High level druid spells

[Undone]

What are the best 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th level druid spells? I'm curious. 4th and lower it seems obvious but at higher levels it becomes less so.

[BigNorseWolf]

5th: animal growth. Combined with strongjaw your critter becomes a giant killing machine. Toss in improved natural attack and vital strike for some insanity.

6th fire seeds. Put fire resistance on the fighter, have him carry the seeds. Set the command word to "mushroom cloud" and watch whatever isn't immune to fire die in a fiery blaze.

7th: heal. even at the extra level thats a lot of healin.

8th Whirlwind. ABsolutely clears out a battlefield. Finger of death, finishes off whatever's left.

[avr]

Control Winds can take out an army if you have a grudge against one at higher caster levels, or if you catch the army on a windy day. Also handy for shutting down archers and sometimes flyers.

Antilife Shell for when you don't feel like being attacked in melee.

True Seeing comes late, but better late than never.

Frightful Aspect is an efficient buff combined with an amazing no-save fear effect. Any time a creature hits you they get frightened for 1d4 rounds. Unprepared enemies cannot full attack you.

[Undone]

avr wrote:

Control Winds can take out an army if you have a grudge against one at higher caster levels, or if you catch the army on a windy day. Also handy for shutting down archers and sometimes flyers.

Antilife Shell for when you don't feel like being attacked in melee.

True Seeing comes late, but better late than never.

Frightful Aspect is an efficient buff combined with an amazing no-save fear effect. Any time a creature hits you they get frightened for 1d4 rounds. Unprepared enemies cannot full attack you.

Frightful aspect is wow. No save no sr auto suck if they hit you.

Antilife shell looked awesome then I read it. It doesn't shove out demons/devils/undead. It's really good but not as auto win as it seemed. Control winds is indescribably good at locking down some monsters and winning some encounters by itself. I don't know that I'd call true seeing better than heal though. Heal is just needed to save actions on curing "Bad stuff" while still being an effective use of your action.

[The Human Diversion]

Fire Snake is nice - it's like a shapeable fireball with a 15d6 cap.

If you have augment summoning, one of my favorite combinations is animal growth on one of the big bruisers - Dire Lion, Woolly rhinoceros, Triceratops, Dire Tiger, or even Tyrannosaurus. On the T-Rex we're talking about a 30' x 30' creature with a 44 STR, an attack of +25 doing 6d6+32 and grab/swallow whole.

[Azelyan]

Terraform.

[666bender]

9:
Clashing Rock- just because it look and sound great KABOOM
Shapechange - cause on a battle druid its.... ender. from a dragon to a giant.
8:
Word of Recall - its late... a bit too late. but teleport is nice
Reverse Gravity - if you are creative itsa funny spell
Frightful Aspect - WOW . word.
summon 1-3 Trex.... its... sppoky
7:
Changestaff: - i like an ally.
Creeping Doom - Vs some foes its cast and run and retrun for the loot
heal. period.
wind walk - i like this more than teleports. as you travel the lands. i cast it on all in party so all can choose to fly when need.
6:
anti life shell - can be great
finf the path - too good of divination spell.
wall of stone. - great combat spell.
5:
wall of thorn.
animal growth on ac or summons.
4:
lock jaw

[666bender]

9:
Clashing Rock- just because it look and sound great KABOOM
Shapechange - cause on a battle druid its.... ender. from a dragon to a giant.
8:
Word of Recall - its late... a bit too late. but teleport is nice
Reverse Gravity - if you are creative itsa funny spell
Frightful Aspect - WOW . word.
summon 1-3 Trex.... its... sppoky
7:
Changestaff: - i like an ally.
Creeping Doom - Vs some foes its cast and run and retrun for the loot
heal. period.
wind walk - i like this more than teleports. as you travel the lands. i cast it on all in party so all can choose to fly when need.
6:
anti life shell - can be great
finf the path - too good of divination spell.
wall of stone. - great combat spell.
5:
wall of thorn.
animal growth on ac or summons.

[Taenia]

6 - Swarmskin, in the right situation its a combat ender

[Atarlost]

Like any blaster, druids might want to fill their slots with metamagic. Their bias towards DoT at lower levels makes them well suited to control metamagic. I'm not really sure what their go to spell perfection target should be though.

5:
Dazing Flaming Sphere
Rime Ice Storm
Persistent Aqueous Orb
Dazing Fire Trap
Reach Rusting Grasp
Control Winds

6:
Dazing Call Lightning
Dazing Nettle Burst
Dazing Ice Spears
Persistent Rime Ice Spears
Empowered Flamestrike
Persistent Obsidian Flow
Sirocco (depending on how knocked prone applies to fliers and whether the fly check is an extra chance to negate it or an extra chance to plummet)
Wall of Stone

7:
Persistent Dazing Flaming Sphere
Persistent Dazing Fire Trap
Dazing Flamestrike
Persistent Control Winds
Heal

8:
Persistent Dazing Call Lightning
Persistent Dazing Nettle Burst
Persistent Dazing Ice Spears
Persistent Sirocco (see caveat above)

9:
Persistent Rime Dazing Ice Spears :p

[The Human Diversion]

I played the 9-11 part of Shattered Star with my PFS druid last night and used Fire Seeds and Resist Energy just as BigNorseWolf described.

final encounter:

Combined with the augmented, animal-growthed dire lion I summoned, we took down the BBEB in 1 round

[Fabian Stretton]

My 10c worth.

A very large percentage of the Druid spells of Lvls 6&7 seem a lot LESS powerful than the spells of 4th and 5th level.
Case in Point - Scouring winds (Lvl 7) - No better than Sirroco lvl 4.
- Yes, it's blinding while they are in it, Siroco knocks you prone.
For a Lvl 7 spell, I would expect much bigger OR much longer OR much more effective.
Control winds by comparison, HUGE range/area and at +4 wind levels is much nastier on an already windy day, and TWO of them = real life tornado will level just about anything.

So - why is it that most of the Druid spells above Lvl 5 have been NERFED