2024 DnD 5e Druid Subclasses Guide

Introduction

While the core of the Druid’s capabilities remains functional regardless of your Druid Circle, your choice of circle adds a set of unique capabilities to complement the Druid’s core class features. This will usually emphasize or complement the Druid’s typical roles within the party, but some subclasses introduce new capabilities which can shift your role options.

For legacy subclasses, see our 2014 DnD 5e Druid Subclasses Guide.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.

Druid Subclasses

Circle of the Land (PHB)

Circle of the Land emphasizes the Druid’s spellcasting, allowing them to move between being a Blaster, Controller, and Healer with ease. Land’s Aid and Natural Recovery help to stretch your limited spellcasting resources through long adventuring days, making Circle of the Land Druids simple, flexible, and effective.

  1. Circle of the Land Spells: Each of the four options provides a cantrip and a single leveled spell from level 1 through level 5. You can change your choice every Long Rest, but it’s more likely that you’ll pick one option that works for you and your party, only changing if your party’s composition changes somehow.

    At level 10, Nature’s Aid adds damage resistance determined by your land choice.

    • Arid Land: Mostly focused on fire damage, but also Wall of Stone for some reason.
      1. Cantrip: Good damage at rang. A major upgrade compared to Produce Flame.
      2. Level 1 Spell: Extremely mediocre AOE damage.
      3. Level 2 Spell: A decent defense, but you probably want your Concentration for something else.
      4. Level 3 Spell: Simple, reliable area damage.
      5. Level 4 Spell: Bad.
      6. Level 5 Spell: Excellent area control and utility.
    • Polar Land: Very thematically consistent, but the spells are almost entirely bad.
      1. Cantrip: Good damage, long range, and a speed debuff. Speed debuffs are abundantly available, so stacking speed debuffs on high-priority enemies is often a winning strategy.
      2. Level 1 Spell: Good for covering an escape, but without a way to fight effectively in the fog, it may not help you.
      3. Level 2 Spell: Great against humanoids, but only situationally useful since Hold Person can only target one creature type.
      4. Level 3 Spell: This can inconvenience enemies in the area, but the AOE is small and being knocked Prone doesn’t prevent enemies won’t stall enemies for long.
      5. Level 4 Spell: Disappointing damage and a tiny bit of difficult terrain.
      6. Level 5 Spell: Decent instantaneous damage with a big cone.
    • Temperate Land: The handful of passable spells are not enough. Take Fey Touched and pretend this doesn’t exist.
      1. Cantrip: Fine, but no better than any of the cantrips already available to the Druid.
      2. Level 1 Spell: Bad.
      3. Level 2 Spell: Fantastic on any character, but you can also Wild Shape into an owl to solve most problems solved by teleportation.
      4. Level 3 Spell: Decent damage, but line AOEs are difficult. You can’t expect to hit more than two targets unless your party can force enemies into a line for you.
      5. Level 4 Spell: Only situationally useful.
      6. Level 5 Spell: Extremely situational.
    • Tropical Land: A lot of excellent area control effects. You will get the most out of this if you have allies who can forcibly move enemies with options like grappling, shoving, Push Weapon Mastery, and the Warlock’s Repelling Blast.
      1. Cantrip: Useful if you catch two or more enemies adjacent to each other, but otherwise there’s little reason to use it. If your party is good about pushing enemies back into your ongoing AOE’s, you’ll frequently have enemies in position to make Acid Splash worthwhile.
      2. Level 1 Spell: Decent single-target damage with a decent debuff.
      3. Level 2 Spell: Fantastic area control.
      4. Level 3 Spell: Decent area control if your party can reliably keep pushing enemies back into the area.
      5. Level 4 Spell: Absolutely fantastic at any level.
      6. Level 5 Spell: Good ongoing area damage with difficult terrain.
  2. Land’s Aid: The damage and the healing are not numerically significant, but this is considerably better than a cantrip. The healing can rescue dying allies, the damage feels nice against enemies standing over them, and the 10-foot radius AOE (a circle 20 feet across) is easily enough to hit multiple targets.

    Because this isn’t a spell, you can use it in the same turn that you cast a spell with a spell slot, which is useful with Bonus Action spells. Usually spellcasters will use a cantrip in these situations, but Land’s Aid will frequently be more impactful.

    If you have leftover uses of Wild Shape before a Short Rest, be sure to use this to spend your remaining uses to heal your party. Doing so will save your party a mountain of hit dice, making it easier to survive long adventuring days.

