A List of Suggested Spells
Foreword
Important note: Depending on your build, some of the following spells become more or less important. Someone who does not bother to take relevant feats has no use for rays, spells from your prohibited school as a wizard are likely not worth two slots. An arcane bloodline/sage sorcerer who focuses on Illusion can make Phantasmal killer/Weird work consistently on harder difficulties.
For certain niche builds, like martial or polymorphing wizards, you can utilize spells not mentioned here (like dragonkind and various personal buffs). And of course, enemies you face in certain areas of the game or different campaigns change value of spells. Stinking cloud against undead or when you face lots of demons is not worth it.
Finally, this examines the spell list in a vacuum. If your party covers certain spells(usually the buffs), you can leave them out.
Level 1
- Mandatory: Enlarge Person, Reduce Person, Grease
- Good: Color Spray, Magic Missile, Mage Armor, Shield, Snowball, True Strike
Level 2
- Mandatory: Blur, Cat’s Grace, Create Pit, Glitterdust, Hideous Laughter, Invisibility, Scorching Ray
- Good: Blindness, Boneshaker, Burning Arc, Mirror Image, Protection from Arrows, Web, See Invisibility, Other buff spells.
Level 3
- Mandatory: Dispel Magic, Displacement, Haste, Heroism, Resist Energy Communal, Spiked Pit, Stinking Cloud
- Good: Fireball, Hold Person, Protection from Arrows Communal, Slow, See Invisibility Communal
Level 4
- Mandatory: Acid Pit, Animate Dead, Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility
- Good: Boneshatter, Confusion, Controlled Fireball, Crushing Despair, Enervation,Fear, Obsidian Flow, Remove Curse,Stoneskin
Level 5
- Mandatory: Hungry Pit, Phantasmal Web, Summon Spells, Icy Prison
- Good: Baleful Polymorph, Cloudkill, Echolocation, Hold Monster, Stoneskin Communal, Waves of Fatigue, Summon Spells
Level 6
- Mandatory: Chains of Light, Disintegrate, Dispel Magic Greater, Hellfire Ray, Heroism Greater, SIROCCO
- Good: Chain Lightning, Elemental Assessor, Dragonkind I, Phantasmal Putrefaction, Summon Spells, True Seeing, Tar Pool, Transformation
Level 7
- Mandatory: Create Undead, Finger of Death, Legendary Proportions, Waves of Exhaustion
- Good: Summon Spells, Plague Storm, Umbral Strike
Level 8
- Mandatory: Frightful Aspect, Stormbolts, Rift of Ruin, Polar Ray
- Good: Horrid Wilting, Mind Blank, Protection from Spells, Seamantle, Summon Spells
Level 9
- Mandatory: Heroic Invocation, Icy Prison Mass, Mind Blank Communal, Overwhelming Presence, Foresight
- Good: Dominate Monster, Fiery_Body, Summon Spells, Tsunami, Wail of the Banshee
Would’ve appreciated some context and/or some content or detail explaining each of your choices, rather than just a list of words.