What are some of the spells you feel are highly recommended but left you unimpressed? I am not looking for the spells that are consistently poorly rated (i.e. True Strike).  

For me, I am keep debating Mage Hand.  There is a part of me that wants to love this spell, but I been in a few too many instances were I offer to use Mage Hand and another player says "...Or I can just go open the...."  I run into things like "The door is too heavy to push" or just told it can't lift or take something.  Still, in a scenario were it is useful I really appreciate it. I guess I am leaning towards to good still even though I feel like I don't get as much use out of it at times. 

Distort Value was another one.  I feel I used it once or twice, and while effective, again the party usually finds itself with an abundance of riches compared to our needs.  Again, maybe it was just the games I was in where it wasn't needed.  But overall, a good Bardic Inspiration or spell that adds a die to your ability check can serve just as well.  

So any spells you just felt didn't live up to expectations.  Event if by class, and not just overall. Thanks for any participation.  

Cheers!

I feel like blade ward is very redundant. If it gave a small amount of temp hp for 1 round only it would be better. I have found use for it at higher tiers of play, and in complex traps.

I also think sanctuary could have potential to be cooler, if you could use other things like crown of madness during it. It is an incredibly fun spell to play if you’re more of a support player though

Flaming blade is the last one I’ll complain about. Could be so much cooler and should have better damage but shadow blade just overtakes it every time. I think it’s cool and love only for the flavor though. I guess I’m just complaining about it

Weird, the worst 9th-level spell. Recommended in the sense that I'm an illusion-lover.

Maximilian's Earthen Grasp.  To be fair, I never used it.  But based on how the combat progressed I never could justify its action economy.  There were better concentration spell options for me to use and then I felt the party level outgrew it?  Was I wrong? 

It's not awful, but unless you're very lucky, there's no point in trying for a second grab if you miss the first time.

True Strike.  It's got so many restrictions on it that casting it is just a waste of an action.

The spells with the most niche, are the most grief is what I say. Sometimes, a player may never use certain spells because the DM never creates a scenario were it'd be a valid or needed use. Awful feeling from a player perspective. 

That's only an issue for some classes, though. If you're a prep caster, you can cycle them in and out depending on what you expect on a given day. Even if not, you can trade one out on a level up if they're not getting much use. Being niche isn't inherently a problem, so long as it performs well in the niche.

People that began the game in 4th or 5th Edition won't believe just how ridiculously over-specialized spells could be in older editions.  Second Edition got especially bad as writers had to fill splatbooks and issues of Dragon Magazine and resorted to spells that were infamously narrowly targeted or for things that would simply never be useful for a player character- you could find books with spells for repelling normal-sized, non-magical weevils from crops.  Useless against magical weevils, giant weevils, or normal weevils on non-crop plants.

Mage Hand can be useful in dungeon delving scenarios. Particularly when you see an item on a pedestal that feels like it's booby trapped.

I do feel that you should be able to upcast at least some cantrips. Mage Hand could be great if you could upcast it and have it fight or grip enemies etc. I tend to find that a lot of cantrips are great in concept but suffer from the fact that because they're not limited in uses, they have to be hobbled.

To be honest, I don't know of any recommended spells that are rubbish in practice. There are a few traps like True Strike that become incredibly niche because they take an Action when in the vast majority of cases, you're better off just using that Action to do something more directly (eg case in point, generally you're better off attacking twice using two Actions rather than using one Action to give the second Actions two opportunities to hit).

Gotta say Weird is the one that I really feel that the writers were being unfair with. It's not just "not a good choice", but actively bad. It takes one of your spell choices from L17-20, but also your one-a day-casts of L9 spells, and is actually worse than the L4 spell Sickening Radiance.

Pros of Weird over Sickening Radiance:

1. It causes the condition Frightened rather than Exhausted, which I think is better unless the target is already Exhausted or it manages to survive multiple rounds and fails their respective saves.

That's it. It does the same damage, it has the same duration and range. Both have V and S components while having no M components. I'm unsure of whether Con saves (Sickening Radiance) are better or worse than Wis saves (Weird). In terms of cons over Sickening Radiance:

1. The target has to fail two Saves (as opposed to one for Sickening Radiance) before the damage occurs.
2. The damage is Psychic, which has twice as many monsters resistant to it and seven times as many immune compared to Sickening Radiance's Radiant damage.
3. It's 9th versus 4th level. That means, theoretically, you could cast Sickening Radiance 9-12 times a day (without special abilities etc) while you can only cast Weird once in the same time period.
4. It's Illusion rather than Evocation, so the School of Evocation Wizard can't apply Sculpt Spells. You have allies in that area? Too bad, you either cause them to be a target or you don't cast.