  3. Natural Recovery: The first paragraph gives you a free spell once per day, provided that your current choice of subclass spell list is useful on any given day. Note that casting a spell without a spell slot does not prevent you from casting a spell with a spell slot on the same turn, so you’re free to cast a Bonus Action spell like Healing Word on the same turn.

    The second paragraph allows you to recover some spell slots once per day, adding some sustainability in long adventuring days. The most efficient use is typically to recover your level 1 spell slots to fuel spells like Absorb Elements and Healing Word.

  4. Nature’s Ward: The poisoned condition is a pain, but less of an issue for spellcasters since you generally don’t rely on attack rolls and ability checks rarely matter in combat. The damage resistance provided by your current land choice is more impactful. You might choose a land choice for the damage resistance if you can make do without the free prepared spells for a while.
    • Arid: Fire: One of the most common non-weapon damage types.
    • Polar: Cold: Uncommon.
    • Temperate: Lightning: Uncommon.
    • Tropical: Poison: The most common non-weapon damage type.
  5. Nature’s Sanctuary: Half Cover provides +2 AC and +2 to Dexterity saves. It’s a nice bonus, but very rarely worth an Action in combat at this level. This doesn’t take Concentration, so it won’t conflict with spells, but spending your Bonus Action to move it may be an issue.

    Your best bet is to use this before walking into combat, then spend the Bonus Action to reposition the area. The new area must be within 120 feet of yourself, but it doesn’t care how far away the old area was.

Circle of the Moon (PHB)

Built entirely around Wild Shape, Circle of the Moon allows the Druid to focus on serving as a Defender and Striker in combat without significantly cutting into whart the Druid can already do as a spellcaster.

Circle of the Moon Druid Subclass Guide

  1. Circle Forms: Circle of the Moon’s signature feature. Wild Shape is mostly a utility feature for most Druids, but for Circle of the Moon it’s a powerful combat option. Expect to spend most encounters fighting while in Wild Shape.
    • Challenge Rating: The CR of your beast forms will range from CR 1 at level 3 to CR 6 at level 18. This is a big boost compared to other Druids, but you still need to use spells to buff yourself in order to keep pace in combat.

      the capacity for higher-level animal forms is both fun and frustrating as the number of beasts that are of a relevant CR, are mechanically interesting, but also don’t have a fly speed is pretty small and is covered in our Practical Guide to Wild Shape.

      This is especially true because, in this edition, you’re limited to a set number of known forms which can only be changed one per Long Rest. With the overwhelming majority of play done between levels 3 and 10, this means you will get to primarily use a combination of 6 forms between CRs 1 and 3. That said, there are barely 6 optimal choices at those levels anyway, so that’s not a huge drawback and (in my opinion) mostly exists to prevent people from trying to pull out some random monster stat block and getting stuck for minutes looking for it.

    • Armor Class: Beasts have notoriously poor AC, which makes fighting as a beast dangerous for other Druids. This keeps your AC consistently high throughout your career. At high levels when monster attack bonuses start overpowering your anyway, the pile of THP is large enough to keep up the defensive side.
    • Temporary Hit Points: Three times as much temporary hp as other Druids, but still rarely enough to get you through a difficult encounter. Do not dump Constitution.
  2. Circle of the Moon Spells: No longer are you locked out of performing the healing role by being in Wild Shape. Every form has a ranged attack that’s actually quite good. Summon your own crowd to blend in with. It’s a great time.
    1. Cantrip: A reliable ranged attack option, which is great since beasts almost universally can’t attack at range.
    2. Level 1 Spells: Decent healing, but you want to avoid using it in combat as much as possible. It also can’t restore THP, so you won’t need to heal yourself until enemies have cut through the THP granted by Wild Shape.
    3. Level 2 Spells: Passable area control, but it monopolizes your Action, the AOE is small, the damage is poor, and it’s a Con save.
    4. Level 3 Spells: Basically remote-controlled spirit guardians. It doesn’t need to stay within the spell’s range, just within sight, so you can drive this away from you huge distances with the 10-minute duration. If you can have a way to see through another creature’s eyes (use Wild Companion to summon a disposable familiar), you can drive this across huge distances, potentially clearing entire encounters without any risk to your party.
    5. Level 4 Spells: This spell is designed almost entirely to be a buff for Circle of the Moon. Pick a form with Multiattack, and you can apply the +2d6 damage boost repeatedly each turn.
    6. Level 5 Spells: Only situationally useful, but it does save you the trouble of walking over to whoever needs healing.
  3. Improve Circle Forms:
    • Lunar Radiance: Essential for overcoming common resistances to weapon damage types.
    • Increased Toughness: Essential for maintaining Concentration. You use your beast form’s Constitution, but between this and potentially Resilient (Con) and War Caster, you can make Concentration very reliable.
  4. Moonlight Step: Basically Misty Step, but slightly shorter range. It’s notably not a spell, so it doesn’t conflict with casting a spell with a spell slot on the same turn. You can use it both in and out of Wild Shape, too! This is easily worth a level 2 spell slot to recharge if you run out of uses.
  5. Lunar Form:
    • Improved Lunar Radiance: The extra damage amounts to roughly 7 DPR which, while not irrelevant, doesn’t feel hugely impactful at this level. It does say once per turn instead of once on each of your turns, so look for places you might be able to make Opportunity Attacks.
    • Shared Moonlight: Interesting, but it either means you’re removing yourself (probably a Defender to some degree) from a fight to protect someone or putting someone close to a fight that presumably already has their own means of getting there if they’re playing an optimized character. At least you can still use the Advantage for Starry Wisp if you’re teleporting defensively.

