Life Transference is a neat concept; trading your own life over to a buddy a twice the rate seems like a great exchange. Unfortunately, the healing system around this spell, the action economy, and the classes that get access to Life Transference make it basically uncastable at all stages of the game.

There will be a handful of rangers who find Guardian of Nature is a decent upgrade from Hunter’s Mark in the lone set-piece encounter, and a few circle of the moon druids who want to be clawing and biting non-stop. In those rare cases, it's just kind of fine.

At its base line, Find Greater Steed is a better version of the ranger’s animal companion feature. It rolls initiative, takes its own turns, and you control it at every moment in time. It being labeled a mount can be ignored beyond this point, should you desire.

Charm Monster is just too high level for the effect. A charm condition, even on the occasional dragon, isn’t worth a 4th level slot when an irritated trigger-happy ranger can end the condition with a twang of their bow.

The bulk of the power in Zephyr Strike is the mobility it offers. With Zephyr Strike, you may never want to consider taking the mobile feat. You can go where you want, no penalties, no risks. Zephyr Strike is a tool for the skirmisher fantasy that ranger’s are built to facilitate, and this is actually a tool they can use to successfully reach that fantasy.

Outside of combat is where I think Snare is actually at its most usable. This is something you stick directly inside a door you know the home’s owner will pass through to surprise interrogate them.

Shadow Blade is a flavor option aimed at those of us who enjoy playing the edgelord from time to time. Its a dark, evil blade full of EVIL and DARKNESS and it STABS REAL GOOD. And that’s kind of it.

Healing Spirit best compares to Mass Healing Word. This is an area of effect heal that can bring multiple creatures up off of zero. What Healing Spirit offers over Mass Healing Word is bonus HP every round to people up as well so long as they are near it.

Enemies Abound is a nifty save or die that might be a bit higher level than it needs. Its effect has a huge amount of variance involved, but when used strategically, can be a major asset to have access to.

Dragon’s Breath is a great natural stepping stone from Burning Hands, and is a huge flavor win for all the dragonborn out there looking to make their breath weapon and draconic ancestry a larger part of their identity.

Chaos Bolt is a downgraded damage spell that rarely hits two things. A spell’s damage type rarely matters, so the randomness here feels like an extra pointless step, and even when you do get the 12.5% chance of it bouncing, all you’re getting is more damage.

Ceremony does a bunch of different flavorful things. It's a tool to facilitate in-game boons from your cleric, giving life to the process and celebration of growth, love, and harmony. Additionally, it can act as a week-long one time use party wide no concentration Shield of Faith.

Cause Fear is a save or die, so it has the consistency problems that I’m not a fan of. Sometimes you’ll spend a 1st level slot on this at 1st level and get nothing in return. That doesn’t feel great. Up-casting it does reduce the chance dramatically that this spell does nothing, so that’s great.

Catnap then is in an awkward space. Getting a fifty minute discount on a short rest for a 3rd level slot can be entirely useless, or unbelievably busted.

Word of Radiance: a cleric exclusive area of effect radiant damage spell with a low range and mediocre damage dice. It's simple, encourages risk, rewards tactical uses, and has a fine floor and a high power ceiling. Going forward, I want all 5e damage only cantrips to be on par with Word of Radiance.

Whirlwind is the real deal as far as 7th level spells go. This is an area of effect damage spell that makes FIREBALL look like a chump. Whirlwind is my go to 7th level damaging spell, mainly because it's so much more than just damage.

Primordial Ward, a druid exclusive spell, really couldn’t work on any other non-prepared caster because there are few spells that have as niche an application as this. Still, even with the convenience of only taking this effect when you think it’ll be at its best, I’m unconvinced it's worth preparing over basically any other 6th level spell.

Primal Savagery’s numbers are just kind of meh. 1d10 damage isn’t usually better than 1d6+2 or 1d6+3; a scimitar gets you that, and doesn’t cost you a known cantrip. The range is locked to 5 feet as well; we’re comparing it to spells like Poison Spray, we’re getting less damage with a different type.

Investiture of Wind is the next step up from Fly in one meaningful way: protection. It can be hard to justify three entire spell levels for this, but it can absolutely be worth it.

All of the other Investiture spells do some amount of damage, but not Stone. This spell differs from the rest as its primary best use case in my opinion is out of combat as an exploration tool