can create an army of servants to do your bidding (up to 600 at a time with its one hour duration). They can do whatever a human servant could do, so let your imagination run wild. Even something as “small” as plopping down 50 sets of caltrops every turn is incredible.

Spell Mastery: 2nd Level Spells

Fortune's favor* (★★★★★)

1 minute cast, 60 ft range, 1 hour duration. Target can reroll one attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw they make or an enemy’s attack roll on them before the spell ends.
With the ability to cast this at will with Spell Mastery and the abundance of wealth from Tier 3 and Tier 4 treasure hoards, you can give all your party members “Lucky-like” points limited only by time (money should no longer be an issue, with default treasure assumptions). This “stacks” similarly to death ward, as described in our Death Warden build.

Immovable object* (★★★★☆)

Action cast, 1 hour duration (higher slots increases duration). Make an object mostly immovable.
While you can upcast this spell to make it permanent, allowing you to create a collection of immovable items to use when necessary, this is a good option if you do not have much downtime. With it, you can completely block off an enemy’s means of escape and safely kill them from outside their range, and you have many other options for shenanigans. If you have a tiny spool of black thread that never runs out via your background, this is a premier option for a target.

Locate object (★★★★★)

Action cast, range of self, 10 minute duration (concentration). Allows you to scan for certain items in a 1000 ft radius area.
Being able to spam locate object at will is insane. The spell’s resource expenditure is no longer an issue when you pick this as a Spell Mastery, allowing you to give your DM a list of items you want to look for whenever you feel like, and it lets you map out entire dungeons without entering them. Read more about the spell here.

Rime’s binding ice (★★★★☆)

Action cast, range of self. 3d8 cold damage in a 20 ft radius sphere, Con save for ½ damage, on a failure targets are immobile for 1 minute or until broken free as an action.
While the damage from Rime’s binding ice is no longer impressive at this level for something that costs resources, when you consider that Spell Mastery allows you to cast it for free, this is basically an AoE cantrip with a good crowd control effect.

Tasha’s mind whip (★★★☆☆)

2nd level enchantment, action cast, 90 ft range. 3d6 psychic damage on 1+SL targets within 30 ft of each other, Int save for ½ damage, on a failure forces targets to choose between taking an action, a move or a bonus action. Tasha’s mind whip remains a solid shutdown option against many enemies, especially those that need to move to use their actions effectively (most melee enemies, for example). Intelligence is a great saving throw to target and also a fairly predictable one (you can assume an archmage-like character has good Intelligence saves and that beasts do not, for example). While not as amazing as the alternatives here–it is worth a mention.

Vortex warp (★★★☆☆)

Action cast time, 90 ft range. Con save, on a failure (willing targets do not need to roll) teleport target within range to another location within range.
At-will teleportation for everyone in the party (but you), in and outside of combat, is a useful tool for mobility and positioning. However, at these levels, you already have an impressive kit of positioning tools, from true polymorphed flying mounts to planar bound dybbuk with at-will dimension door. If these things are not available or otherwise impractical, however, the mobility this spell offers at-will (especially when readied, though keep in mind this costs your concentration) is fairly effective.

Web (★★☆☆☆)

Action cast, 60 ft range, 1 hour (concentration) duration. Creates a 20 foot cube of difficult terrain. Dex save, or creatures within become restrained. On a successful Strength check as an action they are freed.
Web is an amazing spell. Very few creatures are immune to the restrained condition, and difficult terrain makes it difficult for them to escape the spell’s area of effect. However, you are at a point now that it is usually no longer competitive to your other concentration options.

Signature Spells

Animate dead (★★★★★)

1 minute casting, 10 ft range. Animate dead.
Similar to tiny servant, this spell allows us extra power with little cost by adding more creatures to the battlefield, which can use magic items and more. Being able to cast this once per short rest gains us a considerable number of creatures on our side, without spell slots or concentration! This is the superior spell due to its duration, but if running around with a horde of undead is impractical in your game, tiny servant is a good alternative.

Counterspell (★★★★☆)

Reaction casting time in response to seeing a creature within 60 ft of you casts a spell, 60 ft range. Automatically interrupts the casting of a spell of 3rd level or lower, interrupting spells of a higher level requires a spellcasting ability check against DC of 10 + triggering spell level.
A spell that scales with the power of the enemy's spells. If you never face spellcasters, this is not very useful. If you do, it is! If you’re playing in a campaign, you likely know how often you expect to fight spellcasters by now, so if you often find yourself casting counterspell between short rests, this is a great choice.

Dispel magic (★★★☆☆)

Action casting time, 120 ft range. One creature, object, or magical effect within range, any spell of 3rd level or lower on it ends. Effects of higher spell levels require a spellcasting ability check against DC of 10 + triggering spell level. Potentially not as commonly useful as its cousin counterspell, but has a great effect, even being able to remove multiple spells with just one casting.

Fireball (★★★★★)

Action cast, 150 ft range. 8d6+1d6/SL fire damage in a 20 ft radius sphere, Dex save for ½ damage.
Deal a good quantity of damage in a 20 foot sphere. Damage is damage. Some players overrate fireball, but you shouldn’t underestimate it either. Even though 8d6 damage is not amazing at this point, troublesome hordes exist at all levels, so this will find its uses nevertheless.

Hypnotic pattern (★★★★★)

Action cast, 120 ft range, 1 minute (duration) concentration. Wis save, creatures within a 30 foot cube you choose within range, on failure targets become charmed, incapacitated, and immobile.
Even at this level, mooks will exist, and this is capable of single-handedly shutting down those enemies without excellent Wisdom saves. Be careful not to cast this on enemies immune to the charmed condition, though.

Sleet storm (★★★★★)

Action cast, 150 ft range, 1 minute (concentration) duration. Creates a 40 foot radius cylinder of movement-impairing effects and hinders concentration.
The ability to cripple flying, melee and spellcasting monsters with an area this big makes sleet storm one of the best 3rd level spells in the game. Enemies are scary at this point in the game, but this spell remains good even if enemies succeed on their saving throws, so you likely have plenty of opportunities to make good use of it. We have a Spell Spotlight on this spell here.

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That is our advice for your high level Wizards! If something didn’t make the list here it’s because we thought it was too situational or weak to warrant a rating or elaboration. Do feel free to leave comments or ask questions below or join our Discord (where you will probably receive a quicker response)!