Circle of the Sea (PHB)

Despite a slow start, Circle of the Sea’s features come online at level 6 and give you a powerful short-range damage effect. Getting in close and pushing enemies into dangerous positions can be very effective alongside the Druid’s core capabilities. Wrath of the Sea monopolizes your Bonus Action, but leaves your Action free for normal Druid things like casting spells.

Circle of the Sea Druid Subclass Guide

  1. Circle of the Sea Spells: Very few reliably good options. You might go your entire career without casting the vast majority of these spells.
    1. Cantrip: Good damage, long range, and a speed debuff. Speed debuffs are abundantly available, so stacking speed debuffs on high-priority enemies is often a winning strategy.
    2. Level 1 Spells: Both spells are only situationally useful.
    3. Level 2 Spells: Gust of Wind is only situationally useful. Shatter isn’t consistently effective since it targets Constitution saves, but it’s passable AOE damage until you can get better options.
    4. Level 3 Spells: Lightning Bolt is fine damage, but line AOE’s make it difficult to hit more than two targets. You may be able to force enemies into position to hit more of them by using Wrath of the Sea’s push effect. Water Breathing is useful in aquatic campaigns, but otherwise useless.
    5. Level 4 Spells: Control Water is extremely situational, and Ice Storm just isn’t very good.
    6. Level 5 Spells: A good summon and a good save-or-suck. Unfortunately, summon spells that monopolize your Bonus Action may see little use thanks to Wrath of the Sea.
  2. Wrath of the Sea: Circle of the Sea’s signature feature. The damage is good, especially for a Bonus Action that you can use so frequently, and the push effect is significant. The text says “away” rather than “directly away”, which means that you can use this to launch enemies into the air for easy fall damage. The 10-minute duration means that you can easily use it before jumping into combat, but it’s also a Bonus Action to activate, so you don’t really need to do so until you get Stormborn and get flight and damage resistance while Wrath of the Sea is active.

    However, this does have some challenges. The radius of the emanation is problematically small at this level, forcing you to move into melee to use it until you get Aquatic Affinity at level 6. The Constitution save also means that this won’t work reliably, as Constitution saves are consistently high throughout the CR range. You can’t dive into melee and expect this to always keep you out of trouble.

  3. Aquatic Affinity: Increasing the area of Wrath of the Sea means that you no longer need to get into melee to use it unless your target has reach, which makes it a bit more powerful. The swim speed is nice, but in most games it won’t have an impact.
  4. Stormborn: Flight and resistance to three damage types. None of them are particularly common, but three damage types is still a lot of protection.
  5. Oceanic Gift: Throwing this on your party’s front-line martial characters can give them a huge boost, providing flight, damage resistances, and the Bonus Action damage and push effect. At this level you get 3 Wild Shape uses per Short or Long Rest, so you can frequently afford to put Wrath of the Sea on yourself and on an ally at the same time. It gets even easier when you hit level 7 and get 4 uses per rest.

Circle of the Stars (PHB)

Circle of the Stars is very powerful, adding a lot of both damage output and healing, as well as a support mechanic from Cosmic Omen. Starry Form is the class’s signature mechanic, serving as a sort of combat overdrive mode similar to the Barbarian’s Rage. Outside of this form you’re mostly reduced to core druid features, but you’re still sitting on a full spellcasting arsenal, so you’re not struggling by any means.

Circle of the Stars is the only Druid subclass in the Player’s Handbook that does not get a list of additional prepared spells.