This isn't a direct con so I won't list it, but it's a negative to the spell - it's only on the Wizard list, while Sickening Radiance is on the Wizard list, but also on the Sorceror and Warlock lists - so it's not even a (very poor) substitute for Sickening Radiance.

There just isn't a reason for this spell, and it is out-done by a 4th level spell...which is available ten levels earlier.

Especially when you compare it to the older version of Weird, which was an area save effect that caused all targets in its radius to die of fright if they failed a save.

Poison Spray I took it for my druid cause it sounded like a good cantrip.

Wrong, either the enemy saved, or they were immune. T__T

Should've taken Gust instead, at least I could've used that for RP too.

Yeah, poison and CON save together are not a great combo.

On the OPs spells. I like mage hand, yes it has limnitations but it can do a lot from triggering traps while you are a safe distance away to picking up items in inaccesible locations. (Though the later is becoming less useful with the number of flying races nowadays). Distort value I have never rated, maybe because I like ot be a hero who doesn't want to swindle someone or at least would be not desire to be wanted  by the guard 8 hours later (or maybe immediately if he makes the investigation check)

My first candidates are Prayer of healing. When I first started playing the spell seemed really good, it could heal the whole party but, If you can stop for 10 minutes you can usually take  a short rest and even if not there is usually only or two people hurt.

When I first started playing a druid call lightning seemed very good but in reality the manouverability of moonbeam was not the restriction I thought it would be and a 3rd level moonbeam is so much better than call lightning nearly all the time (doesn't need a large open expanse, can do damage in the same location without using your action, more reliable damage type)

My third candidate is fireball. At 5th level fireball is a great spell but on the first character I had that had it (a light cleric) by the time I got to  around level 8 the damage wasn't that significant anymore especially as resistance to fire is so common. It became something that I might situationally use is facing very large numbers of very weak enemies but otherwise by that point other 3rd level spells did much more (Spirit guardians is iconic but if playing a cleric who tried to stay away from the enemy dispe l magic comes up often and I always tried to keep a slot for revivify. Wizards have even better options like hypnotic pattern and counterspell.

Gonna have to disagree with sanctuary being a disappointing spell. BA to cast, not concentration, all to put a half way decent defensive buff on someone squishy or just in a bad spot. Throw it on your tank that's surrounded by a few and those enemies have to start hitting their buddies with WIS save fails. If they all fail, they ain't hitting your tank. If the tank is dodging, no attack will hit it.

I really feel like True Strike is misunderstood. To my mind, it doesn't exist to buff melee. It's for those times when the caster absolutely needs to hit with a touch attack as part of a leveled spell. Planeshift, for example, has a third paragraph that makes it a viable last resort when faced with an overpowering foe, but if most of the rest of the party are down and the wizard is trying to save the day, it wouldn't do to miss the attack roll.

Except that you can't cast True Strike and Plane Shift in the same round (or at least you can't get advantage on the attack roll for Plane Shift if you do so).  Instead, you've got to be 30 feet from the target when you cast True Strike, which is a spell that takes Concentration, and hope that the thing you want to Plane Shift because it's devastating your party doesn't either move too far away from you to reach it and cast a melee-range spell or smack you hard enough to break your concentration.  It looks good on paper but it's horrible in practice.

And besides, there's very few high-level spells that require attack rolls.  You could just cast Banishment on the target using a much lower spell slot and bypass the attack roll entirely.

Possibly, but that's still a very niche use, and cantrip picks are fairly limited, so there's still the question of if it's worth it.

Quote from eapiv >>

I really feel like True Strike is misunderstood. To my mind, it doesn't exist to buff melee. It's for those times when the caster absolutely needs to hit with a touch attack as part of a leveled spell. Planeshift, for example, has a third paragraph that makes it a viable last resort when faced with an overpowering foe, but if most of the rest of the party are down and the wizard is trying to save the day, it wouldn't do to miss the attack roll.

 It's telling that even the best case scenario you've laid out for True Strike is still a horrible tactic. You know what's better than a True Strike'd Plane Shift in that situation? Banishment, which is three spell levels lower, doesn't require an attack roll at all before the save, and works anywhere within 60 feet.

The fact of the matter is that there just aren't high-level, must-hit spells that require attack rolls in 5e. Certainly not enough to justify using up a cantrip slot for something that might happen once in the entire campaign. That's the opposite of the intended design of cantrips.

There are valid circumstances. For example, if you're in a defensive spell, such as Resilient Sphere, that will drop the next round, then casting True Strike makes sense to get Advantage when you cast Vampiric Touch.

It's still a pretty niche use, and may well.neber happen. It just seems that the concept of Advantage in 5e doesn't sit well in the Action economy for a spell. An Action is way too costly, while a Bonus Action is too cheap for many builds.