Best Feats for Warlocks 5e
Published on April 4, 2024
Beyond invocations, warlocks can further customize their eldritch powers with feats. Discover the best feat to suit your warlock build in our comprehensive guide.
Magali Villeneuve - Wizards of the Coast - Farideh, Devil's Chosen
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What is this guide?
This guide is meant as a deep dive into the best feats for the 5e warlock. For the full overview of the class, check out our warlock class guide.
To allow you to scan through the options quickly, we use the following color rating scheme:
- Red isn’t going to contribute to the effectiveness of your character build at all
- Orange Situationally good, but a below-average option otherwise
- Green is a good option
- Blue is a great option, you should strongly consider this option for your character
- Sky Blue is an amazing option. If you do not take this option your character would not be optimized
Amazing Feats for Warlocks
- Fey Touched: Misty step is a great spell and an extra 2nd-level spell goes a long way because of the warlock’s reduced spell slots. Plus, you get to increase your CHA. This is a go-to option if you end up with an odd CHA score after character creation. As for 1st-level spells to grab, you're looking for something that can be upcast so you can use your warlock spells to cast it after the once-a-day use. Command and dissonant whispers seem to be the best candidates that fit the bill. Though, if you want to be a pragmatic warlock, you could also grab hex and use it for a free once-a-day 1st-level casting.
Great Feats for Warlocks
- Actor: This is a nifty half-feat to pick up if you are going to be leaning into the Mask of Many Faces invocation. Being able to mimic the voice of the person you are impersonating will make your disguise that much more effective. Plus, you get advantage on your CHA checks to remain undercover.
- Agent of Order: Great debuff that can be dealt at range and tacked onto your spells (including AoE spells). Plus, you can boost your Charisma, which is always a bonus.
- Divinely Favored: More spells and free castings are always beneficial for warlocks. Make sure you choose a spell that scales, so that you can use it with your warlock spell slots. The holy symbol doesn't matter much, except for Hexblades, who are going for the sword-and-board.
- Guile of the Cloud Giant: Misty step doesn't scale well with upcasted spell slots, so it's pretty useless to warlocks who only have access to 3rd level or above spells. This is a good way to boost defensive capabilities while also improving mobility.
- Inspiring Leader: As a warlock, you’ll have plenty of CHA to go around. Consider this after you’ve maxed your CHA for some extra party support.
- Keenness of the Stone Giant: If you have a high enough Constitution, this can be a decent way to stretch your damage and battlefield control abilities. Hex may get in the way of using Stone Throw all the time, but the combination of the two is potent enough for the investment to be worth it. This also combos extremely well with the magic stone cantrip.
- Shadow Touched: Invisibility is a great spell for casters that need to get out of dodge. The free casting of invisibility and another 1st-level spell goes a long way because of the warlock's lack of spell slots. Plus, you get to increase your CHA. This is a go-to option if you end up with an odd CHA score after character creation.
- Strike of the Giants: Most warlocks won't be making melee weapon attacks nor will be they be stacked into Strength or Constitution so they can skip this feat. Hexblades might want to take Fire Strike to boost their weapon damage, which can lead into another good feat in Ember of the Fire Giant at 4th level.
Good Feats for Warlocks
- Alert: Being up higher in the initiative order can be very valuable for a warlock as they have access to great crowd control spells like hypnotic pattern.
- Baleful Scion: This a very "warlock" effect and is an excellent accompaniment to their other damage/healing abilities.
- Elven Accuracy: If you wanna sling eldritch blast with triple advantage, you might want this. The best way to do this is by picking Pact of the Chain and using your familiar to give you the Help action every turn, so you always have advantage. Keep in mind, this will only get you advantage on the first beam you shoot, not any subsequent beams.
- Ember of the Fire Giant: The typical warlock won’t want this feature, but it could be decent for Hexblades who are martially-inclined.
- Flames of Phlegethos: Tieflings make great warlocks but warlocks don’t get access to a ton of fire damage spells. This feat allows you to pump your CHA and create some protection against melee attacks, but you won’t get a lot of value from rerolling 1’s on damage dice for fire attacks.
- Gift of the Gem Dragon: Boost Charisma and gain a nice reaction-based ability that can buy you space from enemies.
- Gift of the Metallic Dragon: Warlocks don't normally learn shield or cure wounds, so this is a solid way to stretch their limited resources. Even when you take the Hexblade patron, you don't really want to be spending spell slots over 1st level on shield if you can help it.
- Lucky: While Lucky is usually less good for casters, warlocks will be making plenty of attack rolls with eldritch blast. This can ensure you land your hits and net more crits.
