Baldur’s Gate 3: Best Wizard Subclasses, Ranked

With eight subclasses to choose from, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed when deciding how to build your Wizard (or Gale). Depending on the way you want to play your team, you might find different subclasses suit your needs better. Therefore, here are the best Wizard subclasses in Baldur’s Gate 3, ranked.

Best Wizard Subclasses in Baldur’s Gate 3, Ranked

While Evocation is the best overall subclass, the others have benefits that might be better suited for your party.

1. Evocation Subclass

Evocation is hands-down the best Wizard subclass due to one feature alone: Spell Sculpting. This lets you use Area of Effect spells on a group of enemies without your allies taking damage, even if they’re in the middle of it. Because Wizards are generally used to pump out nonstop AoE damage, you can’t go wrong with Evocation. Potent Cantrip is a nice subclass feature as well since enemies take half damage even if they dodge the spell. But it’s Spell Sculpting that does the bulk of the work here.

2. Abjuration Subclass

Abjuration is listed second because it serves the opposite purpose of Evocation. Maybe you want two Wizards in your party and one is dealing most of the damage. Then, you’ll want Abjuration to add a protective Wizard to your ranks. Not only do you get a feature called Arcane Ward that you use to protect yourself, you also get Projected Ward to use your protection to save an ally.

Alternatively, if you find yourself struggling to stay alive as a Wizard, it’s worth considering switching to Abjuration. Even if you deal less damage overall, it’s more damage than you deal when knocked out of a fight, forcing your party to keep getting you up.

3. Necromancy Subclass

Right at level two, you regain health for defeating enemies with Grim Harvest as a Necromancy Wizard. Then, at level six, your Animate Dead raises an extra corpse and the Undead get more health and deal more damage. This set of features can both keep you safe because you have more allies to protect you, and deal more damage because you have more help in battle.

Necromancy is a fun subclass that gives you a combination of utility, damage, and regeneration. It might not take the number one slot in this ranking, but it’s my personal favorite due to its versatility.

4. Divination

Divination’s biggest feature is Portent Dice. You start out with two that refresh after a long rest, but you later get a third and they refresh after a short rest then. Portent Dice let you reroll any die for an Attack Roll or Saving Throw for yourself or your allies. If you’re particularly unlucky, this subclass can be lifesaving. It also never hurts to be able to increase your party’s damage by rerolling an Attack Roll die.

Prophecies can also help you regain dice outside of a rest if you complete the task they include, which is randomized. If you’re a race without Darkvision, you’ll get it as an Action at level 10 along with See Invisibility.

5. Enchantment

Enchantment gives you more crowd control, which can be highly useful in some battles. You’ll be able to use Hypnotic Gaze and use Charm on enemies. However, the best feature in this subclass is earned at level 10: Split Enchantment. If you’re using a spell from the Enchantment School, you can use it on two targets when it would normally be limited to one. It also works on Power Word Kill if you get the spell from being the Dark Urge, so you can use it on two enemies at once.

6. Illusion

The Illusion subclass is another one that gives you survivability. You can use Minor Illusion as a Bonus Action, which is a good distraction. However, it’s See Invisibility and Illusory Self that are more useful. See Invisibility can help you reposition on the battlefield to avoid stealthed enemies. Then, Illusory Self can be used to turn enemies’ attacks to a fake version of you while you get to a safe space to continue dealing damage.

7. Conjuration

Conjuration feels underwhelming. You get Create Water, which you can have from a Cleric or by carrying around Water. Benign Transposition: Teleport at level six is like an extra Misty Step, but you can use it to swap locations with somebody instead of just moving to a location. Then, Focused Conjuration at level ten lowers the damage you take when attacked while concentrating on a Conjuration spell. They aren’t bad features, but they’re easily substituted with spells that function in a close enough way that it’s more worthwhile to grab a different subclass.

8. Transmutation

This subclass is really only useful if you love making potions with the Alchemy system. You can craft two potions instead of one with the same amount of ingredients. At level ten, you can turn into a Blue Jay. Then, there’s the Transmuter’s Stone at level six that’s the most useful feature. It gives you buffs like Darkvision, extra movement speed, a specific resistance, or increased Constitution. However, you can only have one stone at a time and you need to make a new one every long rest. Compared to the features you get in other subclasses, it just doesn’t feel that worth it to go with Transmutation.

And that finishes up our list of the best Wizard subclasses in Baldur’s Gate 3, ranked. Wizards are fairly versatile, but the subclasses don’t feel equal when you break down the features outside of the cheaper cost of learning spells from that school of magic. But for more content, check out our BG3 guide hub for topics like all Druid Wild Shape Forms or the best Warlock build.