  1. Star Map: There are a total of four benefits buried in this feature, and they’re all fantastic.
    • Star Map Focus: While it’s not mechanically impactful, this is a great bit of flavor. I love the idea of a druid running around with a big heavy stone slab or a delicate collection of glass disks, especially since even a tiny amount of damage to either would jeopardize years of delicate work.
    • Guidance: The best support cantrip, and you get it for free so you can enjoy other cantrips without feeling like Guidance is a cantrip tax because it’s too good to skip.
    • Guiding Bolt: Very solid at low levels both as a support option and for damage output.
    • Free Guiding Bolts: Not only can you cast Guiding Bolt using your spell slots, you get to cast it for free a number of times per day equal to your Wisdom Modifier. This is done as a level 1 spell, but 4d6 damage and Advantage on the next attack against that creature is better than most damage cantrips, even at 17th level. (Eldritch Blast+Invocations don’t count.) You won’t get enough free uses of Guiding Bolt to totally replace attack cantrips, unfortunately.

      Because the free castings don’t use a spell slot, you can still cast spells with a spell slot using your Bonus Action (Healing Word, etc.) on the same turn. This makes it a great option even in situations where normally spellcasters would resort to cantrips.

  2. Starry Form: Instead of locking you into a singular combat mode, Starry Form has an attack mode, a healing mode, and a utility/casting mode. Expect to use Starry Form in any noteworthy combat, but remember that you only get a few uses per short rest, so may need to survive without it sometimes until your Wild Shape uses per rest scale.

    Choosing which constellation to use is one of the most important tactical decisions that you can make in an encounter. If you’re in close quarters and need to keep your spells going, go for Dragon. If your party is short on hit points going into the encounter, or if there’s some kind of hit point attrition issue (enemy has big AOE damage, or you’re fighting in a burning building), go for Chalice.

    Otherwise, go for Archer and pump out damage as fast as you can. This tactical decision goes away at level 10 when you get Twinkling Constellations (In a way. Keep reading.), but, until then, this will be among the hardest and most impactful choices that you make in a fight.

    • Archer: 1d8+Wis radiant damage as a Bonus Action. It’s a spell attack, so the attack uses your Wisdom modifier and doesn’t benefit from things like the Sharpshooter feat. This is a great offensive option, and the fact that it doesn’t stop you from casting a level 1+ spell on the same turn is just spectacular. This is likely your go-to option in combat because it’s going to be useful in every combat on every turn at any level. The damage improves at level 10, but this would still be great even if it didn’t.
    • Chalice: Roughly doubles the total amount healed by Healing Word, and you can target a creature not targeted by your spell so that you can heal two creatures at once. However, this also encourages healing in combat, which you should try very hard to avoid doing. The healing improves at level 10.
    • Dragon: Druids have a lot of Concentration spells, so guaranteeing a minimum roll of 10 on those checks is really helpful. Concentration saves have a DC of 10 or half of the damage taken, so you’re protected from any single source dealing up to 20 damage before considering your Constitution modifier.

      Guaranteeing a minimum roll of 10 on Intelligence and Wisdom checks allows you to use this outside of combat, which is a great utility option if you have knowledge skills like Arcana or Nature. At level 10, this adds a 20-foot fly speed, allowing you to fly while keeping your Concentration on a spell.

  3. Cosmic Omen: Tactically similar to the Bard’s Bardic Inspiration and Cuttings Words features. You won’t be able to use this as often as a Bard can use Bardic Inspiration, but up to 5 times per day is still extremely impactful, especially since you can use this as a Reaction. The Weal/Woe options are roughly equivalent, so when you roll to see which one you get you’re essentially deciding if you get to use this offensively (weal) or defensively (woe) that day.
  4. Twinkling Constellations: More damage from Archer, more healing from Chalice, and flight from Dragon (even at just 20 ft. speed) are all big improvements. The ability to change your constellation each turn without spending an action means that the difficult tactical decision which you normally make when you activate Starry Form goes away, making your life much easier. Now you get to make that decision every turn instead. Do you suffer from Analysis Paralysis? This will either make it way better or way worse.

    Do you have an ally down at 0 hit points? Switch to chalice and heal them. Need to maintain a Concentration spell? Turn on dragon, fly out of reach and do your thing. The rest of the time? Archer.

  5. Full of Stars: A bit late, and strange on a subclass that’s so clearly intended to fill a back-line role, but consider that the Druid has notoriously poor AC and just d8 hit points this is a fantastic improvement to your durability.