- Metamagic Adept: Grabbing this feat as a warlock is kind of a mixed bag. Because warlocks don't have control over what spell slot they cast their spells with, only having access to two sorcery points limits some of the awesome metamagic features like Twinned Spell to the 10th-level. If you're planning on playing in a campaign that goes beyond the 10th-level, Metamagic Adept can still offer some versatility in the forms of Subtle Spell and Careful Spell.
- Outlands Envoy: While an ASI and a free casting of misty step and tongues isn't terrible for warlocks, Fey Touched is going to provide more value.
- Resilient: Proficiency with CON saving throws (which includes concentration checks) and +1 CON isn’t anything to turn your nose up at, especially if you’re going for a Hexblade build. That said, they will likely get more value out of War Caster because it allows them to cast spells as opportunity attacks.
- Righteous Heritor: If your warlock is using counterspell to disrupt their enemies from casting big damage spells, you likely already have a better use for your reaction than Soothe Pain. Otherwise, this is a decent way to support your party.
- Scion of the Outer Planes: Warlocks already have the best damage cantrip in the game, which outputs force damage, so they usually won't have to work around resistances. With that in mind, picking up one of the utility cantrips and a damage resistance will still be solid value. I'd probably go with Lawful Outer Plane for force damage and guidance.
- Spell Sniper: Increased range and ignoring cover on spell attacks can be stellar for all of your eldritch blasting. Go for chill touch, fire bolt, or ray of frost off the sorcerer spell list depending on which spell you don't already have access to.
- Telekinetic: Warlocks are on the lower end when it comes to the number of cantrips they learn. Mage hand is always useful, as is the ASI to CHA. When it comes down to combat, hex will be much more important to use than the bonus action Shove, but when you've already got your hex on a target, the Shove can offer some good battlefield control.
- Tough: Warlocks have a d8 hit dice but still struggle with AC, so Tough might be worth it to increase your survivability.
Situationally Useful Feats for Warlocks
- Durable: Nothing particularly exciting here for a warlock.
- Eldritch Adept: Warlocks get access to plenty of invocations, the only time a warlock would choose this feat would be when they plan on multiclassing but still need access to a particular invocation for their build.
- Elemental Adept: Warlocks aren’t casting much more than eldritch blast most of the time, which isn’t affected by this feat. It’s a safe skip.
- Fade Away: The ASIs aren't great, but you could still potentially boost your Stealth and AC through increasing Dexterity. In most cases, warlocks are out of combat enough that they'd rather take Shadow Touched and get access to the invisibility spell, rather than Fade Away's reaction.
- Fury of the Frost Giant: Seeing as you likely won't have the spell slots to be a counterspell machine, this could help pad your limited spell slots so you don't have to burn them on hellish rebuke. This is probably only worth it for Hexblades, who will be in combat more often than their ranged-counterparts.
- Gift of the Chromatic Dragon: Warlocks don't attack with weapons nearly enough to make this feat worth it.
- Magic Initiate: For warlocks, this feat is pure utility. They don’t get a lot of damage from this as Warlocks already come with all the damage they need. This feat is only essential for those with specific builds in mind or for multiclassing.
- Rune Shaper: This can be an interesting option to help pad your warlock's limited spell slots. That said, they already get access to the best of these spells and sometimes have an even better version through invocations.
- Second Chance: Good way to get Charisma and a defensive ability. Make sure to save your reaction for counterspell if you're battling a caster, cause they'll likely hit you harder than avoiding an enemy landing with a single attack.
- Telepathic: Even though warlocks don't usually get detect thoughts, adding this spell to your repertoire isn’t as good as either misty step from Fey Touched or invisibility from Shadow Touched.
- War Caster: Before Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, this was necessary for melee Hexblade builds that want to keep hex up as long as possible. Now, with the Eldritch Mind invocation available, this feat seems like a waste of ASIs due to the reasonable number of invocations warlocks get, compared to the meager number of ASIs they are given.
Bad Feats for Warlocks
- Athlete: Nothing here for a warlock.
- Chef: Nothing about this class screams "I'm also a chef”. The Con bonus is nice, but overall you're going to want to skip this. There's no flavor here for spellcasters.
- Cohort of Chaos: Unfortunately, this is too unpredictable to be a efficient use of a feat.
- Crossbow Expert: Warlocks can skip this. Hexblades are the exception to the rule as it allows them to use eldritch blast in melee ranged, but it’s still only a minor benefit compared to other classes.
- Crusher: Absolutely not worth it, as they never want to be in melee range. This feat is for martial classes. Hexblades can use bludgeoning weapons, which works well with booming blade, for some fun damage opportunities, but it isn’t an essential feat by any means.
- Defensive Duelist: Again, no need to be in melee range too often. However, Hexblades can work well as a DEX build, which can benefit from this feat.
- Dual Wielder: Nothing here for a warlock.
