There comes a point in the life of every cleric or wizard’s life when he or she has to decide, “Am I going to play with dead bodies?”

Once you go down that road, it’s difficult to go back. Even if you only ever animate a single corpse, a significant number of your friends will always think of you as “that guy.”

Disintegrate does what it says on the tin: it disintegrates. And it does so well. Most of the time when I reference a “save or die”, death isn’t actually what happens when the creature fails the save. In the case of Distengrate, which deals a glorious 10d6+40 (roughly 75) damage, it absolutely is a save or die. 

Clam Emotions takes a huge area of hostile creatures and potentially turns them entirely neutral. Fights can be entirely circumnavigated with a simple 2nd level spell; if enough goblin bandits stop their assault and look at you and your party as just random travellers they don’t really need to murder for their stuff, whoever passes has to decide if their ambush is still a good idea, and if not, how to get the numbers advantage back.

Heat Metal may be the poster child for this kind of spell. You get what it says on the tin: you make metal hot. Easy. No nonsense. The circumstances around the spell and the use cases that will pop up here and there make this an incredibly interesting option to have; I’m a big proponent.

Zone of Truth kind of slaps. It's a great little 2nd level spell that does something you’d want it to in an RPG by offering a mechanic that affects the actual roleplay more than other in-game elements, and does so in a perfectly reasonable way.

A natural progression from Misty Step, Blink is a handy spell to keep in your back pocket for when things get a little too hairy.

The 1-minute duration makes it excellent to use in a fight, but it is by no means strictly a combat spell. Far from it, Blink has a multitude of applications off the battlefield as well as on.

No, Lightning Bolt isn’t as useful or powerful as Fireball, but it's close enough and far more engaging to play with to me. If you want to get more engagement in combat, have more decisions to make, care about your team and the enemy team’s position more and work to get every extra point of power from your character, I can’t recommend Lightning Bolt enough. 

Branding Smite, in my opinion, is one of the weaker smites… unless you’re in a particular set of circumstances, in which case it can be extremely powerful.

That set of circumstances, as you might have guessed, is when you’re fighting a creature that can turn invisible.

I adore Find Steed. This is paladin’s Find Familiar. It's a pet you get you can mount and ride, that can die horribly in combat and come back after a long rest.

Is a 2nd level spell worth mitigating part of a mid level monster’s attacks that you fight on the way to the boss? That’s the question you need to answer before taking this, and you have to answer it knowing you’re going to face off against something of this sort.

Augury is the tool a party uses to in game ask their DM if an idea they have is particularly stupid. Normally, the answer is yes, this plan is stupid, but might work with some wild luck and crazy improv.

Find Traps is an instantaneous 2nd level spell that only finds intentional traps, does so instantaneously, and doesn’t reveal anything about them beyond that they exist. Find Traps is basically a way to confirm your suspicions about a shady door. That isn’t worth a 2nd level spell slot. It just isn’t.

Mechanically, Scrying costs a lot. A 5th level slot is a tall order when a dozen spells like Clairvoyance, Arcane Eye, and Find Familiar can spy on targets in a much cheaper way. The major upside Scrying offers is its distance; you can Scry on anyone on the same plane, irregardless of their location.

When things are going rough, and multiple allies are unconscious around the room, next to no other spells 3rd level or lower can get you out of that situation. Mass Healing Word can.

Revivify is a release valve DMs can use to show players who want to mess around that there are major consequences. Instant death traps can feel “fair” when the DM knows the players have a couple of diamonds in their back pocket and can push players to be more cautious when they otherwise feel invincible.

As predominantly a cleric spell, Warding Bond is aimed to be used as part of a group consisting of a few front line characters whose goal is to be dealt the majority of incoming damage with a few backline characters who want to take as little damage as possible.

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.