The D&D Feats, Fighting Styles, and Epic Boons Tier List
This will be an analysis of the general strength of every feat present in One D&D.
While each feat is organized into their tier, inter-tier rankings aren’t there and they are just organized alphabetically from there.
The information on the feats can be found on this Reddit post to cross reference their ranking with what they do.
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Tier List Rankings
I do a standard S-F tier ranking and here’s how I categorize them:
S Tier – The absolute best of the best. These options can even broach into unfair territory and may be subject to being banned at certain tables. If you’re looking for power level alone, there’s functionally no reason not to use these.
A Tier – While not as broken as the S Tier options, these are as good as you can get without broaching into unfair territory, although some of them may be strong enough to feel unfair!
B Tier – These will not be as inherently powerful as A Tier options, but are still quite strong in their own right. These are likely a bit more situational or slightly weaker than the A tier options, but still very good.
C Tier – Decent options, but likely not particularly strong. These options don’t offer too much or may just be a bit too situational to be ranked higher, but are still options you should consider as these will be the average power level.
D Tier – While not completely useless, these options are either very weak or very situational so are unlikely to be used, but unlike F tier, these aren’t completely unusable or actively detrimental.
F Tier – Either so weak or so situational that these should functionally never be taken or considered unless in the most niche of circumstances.
Origin Feats
Origin Feats are feats granted by your background, and while you can take them level four and forward, you probably shouldn’t 99% of the time.
S Tier
Alert – While not as good as the 5e feat, being able to get a boost to your initiative rolls as well as swap initiative order with an ally is extremely good. This is the second best general origin feat, right behind Musician, but if you already have someone with Musician in your party, then feel free to grab this.
Musician – Being able to grant party members equal to your PB a Heroic Inspiration charge with each short or long rest is incredibly strong. At least one party member at every table should have this feat.
A Tier
Magic Initiate (Cleric) – Getting access to Guidance by itself (even if it’s a smidgen weaker than it used to be) is already a great incentive to take this feat (on top of the getting another cantrip), but for a caster to get access to Healing Word that wouldn’t normally have it really puts this over the top. Now you don’t have to play a caster that gets Healing Word naturally to get it easily!
Magic Initiate (Druid) – Just like Cleric, getting access to Guidance and Healing Word on a class that wouldn’t normally get it is great, so the only functional difference between this and Cleric is what you want that secondary cantrip to be. While not as recommended, there is a consideration to opt for this over Cleric if you wanted to pick up Entangle or even Goodberry, but those options definitely feel a bit less worth it than Healing Word.
Magic Initiate (Wizard) – Wizards have access to functionally all the best cantrips in the game sans Guidance, so rounding out your cantrip list with options you may not have gotten normally is really nice. Realistically though, you take this to get a first level spell and there are a lot of great options you could be interested in between Find Familiar, Shield, or Silvery Barbs if you don’t want to take Fey-Touched later.
Tough – Extra health is really good, especially on those who are tanking a lot. Simple, yet effective.
B Tier
Skilled – Not a super exciting origin feat, but really nice on Rogues who will eventually get reliable talent. Furthermore, this is just solid to pick up skills you really want that you wouldn’t normally have.
C Tier
Healer – In a pinch, being able to bring back an ally when nobody has a spell slot for healing available or a health potion is decent, especially in the early game. That said, this will lost utility pretty fast as you climb in levels, but if your DM doesn’t dole out level ups too often and/or you’re playing a more survival style campaign, this can be really helpful.
Lucky – The difference between rerolling a roll and getting advantage/disadvantage on a roll since you don’t know if you “needed” to use it. That said, using a Luck point on a really important roll is still pretty good, even if you have to do more guesswork on when you’d need to use it.
D Tier
Savage Attacker – This does give a slight damage boost, but realistically, you’re not getting that a much higher DPR by taking this. This is better the higher the HD your weapon uses, so if you like swinging a Greataxe, this can be alright.
Tavern Brawler – The boost to unarmed strike damage and proficiency with improvised weapons isn’t really helpful unless you really want to be roleplaying a character that’s all about that. However, being able to push a target 5 feet once a turn with an Unarmed Strike can be reasonably strong on a Monk in a party of casters who have a litany of CC effects you can push enemies into. For Monk in particular, I would put this more in C Tier rather than D.
F Tier
Crafter – You too can save 10 gold over the course of an entire campaign. This feat is unreasonably bad and should’ve had the 20% discount on products to be relatively uniform or you have advantage on Persuasion checks to negotiate price or something. I expect tables to homebrew a solution to this because it is so atrocious.
General Feats
These are feats that you’re free to take after level 4 or you can take an Ability Score Improvement which is +2 to one attribute or +1 to two attributes (this is technically a feat so will be included in the rankings). As all feats now grant a +1 ability score improvement, feats will be more common picks than they used to be.
Anything feat with an asterisk means that you need to be/use this in an extremely specific class/build to get the most use out of it.
S Tier
Grappler* – From going to one of the worst feats in the game to one of the best is quite the journey for the Grappler feat. Being able to attack and grapple as part of the same action, advantage on all attacks against the enemy you’re grappling, and no movement penalty to drag creatures you’re grappling are just all incredibly powerful abilities. Anyone who’s looking to grapple is going to take this, but in a realistic sense, that may be fewer builds than you’d think. That said, every Monk should take this feat as it will be incredible for them.
A Tier
Dual Wielder* – While the rules did not make it easy to understand how this, the Nick property, and the Two-Weapon Fighting style all interact, Jeremy Crawford himself cleared up the interaction. In short, even if you are using a weapon with the Nick property, Dual Wielder gives you a bonus action attack and Two-Weapon Fighting would add its damage to it. With that cleared up, this feat is really powerful as enables any dual wielding build an additional attack. This isn’t an S tier feat, but it does feel close.
Fey-Touched – Excellent before, excellent now. Being able to pick up Misty Step for free on top of another spell (generally Silvery Barbs if your table allows it) in addition to an ability score improvement is incredibly good.
Great Weapon Master – While it no longer does the -5 to attack, +10 damage tradeoff, adding your proficiency bonus to any Attack action attack is going to still be really good and a requirement for anyone using a two-handed weapon.
Inspiring Leader – Giving the whole squad temporary health after every short or long rest is very good, and the temporary health can really stack up as you climb higher in levels. If you have a six person party at level 4 and you have an 18 in your spellcasting ability, that’s a total of 48 temporary health you’re giving out that can be replenished with another short or long rest. This is functionally twice as good as your average Aid spell and completely free. The only issue I find is it’s unclear if this would conflict with Musician or not as both are done at the end of the rest, but since that’s not like an inherent action (like two effects using your reaction), I’m unsure if these work really well or really terribly together. Even if you can’t do both together, you can likely easily coordinate with your party to make sure that one person has Musician and the other has Inspiring Leader to make sure everyone gets the goods.
Shield Master – While this doesn’t help you pass Dexterity saving checks anymore which hurts a bit (but rewards you if you manage to succeed on them), this got two substantial upgrades from 5e. One is the obvious one, the ability score improvement which is great. The other is that the Shield Bash is now part of the Attack action rather than a Bonus Action after the attack action. This is such a dramatic change as you can now knock an enemy prone with your first attack and then keep attacking with advantage (assuming you are a class with Extra Attack) versus having to knock them prone and rely on an ally to capitalize on that.
War Caster – War Caster was already a good feat before, and now it’s even better by giving an ability score improvement on top of all of its abilities. While I wouldn’t necessarily say that this is an requirement for all casters, it is going to be a really appealing option considering the Concentration buff and the ability to cast spells with somatic components when your hands are full. Realistically, most spellcasters won’t have an issue keeping a hand free (especially since you can hold your Arcane Focus in one hand and perform your somatic component with the hand your focus is in), but if that may be a problem for you, this is a must have.
B Tier
Ability Score Improvement* – This is now considered a feat you can repeatedly take, likely just to simplify the leveling up process as now you will always take a feat. That said, while this is “worse” than it used to be as all feats grant ability score improvements, taking the old ability score improvement is probably going to still be better more often than I would like as it’s just such a reliable way to get +1 to a modifier that a feat may not necessarily allow you to do. In that vein, this has an asterisk because I put it more in the B+ tier where it’s likely better than taking most non S or A tier feats barring two situations: you have an odd ability score you need to improve or your build in particular needs a lot of feats. Regardless, I like the direction that Wizards took with characters not being so reliant on just taking the ability score increase between giving a +1 ASI boost to all feats and spellcasters having a static table of how many prepared spells they can have rather than it being reliant on their spellcasting modifier.
Crossbow Expert – While losing the powerhouse that was Sharpshooter really hurts and you can no longer get the Bonus Action attack from the same Hand Crossbow, this does enable the double Hand Crossbow playstyle that was quite popular in Baldur’s Gate 3. Furthermore, you can technically use this feat if you want a Light weapon in one hand and a Hand Crossbow in your off-hand which is interesting as that’s extra versatility in how you build this. Obviously it won’t be as strong as it was there without the Sharpshooter bonus damage, but this should still be a reasonable playstyle for those willing to build around it.
Charger – While the wording was changed from 10 feet in a straight line to 10 feet in a straight line towards the target when getting the Charger bonus, the ability to get an additional d8 in damage or push the enemy 10 feet is still quite strong.
Crusher – Being able to push enemies around on hit is a little less valuable when the Push weapon mastery comes into play, but this remains a good feat.
Defensive Duelist – While this only works when you have a Finesse weapon and it only works on melee attacks against you, trading your reaction for a higher AC is functionally a weaker Shield spell that you have unlimited uses of. That is honestly still quite strong, even if the AC bonus is relatively small in the earlier levels.
Heavy Armor Master – Reducing damage from the most common sources on top of getting a +1 ability score improvement is very solid. Nothing complicated here.
Mage Slayer – Getting to force casters to have a much harder time concentrating on spells when you hit them is super cool, but getting a Legendary Resistance every short or long rest is even cooler. Great as a general feat on martial characters and this just gets better and better as you progress in levels as failing a higher level save can be extremely crippling.
Polearm Master – Polearm Master was one of the best martial feats in fifth edition and it technically didn’t lose any ability, but two changes have weakened it substantially. First, the attack you make when an enemy gets into range no longer counts as an opportunity attack so it no longer works with Sentinel. Two, Great Weapon Master no longer works with the bonus action attack this grants which means a lot of missed damage. This is still a great feat for those looking to use Polearms, but definitely much weaker than it used to be.
Resilient – Very popular for casters to take this on Constitution and a little less popular for martials to take this on Wisdom. Simple and solid.
Shadow-Touched – Unfortunately, Fey-Touched just outclasses this most of the time, but this is still a reasonable feat that you can take if you don’t need Misty Step for some reason (maybe an Elf with a High Elf origin).
Skulker* – There is a lot to like about the new Skulker feat, between the Blindsight, advantage to the Hide action in combat, and even the Sniper feature which can let you keep Hiding if you miss with an attack rather than having to pass the check again. Every Rogue is going to want this, no question, but I think this should be considered as well for other classes because of the Blindsight. While the Blindsight range is short, in a party that likes casting vision-obscuring spells a lot, this can be extremely potent. Being a martial character that can still see when blinded means that most of your enemies are going to have disadvantage on all rolls against you while you have advantage on rolls against them. In a sense, this is like having Greater Invisibility active as long as an ally can keep casting Darkness. A great feat for those willing to work with you to make it great.
Telekinetic* – The feat itself is unchanged from Tasha’s and is still quite a good feat, but it ironically got both better and worse in this iteration. On one hand, there are more harmful CC spell effects in this version of the game that makes pushing enemies into them really good. Furthermore, while most tables played this way anyway, it’s now official you can choose to fail a saving throw so you can get move around allies if the opportunity comes up. On the other hand, bonus actions abilities are more popular than ever which may make this harder to utilize for most builds. If you are a build that somehow doesn’t have great uses for your bonus action, this is going to be a really good feat and probably closer to A tier in power, but for most builds, this is solid B tier.
C Tier
Chef – This is actually very similar to Inspiring Leader in terms of how it’s used, but it’s a bit more situational and just gives out less health than Inspiring Leader would. Not a bad feat, but just outclassed.
Elemental Adept – If you find that most of your spells use the same element (common for fire between Scorching Ray, Fireball, Wall of Fire, etc.), this could be a good way to not get invalidated if you find yourself in a lot of combats with enemies that have elemental resistances. That said, it probably feels pretty bad taking this feat as there’s no guarantee it will ever do something, but I did play a campaign where our Sorcerer was facing so many Fire-resistant enemies that it made sense to have this.
Keen Mind – Gaining Expertise in a skill you’re using a lot is nice and getting an additional use of your bonus action (in this case, Study) can be good for those who didn’t have a good use of it prior or you have a compelling RP reason to want this.
Lightly Armored – Getting proficiency in light armor and a shield is a pretty great deal, but so few classes are naturally lacking both of these proficiencies so it seems pretty rare that this will be needed. Still, taking this at higher levels when you’re a Wizard can mean going from a punching bag to suddenly wearing magical Light Armor while holding a magical Shield to make your AC skyrocket.
Moderately Armored – Similar to Lightly Armored, there probably aren’t many characters who are both interested in wearing medium armor, don’t naturally have proficiency, and don’t want to multiclass to get it, but if you’re in that exact position this will do the job.
Mounted Combatant* – If you are looking to fight on a mount (the direction Wizards seems to be pushing Paladin), this is going to be a must have for you as advantage on medium or smaller creatures next to you is great, pseudo-Evasion for your mount is nice, and Veer is decent (worse than it used to be). However, this feat isn’t so strong to convince someone to start using a mount so it’s really here for players who knew they were going to be using a mount from the get-go.
Observant – Functionally the same deal as Keen Mind just with a different set of skills and a different bonus action (Search instead of Study).
Piercer – Nice to get some extra damage on your Piercing attacks, but nothing to write home about.
Poisoner – This feat is super cool and lets you really roleplay as an assassin archetype, but it does suck that applying poison to an enemy takes your bonus action which is likely going to be taken up if you’re playing this on a Rogue (the most likely class that would want this). Furthermore, the damage never scales so while this may be somewhat decent damage early, only the Poisoned condition will matter later in the game, assuming that every monster doesn’t just have an incredibly high Constitution modifier like they did in 5e.
Sentinel – While at first glance it looks like the same feat from 5e, but better, it got a stealth nerf in the text that the creature has to be within 5ft of you rather than within your reach in order to get the free opportunity attack. While still not a bad feat, this no longer works in any capacity with Polearm Master as the main draw to this feat was hitting long range opportunity attacks. Still decent, just not as good as it used to be.
Skill Expert – Proficiency in one skill and Expertise in another (or both in one) is decent, though it’s hard to imagine when you’d need to take this.
Slasher – While the bonus you get after a critical hit is really good (functionally the poisoned condition), the normal ability of this is pretty weak. All in all it balances out to a decent feat.
Speedy – If you have a need for speed, this is the feat for you. While I can’t imagine too many uses of this, using this on a Monk with the grappler feat can mean you can drag grappled enemies really far which can open up some fun synergies with party members.
Weapon Master – While most classes that would want Weapon Mastery gets them, this can be useful for Monks who get no inherent weapon masteries or builds who may not have Mastery in a weapon they’re really interested in having a mastery in. Nothing incredible here, but this can be solid.
D Tier
Actor – A cool feat for players who really want to roleplay a spy or someone who impersonates people a lot, but pretty worthless otherwise.
Athlete – As it stands, this feat has very little going for it barring enemies are knocking you prone a lot, but even then, using half your movement speed to get up likely won’t matter as the enemy you want to hit will likely still be right next to you.
Durable – Advantage on Death saving throws and healing that’s worse than a short rest does not make an exciting feat, but healing on the fly in classes that wouldn’t normally get it should at least be somewhat considered.
Heavily Armored – While not a bad feat, it’s hard to imagine any character that really wants heavy armor that wouldn’t naturally have heavy armor proficiency anyway, or better yet, doesn’t want to do a multiclass dip into Fighter or Paladin.
Medium Armor Master – Taking a whole feat to get a +1 AC buff is not that exciting, especially since you’ll need at least a 16 DEX to take advantage of this anyway.
Ritual Caster – While this was a better feat when not every caster could ritual cast and you could get higher level ritual spells, but now that you’re limited to first level spells, the utility of this has been severely diminished. Not completely useless if you have casters in your party who can’t afford taking some good ritual spells (like Sorcerers or Warlocks with low spells known), but likely not something you’ll need.
Sharpshooter – Unfortunately, unlike Great Weapon Master, Sharpshooter is simply not good anymore. Taking a feat to ignore most cover (which a lot of DMs don’t run properly anyway) and to get better range on your ranged weapons (which can also be useless in a lot of campaigns where they tend to play in more restricted spaces) is not where I want to be. If you find yourself engaging in super long range fights often enough, then this could be helpful, but that’s not something I’m banking on.
Spell Sniper – This is just Sharpshooter for spells; that is not a good thing. If it increased the range of all cantrips with 10 feet of range to 60 feet, that would be a bit more interesting, but as is, it’s just not particularly helpful.
Telepathic – This is like Telekinetic, except both abilities are just substantially worse. While it’s helpful to covertly send messages to people, they can’t even respond back which makes this even less helpful than the Message cantrip (yes I know Message requires vocal, somatic, and material components to cast, this just is not that good).
F Tier
Martial Weapon Training – On what build would you need martial weapon proficiency and not already have it? This just doesn’t make much sense as a feat.
Fighting Styles
While these weren’t feats in fifth edition, they do count as feats now so they should be considered as well! That being said, I would functionally never take these for one of your general feats and should only be considered if your class gives you one of these for free.
Anything feat with an asterisk means that you need to be/use this in an extremely specific class/build to get the most use out of it.
S Tier
None
A Tier
Defense – +1 to AC is just universally good. This will always be a good option if you don’t need a specific Fighting style to help your build out.
Protection – From what may have been the worst Fighting Style to one of (if not just) the best! While this only works if you’re in close proximity with an ally, trading your reaction to give disadvantage on all attacks to that person until your next turn is really good and actually makes the “tank” style character more viable.
Thrown Weapon Fighting* – While not many builds can make proper use of this, +2 to damage rolls is excellent for those who can.
Two Weapon Fighting – Adding additional damage to your extra attacks is great, especially as this works with the Nick property and the Dual Wielder feat.
B Tier
Archery – What was the best Fighting style was functionally nerfed due to the Sharpshooter changes, but if you’re planning on using a bow, you’re picking this feat.
Blind-Fighting* – This fighting style won’t be that good unless your team is all about shrouding the combat in Darkness or something of the like, but if they do, this will functionally mean that you’ll always have Greater Invisibility active as you’ll have advantage on all your attacks while enemies will have disadvantage to hit you (within the Darkness of course).
Dueling – +2 to damage rolls as long as you only are using one hand for your weapon is quite good and was previously the most common Fighting style for martials using a sword and shield.
Interception* – While this does not scale well into the later levels at all, Interception can block a surprising amount of damage in the early levels as, at level 1, you’re blocking an average of 7.5 damage at the cost of your reaction which is really good. I would definitely swap out of this once you gain a few levels, but this is quite strong early.
C Tier
Unarmed Fighting – If you are really committed to punching people and you don’t want to play a Monk, this Fighting style isn’t bad. You get pretty good damage if you’re committed to using no weapons or shields and a bit of bonus damage when grappling. This is not super viable long term compared to playing a Monk, but if that doesn’t bother you, then this is solid.
D Tier
None
F Tier
Great Weapon Fighting – This was already either the worst or one of the worst Fighting styles before, and while it’s been simplified, it’s technically even weaker. Unfortunately, there’s definitely no good reason to take it now.
Epic Boons
Anything Epic Boon with an asterisk means that you need to be/use this in an extremely specific class/build to get the most use out of it.
S Tier
Boon of Combat Prowess – Would you take a feat that gives you an Extra Attack if it also gave you +1 to your attack ability of choice? I would, and this is even better than that most of the time. There will be turns where you don’t miss and you technically don’t get value out of this, but long term, you are going to get a lot of damage out of this when you otherwise would’ve missed out. There are a lot of great boons here, but this should be the standard pick for any martial character.
A Tier
Boon of Fate – This is similar to the Cutting Words feature of the Eloquence Bard, but way better as you can use it for any D20 test! You’ll always get at least one per combat, and if you know an ally needs an average of a +5 or an enemy needs to lose an average of 5 on their roll for whatever reason, this is going to be really impactful.
B Tier
Boon of Dimensional Travel – If you want to be blinking across the battlefield like a madman every turn, this is how you’d do it. I think players will take this more often than they should as Misty Step is such a beloved spell, but this is going to be a really good boon for classes that really need to care about their positioning.
Boon of the Night Spirit* – This isn’t going to be universally applicable for every character/party, but if your party really likes turning out the lights with the Darkness spell, this is the Boon I would want to fully capitalize on that. Becoming Invisible is great both in and out of combat, but resistance to all damage is the real prize, especially if you’re the party tank.
C Tier
Boon of Fortitude – Functionally the Tough origin feat except a little bonus added on top of it. That may seem terrible considering this is an Epic Boon and it’s so similar to an origin feat, but 40 extra health and extra healing whenever you are healed is still no joke.
Boon of Irresistible Offense* – Until we see the Monster Manual, it will be hard to judge how strong this boon is as it’s impossible to say how common bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing resistance is going to be. If that’s super common at higher levels, this can easily be a B or even A tier Boon, but if it’s not particularly common, it stays here down in C. I’m sure ignoring resistance to come into play some amount of the time, and getting a boatload of extra damage when you get a critical hit (technically you have to hit the 20 itself so the Champion Fighter doesn’t double their odds of nailing this) is awesome as well.
Boon of Recovery – If you find yourself getting downed a lot, having one get out of jail free card per day could very well be worth your while, especially in the midst of a tough combat. Furthermore, having an average of 55 points of healing that you can use throughout an adventuring day isn’t bad, even if it’s probably not a significant portion of your HP at this point.
Boon of Speed – My main issue with this feat is that the classes that would want it probably can already use their Bonus Action to disengage (Monk and Rogue), but if your build is reliant on movement, this is a great addition to it.
D Tier
Boon of Energy Resistance – Resistance to elemental types is cool and all, but is it worth an Epic Boon? I’d argue probably not, especially when the redirection damage is really small.
Boon of Skill – Proficiency in all skills is a neat boon, but just does not seem that impactful in general. If you are a Rogue with reliable talent, then it can be cool to have a good skill check no matter what you’re picking, but with a well balanced party, this shouldn’t be necessary.
Boon of Truesight – Truesight is good, just not giving up your Boon good.
F Tier
Boon of Spell Recall – This only effects your lower level spell slots and only works 25% of the time. Mathematically this will be somewhat similar to having an additional spell slot for levels 1-4, but that isn’t even that strong and this boon is worse than that on average.
