Wizard school top 3. What’s your choice.

[Whit]

Not looking at theatrics but in general game play as full wizard.
1. Abjuration gets Good lvl 2,6,10,14 abilities albeit defensive only in nature mini hp shield, better counter spell and resist spells,
2. Divination Potency at lvl 2/14 which costs no action and can be used offensive and defensive.
3. War mage at lvl 2 gets reaction to get +2 ac or +4 to any save after the roll is made, also add intelligence mod to initiative. The rest is blah.
Honorable mention is bladesinger but acts more like a hybrid

[Callak_Remier]

Illusionist
Divination
Enchantment

[Kaiwen]

Including UA, I like Illusion, Lore Mastery, and Theurgy.

Why not divination? While rerolls and extra spell slots are fun, they're kinda boring IMO. Sure, they're super powerful, but they don't really get anything fun to use. Portent doesn't really feel like divination, and it doesn't let you do anything new, only what you did before but better.

I really like Illusion through all levels. Even if at second level you just get an extra cantrip, Minor Illusion is amazing out of combat, and not bad in combat either if you get creative. (Create an illusory black cloud around someone's head to obscure everything! Throw up "walls" to block line of sight! Play loud static to deafen people!) At level 14, things change entirely. Illusory reality is the most broken feature in the game, and unlike Portent, it's all up to what you can come up with. It's fun to pull off, and feels trickstery and clever in a way that Portent doesn't.

Lore Master is my favorite classically Wizardy subclass. You're smart and you're good at spells; what more could you ask for?

Theurgy is just a character enabler. If you've ever wanted to play a smart (int-based) arcane priest (arcane hierophant, some might call it) of any domain that isn't Arcana or at any level under 17, this is the subclass for you. It does something that no other subclass does, and it does it well.

[Sigreid]

I'd say evoker, illusion then abjuration.

Experience has shown me that casting damage spells on your allies' location is treasured by my groupt.

Making your own temporary reality is amazing in its potential.

Abjuration can often cover when no one wants to be a healer.

[Yakmala]

My Top 3 (no UA)

1: Divination: Expert Divination will extend your spell capability greatly if your DM is not fond of long rests (be sure to get Mind Spike). Portent is fun as heck, but make sure you eat up the boss monster's legendary saves before you use it.

2: Evocation: Often underrated. Sculpt Spells makes a Wizard's life so much easier, especially if the party has a lot of Melee. Empowered Evocation turns magic missiles into deadly weapons, especially if you toss in a single level of Hexblade.

3: Illusion: Starts off slow, but get to Level 14 and you become a Green Lantern. Mileage with this school will vary depending on the flexibility of your DM.

[JakOfAllTirades]

My top 3:

1. Evocation, for all the blasty fun.

2. Abjuration, for the Counterspell/Dispel powers.

3. Transmutation, because the Transmuter's Stone is under-rated.

[Ogre Mage]

In no particular order --

Divination, Abjuration and Evocation.

I have heard bladesinger is very good, but I have never played one.

[JumboWheat01]

I dunno if I could limit it to a top three, since the schools in general have niches they like to fill and which one may be better depends on the type of campaign you're in. If I had to pick a personal top three, umm...

Divination - Information gathering can be really helpful in a campaign, especially if espionage or stealth is more useful. Plus it has a good generalist ability improving (or hindering) rolls.
Enchantment - Provides social power to a wizard and helps counter-act (eventually) one of the major downfalls of Charm spells, the charmed knowing they were charmed.
Transmutation - A lot of utility power in this school of magic, and you can even spread around some non-concentration required buffs or flat-out resurrect someone.

[SLOTHRPG95]

1. Illusionist, since there's just so much creative potential there. Even before the craziness of Illusory Reality, having Malleable Illusions at 6th, or even being able to use both sound and image at the same time with Minor Illusion opens up so much for the imaginative player. Caveat: if you have a DM who is more "antagonistic" toward player illusions (and no I don't just mean not allowing Minor Illusion to do all the things Silent Image can do), then this quickly becomes a frustrating specialization to have, for obvious reasons.
2. Diviner, since it plays into the idea of a know-it-all Wizard, and also it's just so good. Portent is really solid, but for me the slot conservation of Expert Divination is really the selling point, especially since a know-it-all Wizard has to cast plenty of divinations (Detect Thoughts, Arcane Eye[/I, [I]Scrying, etc.) to actually know it all. Third Eye is also okay if you don't have a natural source of darkvision, but it comes a bit late for that.
3. Conjurer, for a mix of creativity and power. Minor Conjuration opens up a lot of the same creativity that I love in Illusionists, and Focused Conjuration lets you keep your AoE debuffs up for a whole fight, or keeps that Earth Elemental from going beserk and trying to kill you for temporarily binding it. The only reason this school doesn't rank higher than Diviner is its underwhelming capstone. It's okay, but not great, and it's kind of boring.

