I have a funny Cure Wounds story. During one of our campaigns, we were in an area where casting a leveled spell caused a wild magic surge. So, the Warlock went down, the Druid went over and cast Cure Wounds to get the Warlock back up, rolled on the Wild Magic table and got Fireball yourself. Both the Druid and the Warlock went down. It was such a funny moment.

13:00 Cure Wounds outperfoms Healing Word in one condition. CW is a touch spell, whereas HW relies on sight. This came up in a Princes of the Apocalypse campaign when the BBEG made the zone heavily obscured. One player was down right next to the cleric, so with a check, he was able to find the downed player in the obscurment and heal him with CW.

Good thing to note about Ensnaring Strike is the vines grow from the point of impact not the ground. It can be devastating for a flier.

I love how Ellen used it in Oxventure, she cast destroy water on some moonshine and make into insanely strong ethanol. Making it poisonous to the people drinking it, and explosive.

Cure wounds is kinda good outside of combat and for Grave domain’s circle of mortality, because max healing widens the gap between it and healing word if you’re able to safely get to the dude who’s unconscious

Notes on Cure Wounds: a) you can cast it through your familiar, which you can't do with a potion; b) not all classes that have access to it also have access to Healing Word, and it might just not be available; c) a potion is a limited and expensive resource which doesn't come back, especially if your DM isn't very generous with them. d) Also, healing word requires sight. when you're blinded or the character who's down is invisible, that's it.

Comprehend Languages being a Ritual is something a wizard should take. Being able to ritually cast it with out it being prepared is great.

Compelled Duel combines really nicely with effects that cause the target to be Frightened of you - you can lock them down and make them unable to move at all if they’re 30 feet from you, and there are even ways to do this without involving a friend (Undead Warlock mc for Form of Dread, Dragonborn who takes the Dragon Fear feat, and there’s probably more options out there too). If the biggest threat of the fight has poor Wisdom saves, you can buy your party time by just standing there… menacingly!

One note for divine favor is that it applies to all weapon attacks, which includes ranged attacks that you can't smite on anyways. It's not the worst situational pickup for fighting a dragon or some other flying creature, so long as someone else is blessing

Divine favor is great when there are a lot of zombies as it satisfies the radiant damage condition of undead fortitude. Very niche but useful.

As an artificer I always feel that the responsible choice is to keep cure Wounds on my spell list. We have a better healer in our party - who has access to healing word. But I feel it is a safe bet to have cure wounds - especially because healing potions are limited commodity in our campaign.

The biggest gut punch with Detect Evil and Good is that Paladins have the Divine Sense feature, which doesn't detect as many creature types (only celestials, fiends, and undead), but it has double the range, and you can use it without wasting a spell slot that could be used for smiting a hiding enemy into oblivion

Also, remember that the movement of Dissonant Whispers DOES provoke opportunity attacks. That puts it on S tier to me.

Our Bard used Dissonant Whispers to eject herself out of the mouth of a Purple Worm before she took any of the acid damage from having been swallowed. Gotta spit something/someone out to move away from it.

This is as niche as it gets, but: getting the Cure Wounds spell on a Wizard via Artificer Initiate, and then casting via my Familiar's touch has led to some great moments at our table! I kinda flavor it as the healing coming from this little Fey creature's magic rather than the wizard to begin with. And it has to be at least B-tier when the other option is Life Transference... and as a bonus, the first casting per day doesn't even expend a Spell Slot.

Regarding dissonant whispers: Once played a Human Bard of Valor with the feats war caster and magic initiate, would approach adjacent to a target, cast dissonant Whispers, then use the triggered opportunity attack to hit the target with booming blade when they began their forced movement. Hell of a lot of damage off one 1st-level slot from a 5th level character.

Cure Wounds is a great spell to have when you’re a Ranger in a three person party and the only other person with heals is unconscious 😂

Detect Evil and Good might be helpful if you're playing Curse of Strahd. Except in that case, you still don't really need the spell, because whoever you're wondering about is, yes, planning to kill and/or eat you.

I think the one case where Cure Wounds is better than Healing Word is when the Warlock has it for one reason or another, and they burn any unused slots on it right before a short rest, but even that is pretty niche.

Cure wounds being an action can sometimes be important. I prepare it on my stars druid because the constellation ability is a bonus action, and at lower levels it makes healing pretty viable in combat

You may not be able to attack the compelled duel target, but you can easily buff the Pally.