- Fey Teleportation: You don’t get much out of this aside from the +1 CHA, and you can already learn misty step as a spell. Fey Touched is better overall, since this feat/race combo is a waste of stats for warlocks. DEX and INT from high elf don’t benefit you in any way, regardless of your build.
- Fighting Initiate: Only Hexblades can acquire this feat, and even so, there are better feats to choose from that make a Hexblade far more powerful.
- Grappler: Warlocks can skip this feat.
- Great Weapon Master: Most warlocks want nothing to do with Great Weapon Master. Some melee Hexblade builds can make use of this feat, the details of which can be found on our Hexblade 5e Guide.
- Gunner: You don't need a gun, you’ve got magic.
- Healer: Warlocks are better off leaving healing to other party members while they focus on outputting damage. Plus, they're glass cannons that want to stay on the outside of combat, not run into it.
- Heavily Armored: You need proficiency with medium armor to take this feat, which is a very resource-heavy endeavor for warlocks who aren't Hexblades.
- Heavy Armor Master: Warlocks don't get proficiency with heavy armor.
- Keen Mind: Nothing here for a warlock.
- Lightly Armored: Already has access to light armor at the start.
- Linguist: Warlocks won't get much out of the languages or Intelligence boost.
- Mage Slayer: Most warlocks are going to want to skip this. The only exception is hexblades, which can sneak in some extra damage, but I wouldn’t call it essential.
- Martial Adept: Nothing here for a warlock.
- Medium Armor Master: Warlocks don't get proficiency in medium armor.
- Mobile: Like wizards, you can safely skip this in most cases. However, Hexblades with access to booming blade should look into picking this up.
- Mounted Combatant: Nothing here for a warlock.
- Observant: Warlocks simply don’t care for this feat. They don’t need either stat and aren’t usually the ones investigating rooms. This is a pass unless you need it for RP reasons.
- Orcish Fury: Nothing here for a warlock.
- Piercer: While you might gain access to some piercing spells, this feat is still a skip. The damage increase from this feat is minuscule when you can only cast one spell a turn.
- Planar Wanderer: Nothing here for a warlock.
- Poisoner: Nothing in the warlock subclasses meshes well. Hexblades who don’t want to multiclass to paladin for a smite can use this, but that's the best use case.
- Polearm Master: Typical warlock builds will want to give Polearm Master a pass. Hexblade warlocks, on the other hand, can make quite good use of Polearm Masters features.
- Revanent Blade: Nothing here for a warlock.
- Ritual Caster: Warlocks won't want to invest the Intelligence or Wisdom necessary to take this feat when they could just take Magic Initiate.
- Savage Attacker: Skip this feat.
- Sentinel: Most warlocks don't want anything to do with melee combat so this feat provides no value. Hexblade warlocks can get some value because of the extra damage from hex but feats like Great Weapon Master will provide more value.
- Shield Master: Warlocks don't have a shield proficiency and usually have their bonus action locked up with hex anyways. Even for the melee-focused Hexblade that provides a shield proficiency, between hex and Hexblade's Curse, it's better to choose a feat that's going to provide more value.
- Skill Expert: Warlocks should look at feats that give them extra ways to cast spells or to make their cast spells more useful as they have very limited spell slots.
- Skulker: Unfortunately, eldritch blast just doesn't jive with stealth because only the first beam is rolled with advantage.
- Slasher: Warlocks, like wizards, won’t find anything helpful from this feat unless they’re a Hexblade, where the higher crit chance makes it even more useful.
- Soul of the Storm Giant: Typical warlocks will want nothing to do with this feat. Though, it could work for Hexblades who want a bit more survivability.
- Squat Nimbleness: Nothing here for a warlock.
- Tavern Brawler: Nothing here for a warlock.
- Vigor of the Hill Giant: Warlocks usually push for short rests to get their spell slots back, so this can help heal you up more effectively as well. Still, it's probably not worth it because the ASI and resisting movement effects are worthless.
- Weapon Master: Warlocks have no need for weapon proficiencies.
Sources Used in This Guide
- BR: Basic Rules
- GotG: Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants
- SotDQ: Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen
- ERLW: Eberron: Rising from the Last War
- EEPC: Elemental Evil Player’s Companion
- EGtW: Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount
- FToD: Fizban's Treasury of Dragon
- GGtR: Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica
- MotM: Monsters of the Multiverse
- MToF: Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes
- MOoT: Mythic Odyessys of Theros
- PAitM: Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse
- PHB: Player's Handbook
- SAiS: Spelljammer: Adventures in Space
- SCoC: Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos
- SCAG: Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide
- TCoE: Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
- TTP: The Tortle Package
- WBtW: The Wild Beyond The Witchlight
- VRGtR: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
- VGtM: Volo's Guide to Monsters
- XGtE: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything