The Druid’s and Ranger’s answer to Mage Armor, Barkskin falls a little short in several respects.

The duration is much shorter and it requires concentration. The last thing you want from a spell you’re trying to protect yourself with is for it to crap out whenever someone hits you.

Acting as a single target damage spell with a big necrotic damage amount, which most creatures other than Undead, don't have a resistance or immunity to. On the other hand, it does critical damage to Plant creatures and outright kills any chosen nonmagical plants.

If you’re in the market for a team based exploration enhancer to make your infiltration missions and stealth gameplay shine, Pass Without Trace is excellent. It compiles well with other stealth enhancers like Invisibility or the rogue’s cunning action, making it feel like it empowers other characters instead of replacing their niche entirely.

Spike Growth is the lynchpin example, the defining difficult terrain enabler that works with bonus damage to make a high potential spell that can be worth your 2nd level slot, but will vary in usefulness from environment to environment.

Flame Blade evokes a cool fantasy, a classic magical weapon look, the flame coated sword. Mechanically, this fails to deliver on that fantasy in a powerful way, and often will strand your druid somewhere they don’t want to be to get a mediocre attack that other classes just get for free. 

If you like the fantasy of Moonbeam, and expect to face large, immobile creatures, it will do a decent chunk of damage round after round. It's not the greatest, but it’s one of the two main damaging options you get with your 2nd level druid spells.

So you didn’t quite make it to your dead friend in time to cast Revivify, and nobody had the foresight to cast a Gentle Repose on the corpse. Sorry, buddy. Looks like it’s time to print out a fresh character sheet and roll up some new stats.

Or maybe not quite yet…

Harnessing the power of lightning and blasting foes away with it is something many characters crave, and Call Lightning is the 3rd level parallel to Lightning Bolt you’ve got access to when hunting this look.

Slow has interesting text, and can be great against a handful of enemies. I’d much rather have Haste, or an effect like Fear that will reliably debilitate a lot more monsters in a far more impactful way. Still, the floor isn’t that bad. You’re still giving creatures +2 to hit the things that get slowed at minimum.

Stinking Cloud offers you a tool to eat multiple enemy actions all at once. At its best, this can get a whole squad of gnolls retching and writhing while you and your companions promptly stomp their hyena faces into the pavement.

Clairvoyance costs too much for a mile wide, easy to miss reconnaissance tool. The ten minute duration could be eight hours and I’d still be lukewarm on it. With Find Familiar and Invisibility both being absolute legendary tools that can do this spell's job while also doing a dozen or more other things, I can’t get behind devoting a higher level spell slot on this kind of effect.

Bestow Curse is a versatile spell with a lot of different options for how it can affect your target. Sadly, most of these effects are a little on the lame side. But that’s not to say that Bestow Curse isn’t worth getting. It can be especially effective in certain specific situations.

Fly still has a home at a lot of tables, but isn’t quite the all-star it used to be. Concentration makes the spell far riskier, and often leaving it as a neat idea, but not something many builds actively seek out. Between all four of the classes that can take Fly, especially given how popular they are, it’s wild to me just how infrequently this spell is regularly getting cast at my tables.

Gaseous Form at your table is going to go one of two ways. One: you’ll turn to a mist, a vaporous form, like a vampire disappearing into the night. Two: everyone will giggle at the word “gaseous”, making fart jokes and calling you “Fart-wizard” or “the great toot man”. That’s the entire spectrum of Gaseous Form, and I love it for that.

Tactically, this can defend basically any number of the party from ranged attacks, and can be a decent protective tool that encourages you to all stick together in Fireball formation. For that reason alone, I’m a fan; having reasons to care about you and your buddies positioning is something I think this game needs more of.

Tidal Wave comes crashing in with excellent utility, a pretty sweet area, and a solid chunk of damage. If you’re only looking for one or two damage spells, should you have the right party composition, you can consider Tidal Wave to fulfill that role.

The only real upside Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm has going for it is its 90 ft. range. Besides that, it's functionally worse than every comparative option.

Will you ever need Skywrite in a world full of telepathic communication and teleportation? Absolutely not! But at such a tiny cost of a prepared or known spell, it doesn’t ever really hurt you to have it. It's a spell whose entire goal is to entertain you or make large areas aware of something; it's certainly not worth a spell slot, but as a ritual, this spell’s great.

Pyrotechnics would have you believe it was for creating fantastical fire effects, giant bursts of flames that can do all kinds of mystical effects. Practically, while the words imply that’s what’s going on, what Pyrotechnics ACTUALLY does is so boring; no charms, no dazzles. Just a quick blind or Darkness effect in a pinch.

The fundamental play pattern here is mixing other spells of 1st level or higher with bonus action Minute Meteors, making the impact of your average turn feel amazing. Firing off lower level options like Magic Missiles as your action while also sending out 2d6 five foot area meteors blasts feels amazing.