In a campaign where you don't have access to healing potions (or enough gold to reliably buy/craft them), Cure Wounds is extremely valuable. Especially for a class like Celestial Warlock or Artificer who can't get access to Healing Word.

Divine Favor is for those very rare occasions where two more damage makes the difference between a minion going down in one hit instead of two and you have a lot of minions to chew through. I think it's come up about twice in my paladin's current campaign.

Really happy to hear the old theme music again. Really appreciate this tier list since as a sorcerer I have to be very picky with my spell selection.

I see Divine Favor as the most useful as a Paladin in order to squeeze the most value out of your last spell slot rather than something to use often

You forgot one use of Create and Destroy Water and that is to use it with the Shape Water cantrip. 10 gallons of water doesn't seem like a lot, until you use it to freeze a door completely shut. Or to cement a rope to the top of a cliff in order to descend. Or to make a bunch of wicked looking ice-spikes to threaten a hostage.

One specific niche for Cure Wounds is having it as a Chain Pact Warlock, where Gift of the Ever-Living Ones maximizes it. It then becomes.. acceptable. The Celestial warlock has it, and while I wouldn't build a playstyle around it, being able to use pact slots on it going into a short rest saves on hit dice. I'm still hoping not to do that, but it's something.

I let my Druid player use “Create and Destroy Water” to damage water elementals that they were fighting who had some of their friends trapped inside them. I think I went with 3d10 and gave them advantage to tackle their friends out of the elementals.

For Divine Favor, you've got to take into account HP thresholds and the fact that it's only a bonus action. At lower levels it can easily take an attack from not killing an enemy to dropping them, or even getting 2 attacks into the range of dropping a target. It also ramps up with attacks, so if you have PAM it starts stacking up quickly. As well, the Smite comparison isn't always super relevant, as that could lead you into grossly overkilling your target whereas Divine Smite frequently hits the sweet spot in tier 1 play.

Compelled Duel is also useful when someone is running from the party, but you don't want to hurt them while stopping them from running. If they fail, they have to make saves to distance themselves from the party. I would think this includes if they want to teleport away as well, so you might be able to stop the enemy from doing a teleport on their turn, and giving the party a whole extra turn to take them down if desired.

My friend is starting his first DND campaign next month and I recommended your guy's channel to him!

This is my comfort channel. I've always wanted to play DnD but BG3 is the next best thing.

Here the time stamps for the rest of the spells 25:01 - Disguise Self 28:46 - Dissonant Whispers 31:33 - Divine Favor 33:35 - Earth Tremor 36:13 - Ensnaring Strike 38:37 - Entangle 41:24 - Expeditious Retreat

I have had such a tiring day and this is a very welcome notification!

Cure Wounds is also better than Healing Word if you happen to have a really good use for your bonus action. Bigby’s Hand, or the Wildfire Druids Fiery Teleportation come to mind.

The Ranger Faux smites are both excellent. Ensnaring strike and Zephyr strike are good spells. It's a shame they don't allow upcasting to increase damage, or in the case of Zephyr strike the amount of movement to put them into line with smites.

I love you guys and this channel, and have been watching for years. and I honestly kinda miss the old intro. the one with the cheesey rif and the explosion it makes me smile

The only situation I've found Divine Favor very useful was when facing a large group of enemies with undead fortitude, like a horde of zombies. That little bit of radiant damage really helps keep the zombie horde down, where smiting individual zombies would be very resource inefficient. It's still fairly niche but they are a fairly common enemy in early level campaigns. C rank in my opinion. Thanks for showcasing all these niche spells, but I'd like to see a dedicated advice video on how to actually take advantage of spells like these. As a DM, I think the best way to equip your players with these situational spells is through spell scrolls or a wand/staff with a ton of niche spells on it that they acquire early on. That way the party casters don't have to agonize over not having a niche spell prepared for a specific moment, while providing a cheap way for them to showcase some situational creativity.

Dissonant Whisper is a S tier spell most of my non-bard build grabs it with Fey touches feat. Dealing 3d6 AND provoking attack of opportunity from everyone in melee range (since the creature is forced to use his movement, it's not force movement like falling or being pushed) especially if your party members have abilities that trigger once per turn (like sneak attack) or warcaster allowing them to booming blade or any other strong single attack maneuver is god damn powerful, and make EVERYONE shine at the table (cooperation and teamwork) even the sorcerer with is 1d4+2 dagger can get a free hit and that 4.5 damage might the 4.5 needed to finish the beast. Now If fey touches is not available, true I wouldn't grab magic initiate or dip a bard level to grab Dissonant Whisper. But Fey touches giving a +1 to a stats, misty step and 1 level 1 enchantement or divination spell of your choice from any list. Dissonant Whisper is a STRONG option here. Because Fey touches exist, Dissonant Whisper become a S tier spell. Without Fey touches (or if you play a race with a misty step like features like Eladrin, astral elf, shadar-Kai and Harangon) sure it's an A.

Playing BG3 I discovered Expeditious Retreat is pretty good for Eldritch Knight. You often have your concentration available, you want the movement to get close for melee, and it doesn’t care about your Int score

Awesome series guys! As a dm it helps me to just listen passively to every spell and pick up on things I did not realize. Especially when yall give the nice caveats and things to remember about them. For example, my players have used compelled duel, and I never noticed that if someone else hits them, then it ends. My players neglected to mention it as well, but now I know. Also the niche uses and power level can help with balance and giving someone a niche use that they want. Which really brings me to another topic. DMs, if you have a player that wants to have some schtick about their character being able to interpret languages, then make sure to know that and make it useful for them. Let them use their niche spells to help them sometimes. They really like that. It makes them feel super smart for having picked it up. It's like gambling and winning. Even though you set them up.

We had a cool use of detect evil or good. We became aware that the graveyard was currently full of dormant undead, waiting to be activated. We also needed to be subtle so that the necro cult did not simply pull the trigger because they knew we were there. Our paladin cast the spell, then walked the graveyard and nonchalantly dragged his foot in a pattern at the graves that had undead in them to mark them.

Imagine a scenario where there's a plague sweeping the countryside and your party needs to identify patient zero. They repeatedly meet a travelling peddler who seems perfectly hale and hearty. They cast Detect Poison and Disease and it turns out that our peddler is an asymptomatic carrier, infecting everyone who buys from them.

Excellent, as always. Thank you. I think that for as much as Disguise Self gets mentioned, I think Alter Self for one greater spell slot doesn’t get enough love. I’m curious to hear what they have to say about it. Also, Cure Wounds isn’t that bad.

Entangle was one of my signature spells when I played Ranger. Solid A tier.

Devine favor can allow a paladin to put a little radiant damage on ranged attacks. I had an oath of redemption paladin who's home dimension was basically a zombie apocalypse world. When he got to Barovia, he thought it was odd how everyone just ran at the zombies and took hits from them all the time. He made the party sit back and watch him solo a horde of zombies. One cast of divine favor, many javelins, and a lot of his steed dashing, and he wiped em all out.

I will say there have been a few times when I want to bring someone up from 0 but I also really want to use my bonus action for something else. So there have been a few times when Cure Wounds was what I wanted over Healing Word.

Aberrant Mind Sorcerer also gets ahold of Dissonant Wispers, and that had created some very helpful tactics when I was able to use it, and was a very consistent damage dealer for me

Alright guys, You’ve earned my DIVINE IRE! Jk, but I think you’re overlooking some things with divine favor. 1st: It gets better with more hits. So pole arm master pally’s (or 1 level cleric dip monks) will get lots of benefit from it. And if you keep concentration for 1 whole round, often times you’ll be getting more value than a smite. 2nd: It works with ranged weapons and attacks, making it a great alternative to smite for Dex Pally’s or CBE Rangers who dip war cleric for extra damage (and doesn’t require swapping between targets like hex or Hunters mark.) 3rd: it is EXCELLENT for fighting zombies/undead who go down only on a failed save, a Crit, OR Radiant damage. Really good for clearing them out. Also good for turning off some undead regen abilities. Cons are that Bless is better, even as a DPR increaser. But if you already have a friend casting bless, Divine Favor is a great little DPR boost, and gas numerous hidden benefits to other similar application spells.

Earth Tremor should be like, a medium level Elements Monk skill. It's basically a earthbender stomp.

As a ranger “main”, I do love ensnaring strike, but for a paladin it’s also sneakily good!

Cure wounds is the “the wizard is at 2 hp after combat and he’s gonna die if his toe gets stepped on” which has come up a suprising amount but I just use it there because I’m a life cleric and have it anyway

The BG3 version of expeditious retreat (lasts all day) is what I pretty much always concentrate on with a melee EK. This should really be available to at least some pallys who could make use.

I took ensnaring strike instead of hunter's mark in BG3 and I have quite enjoyed giving my team advantage on attacks.

One player in our group has made great use of Expeditious Retreat on their martial characters-the Eldritch Knight they're playing at the moment as well as a Rune Knight they played in our last campaign (who picked it up with a feat) both used it regularly as a way to close into melee with enemies that otherwise might have been out of reach, essentially trading a rank 1 spell for a whole round of attacks/tanking.

Expiditious "Advance" is my go to 3rd pick along with Shield and Absorb Elements for Eldritch Knights, especially at the low levels when you aren't always using your bonus action it helps a lot for getting into mellee.

36:13 I had a moment where my D&D crew were doing a stealthy prison break, and my Ranger incapacited a guard by grabbing a pebble, casting Ensnaring Strike, then throwing it straight into a guard's mouth so that the vines covered their mouth/face and stopped them from saying anything. That spell has a special place in my heart

Earth Tremor is great on Storm Sorcerers. Cast it with action, fly away with bonus action, and enemies are forever trapped in difficult terrain!

Compelled Duel could also be interesting on a Swashbuckler Rogue.

I think you could safely homebrew the concentration requirement out of Compel Duel and it would be fine.

Create and Destroy Water has come in handy in forest and water based adventures. There is usually fog you're having to go through during these kind of environments and being able to remove it comes in handy. Also, always good to be able to snuff out open flames. Also, having water at a moment's notice is good for RP value.

One extremely niche point in Cure Wounds' favor is that if you're a Grave Cleric and heal a downed ally, the max hit points may actually get someone back in the fight and able to stay there.

The main use for cure wounds is up casting inflict wounds.

31:36 An argument in favor of Divine Favor, and why it deserves a B: 1) Range. Smites (default, as I believe most of the others are not like this) is restricted to MELEE attacks only. Divine Favor can be applied to ranged attacks, which can be much more preferable in certain circumstances. 2) Efficiency. For the cost of one spell slot per combat potentially, you can add a lot of otherwise unobtainable damage. It's especially useful during low levels when you have fewer slots, or for long hauls where you aren't likely to get a long rest to recharge. 3) Turning off Abilities/Enabling Kills. Some creatures have abilities that will be truly pernicious over time, like a Vampire's regeneration, that can only be shut down via a certain damage types. Radiant damage in this case will keep them from really drawing the fight out. Lower level players will also be able to add effective damage to creatures that only really take damage from magical weapons, as most of them are less likely to have nice equipment yet. 4) The Paladin should probably not be casting Bless. As a frontline combatant, you are far FAR less likely to keep bless up for an appreciable length of time than someone in the backline. So all said and done, it is not the best spell out there to be sure. However, as a lifelong Paladin player, this spell has come in clutch for me across several campaigns. It may largely depend on the style of the campaign and situations your party finds themselves in, which is why I argue for no higher than a B, but at the least I feel it deserves a C. It has use cases that should not be ignored.

The warlock invocation that gives you at-will Detect Magic is really fun and handy - my Fathomless Warlock, who is a fixer for a sea-hag coven, uses it all the time

My Artificer Wizard is quite happy with Cure Wounds. Healing word is not an option, and he can deliver his Cure Wounds via his familiar. The party does have a Cleric, but it's good to have a backup.

My friends and I have a West Marches campaign with a homebrew Gritty Realism system. 8hr short rests, 24hr long rests, and long rests must be taken in a place that is safe (fortified position, friendly town, etc). Characters can gain an extra d8 hit dice when they short rest for fulfilling different survival goals (good food, proper shelter, warmth, first aid, and a full night's sleep). Spells like Goodberry and Create/Destroy Water are extremely useful without being game-breaking. It could be several in-game days between long rests, so using those oh-so-precious spell slots to feed and water your party could end up being your doom... Lots of fun, highly recommend an exploration-focused hex-crawl game with this gritty realism ruleset.

Detect magic is better than you discussed. The whole second part of that spell says that it penetrates through barriers, and how far for each. That spell is very powerful.

31:34 Divine favor Can be used in a horde mode scenario against a lot of weaker creatures, which gives it a use scenario when compared to the use of bless. Especially if the weaker cr creatures have lower AC. It can be used with two weapon fighting or bonus action attacks after the first turn which may help it scale a bit when extra attack is achieved, or if reaction attacks are available. It doesn’t have to use another bonus action to move the effect like hunters mark. No continual bonus action clog. Like hunters mark, it works on all weapon attacks, so unlike most smite spell options, it will work effectively with ranged weapon attacks since paladins are usually weaker with those.

Aberrant Mind Sorcerer also gets Dissonant Whispers. Mind Sliver and a quickened Dissonant Whispers was a go-to on my Aberrant Satyr.

Note that Divine Favor may be good against a mob of enemies where radiant dmg makes a difference ~ regenerating stuff, shadows etc.

Expeditious Retreat came in very handy with my BG3 playthrough as a low level Eldritch Knight. Its very good to help close the gaps and get in melee range, BUT it became immediately useless when i got the Boots of Speed.

My solution for Cure wounds is to allow a PC with proficiency in Medicine and an Herbalist kit to make Healing potions. They first do a check to forage for ingredients (in nature or in a marketplace). They can do it only once per day with at least 3 hours of uninterrupted time. The result of the forage check determines the strength of the potion. Then they do a roll for how many potions are made which is determined by their training in Medicine. The limit is 3 potions per PC at any one time.

I set up an encounter with my players where I had an assassin jump from out of nowhere to target the paladin with a near-fatal strike, and then my plan was to have the assassin dash out of sight, leaving them with a mystery to ponder and slowly unravel over the next several sessions as they went about their business. Except, the party gave chase, and the bard successfully used Hypnotic Pattern to stall the assassin for one round. Then, as the paladin caught up to get line of sight on the assassin, they used Compel Duel to keep the assassin from running away, and ended up capturing, interrogating (with zone of truth), and killing them, resolving that storyline immediately XD

Ensnaring Strike is extremely useful for my Wife's Ranger character. When the 2 Monks we have whine about difficult terrain or are already at the target and don't want to get entangled themselves. She still has Entangle for those times she beats the Monks in initiative and there is a group of baddies to be restrained.

Our party has only used Detect Good and Evil once but I'd say it fell under one of its niche uses. We were meeting with an NPC that our party was convinced was a vampire based on rumors we heard and thought she was just hiding it very well, but upon casting it nothing came up which was super confusing. Turns out she was a Reborn

There is a cool thing you can do with Earth Tremor and similar spells that is using it through the familiar, you can ready action to cast the spell, and on the familiar turn, it moves in, and you use your reaction to cast it in that position, a flying familiar is then not effected by the difficult terrain

Interesting use of expeditious retreat was on my paladin warlock, with find steed it let my mount bonus action dash and since mounts are forced movement I was able to have my mount disengage and dash which left me with a ton of battlefield mobility so I could be wherever I needed to be.

Among the best an/or useful first level spells: healing word, sleep, shield, disguise self, magic missile, detect magic, comprehend languages, identify, goodberry, purify food and drink, feather fall, find familiar, detect poison and disease, and sanctuary.

BG3 has given me a lot more respect for a number of these spells. Mostly Paladin ones, as the only Paladin ive come across was my friend who only ever used them for smites. Didnt even know his own spells until he "accidentally" almost killed my PC.

Expeditious retreat- Level 2 Bladesinger, human variant with Mobile feat using Booming blade ....So good!

divine favour does have a niche use (still hardly ever comes online, but in some campaigns when you fight specific types of creatures): it's when you need to deal consistent radiant damage every turn, albeit a paltry one, to shut down some monster abilities. Say, you're fighting a bunch of vampire spawn or vampires that regenerate unless they take radiant damage. There may be a lot of them and you can't smite on every hit, you'll run out quickly. This will help. Well, maybe not vampires, by the time you're powerful enough for them, you're gonna have better options, but lower level creatures like vampire spawn.

One other advantage of Ensnaring Strike vs Entangle is knocking down flyers - I like to take both on my Rangers

Dissonant Whispers is amazing to twin (or quicken after hitting with Booming Blade). Sorcerers can get it through the Aberrant Mind subclass or Fey Touched feat.

War Cleric also gets Divine Favor, so it doesn't necessarily only compete with Divine Smite. Bless is still strong competition, but a character dipping into war cleric can get a boost to damage on all attacks with extreme flexibility that things like smite (overkilling) or hunters mark/hex offers. No need to consume a BA to move it to another target or wait until that target dies.

One of my DM's loves language barriers. So comprehend languages and Tonges come in very useful.