Honorable mention to the Transmuter, as some of my favorite spells come from their school, but Minor Alchemy always seemed to me to fall short compared to Minor Conjuration, and while the Transmuter's Stone is strong it's never caught my imagination, perhaps due to personal tastes. I love that they get a short-rest use of Polymorph at 10th level, but I just wonder what sort of Transmuter doesn't already have it in their spellbook 2-3 levels earlier.

[W41Blackr4zr]

I'd have to go
1 abjuration
2 divination
3 evocation

although I do like most of them its hard to go wrong as a wizard no matter what the subclass

Illusion and enchantment are the most fun the play though

[Ason]

Divination: Portent is just that good, and the rest of its abilities all have their uses if you work around them. On a more subtle note, portent is especially helpful for adding to your spellbook from scrolls or books you find in your adventures. The Intelligence (Arcana) check DC to copy a spell correctly is 10 + the spell's level, and whether the check succeeds or fails, the spell scroll is destroyed. In your early levels before you Intelligence and proficiency bonus are high enough to reliably beat that check, portent lets you automatically pass those DCs without risk of losing the scroll. Over time, it means a diviner has more spells known than other wizards simply due to the fact that it fails at copying less often. This school also makes your save-or-suck spells way better, as you can guarantee failed saving throws on anything less than legendary.
Enchantment: The school's low-level abilities are pretty good: you gain a tool to disable NPCs that doesn't use any spell slots and a defensive tool that can redirect damage to enemies. Those are all nice and can carry you quite a ways, but at levels 10 and 14, all your single-target enchantments become mini-AoEs and you gain lots of roleplaying flexibility via mind wipes. Enchantment is a good school at low levels, but once you get into higher levels (admittedly a rare thing for most campaigns), it rockets up to become the best wizard school.
Abjuration: This school contends with Bladesinging and War Magic for best defensive utility school, but I think abjuration wins out. War Magic's level 2 and 10 abilities are great, but its level 6 and 14 abilities are fairly forgettable. Bladesinging is really good, even with the racial restriction, but you still have a d6 hit die, so I see its martial boosts more as defensive tools than melee offensive ones (don't forget extra attack works with the longbow proficiency you gain from being a high/wood elf). Abjuration's abilities give good boosts at all levels, however, that make it effective from start to finish and even let you buff party members without using spell slots, and so I think this subschool barely beats out Bladesinging for #3.


All three of these not only offer buffs to your chosen school but also improve your ability to be a wizard overall. #1 and #2 are about as close to 3.5 wizard shenanigans as you can get in 5e, while #3 and bladesinging both give defensive boosts, which in turn naturally improve your ability to maintain concentration. All the wizard schools are pretty good in 5e, so you really can't go wrong, but I see these three as offering the most widely-usable boosts.

[kazaryu]

Not looking at theatrics but in general game play as full wizard.
1. Abjuration gets Good lvl 2,6,10,14 abilities albeit defensive only in nature mini hp shield, better counter spell and resist spells,
2. Divination Potency at lvl 2/14 which costs no action and can be used offensive and defensive.
3. War mage at lvl 2 gets reaction to get +2 ac or +4 to any save after the roll is made, also add intelligence mod to initiative. The rest is blah.
Honorable mention is bladesinger but acts more like a hybrid

I agree woth your level 1. Although i wouldnt call it 'mini hp'. Its an effective +4 to con. And while it cant be healed the same way your normal hp can, it does prevent you from amking concentration checks until it runs out.

2. Bladesinger. Master of tactical combat, they have all the options, and are hella fun to play as that 'always in control, never surprised' archetype

3. Honestly idk, its probably a tossup between evoker and diviner.

[KorvinStarmast]

Not looking at theatrics but in general game play as full wizard.
1. Abjuration gets Good lvl 2,6,10,14 abilities albeit defensive only in nature mini hp shield, better counter spell and resist spells,
2. Divination Potency at lvl 2/14 which costs no action and can be used offensive and defensive.
3. War mage at lvl 2 gets reaction to get +2 ac or +4 to any save after the roll is made, also add intelligence mod to initiative. The rest is blah.
Honorable mention is bladesinger but acts more like a hybrid
1. Evoker: sculpt spell is handy in tight situations
2. Transmuter: my brother played a transmuter, and that stone can be handed to other party members. Very useful. (It gave our human rogue/assassin darkvision).
3. Bladesinger: I got to play a 7th level bladesinger in a one shot. I really enjoyed the armor class boost that blade song gave. I used green flame blade as my cantrip for short sword attacks. (Was a high elf) It was a really neat style to play; sometimes cast a control spell, sometimes mix it up, sometimes do both.

I would love the Illusionist school except for one fact that I have encountered, in this edition and in other editions: at the table, in play, illusions are a royal pain in the neck to run as a DM, and as a player, unless you and the DM are really on the same page.

Divination: portent is great, yeah, but diviniation spells are, in general, is too darned meta in play. Divination is great for story writing and narrative stuff; it is very clunky mechanically.