Just an observation here. Sometimes, when you evaluate a spell, consider the need to prepare it in the balance. Il takes a preparation slot! Often, a spell is good...but i have to prioritise! So, asking yourself, Do i really want to expand a preparation slot for this, is a game changer.

Disguise self also works in the wilderness as camouflage, because it's not limited to just Changing into a different person, so its also useful for getting advantage on stealth.

18:04 "Are the zombies approaching us zombies? Yes you don't need to cast a spell for that." Laughs in sadistic illusioner/enchanter BBEG

the advantage that detect evil and good brings you if you're trying to find out if there is something close to you that might pounce on you in a moment is that it negates surprise. Even if you can't see the creature attacking you (which technically isn't even that bad, you just have disadvantage on attacks after all), knowing it's there means you won't stand around motionless for a full round.

Cure Wounds is nice when stored in an Artificer’s spell- storing item. 10 free castings per long rest is nothing to scoff at.

9:59 I gave the barbarian a magic item that functioned like a belt of x giant strength, but when they were attuned to it, they could only speak/understand Giant. The bard that knew this spell became very useful

A few levels of war domain cleric to get Divine favor could be fun for a monk... I might just try it!

I love these videos from them.

Monty, I GOTTA know where you get your bowling shirts dude! They are amazing!

!! FYI Editor Notes - Video section breaks end after Detect Poison and Disease. Ex - youre talking about Disguise self but the time stamp breakup only has Detect Poison and Disease for the last half of the video. Thought it would help with viewer retention.

Love the new backdrop.

Dissonant whispers is also for Sorcerer's via Aberrant Mind. And yeah triggering the reaction and the crowd control is a great sweatner.

My eloquence bard has had a lot of fun with disguise self. He’s a tabaxi in ravenloft so he sticks out like a sore thumb in any social situation, but with disguise self he uses that to his advantage. The most iconic was when at the start of tier 2 play we ended up burning a dreadlord’s stronghold to the ground while barely escaping their lieutenants (and killing a bunch of their minions). We’d burned the place to cover our tracks, but they showed up as we were escaping. We got away, but the whole domain was now on the lookout, and we were completely out of resources. We needed to get back into the city to recoup before we could make the long journey to/through the mists back to our own stronghold. So I cast Disguise Self and all of a sudden the party of six including a tabaxi becomes six people. Everyone is so keyed to the obvious tabaxi that if you don’t have a tabaxi you couldn’t possibly be the wanted group. So we could just go through the city with zero scrutiny just based on a single first level spell slot and some nearly-automatic Eloquence deception/persuasion checks. And my tabaxi was actually custom lineage with the Telepathic feat so he could cast Detect Thoughts undetectably. About to take the Metamagic Adept feat so I can subtle-spell all my wacky bard shit.

With Create/Destroy Water, it not only works well in desert campaigns, but cold and sea campaigns as well. Cold climate: douse enemies to make them suffer the frigid water hazard from Rime of the Frostmaiden; use the rain function to make the ground in an area instantly icy, difficult terrain that creatures can slip on; freeze doors closed by applying water layer by layer; because ice is water, use the spell to tunnel through ice; make a mold from dirt and use the water to make either iceballs (free thrown weapons) or ice bricks (if desperate for extra fortifications); use the old trick of alternating between heating and freezing water in a crack in stone to cause a fracture; destroy a layer of ice covering the ground so the party can move more freely (such as atop the fortress roof in the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure). On the seas: drinking sea water is a no-go, so if you start running low on water because the trip is taking longer than necessary, you can extend your voyage with the spell; bailing out water quickly by destroying the water pouring through a breach in the ship's hull; use the rain function to help creatures beat the heat for a while in tropical regions; swiftly aid in cleaning the main deck from the carnage left over from your last battle. Misc: if you need to clean yourselves, armor, clothes, etc. to help give a good impression when you will shortly talk to some important NPC, but you are nowhere near civilization (maybe some noble fey in the Feywilde); instant temporary fog if cast in a really hot area (lava fields, inside a volcanic crater, etc.); use the rain to help wash away your scent trail from creatures that have Keen Senses and are tracking your party; use the water plus a blast of cold or lightning damage (dragonborn breath weapons should do well) to quickly mess up mechanical mechanisms. Edit: Also certain creatures can befoul water near them or their lair (such as the aboleth regional effect), so creating drinking water to swiftly drink before it goes bad can be life-saving.