DnD 5e Feats

What are feats in 5e?

Feats are special abilities that can be gained to further customize your character build. Because of the fairly tight-knit class system in 5th Edition, feats are the most effective way to customize your character build.

Feats are usually organized into two categories: full feats and half-feats. Half-feats are unique because they provide a +1 Ability Score Improvement (ASI) on top of a unique ability or trait. These feats are usually less powerful or are more limited than full feats.

How do you get feats in 5e?

There are a number of ways to pick up feats in 5e. The first and most obvious is, when your character gets an ASI, you can forgo the ASI to choose a feat.

The second way of getting a feat in 5e is by choosing the Variant Human race. Because Variant Humans get to choose a feat at 1st-level, and because feats are necessary for a lot of 5e character builds, they are considered a very powerful race.

The last and most overlooked way to get a feat in 5e is to be rewarded one by your DM. If you would like a feat from your DM, consider asking about spending in-game time training or performing a particular task that would allow your character to learn a feat. These circumstances usually come with a cost, whether it is money, time, or both.

Remember, feats are an optional rule. Before taking a feat, ask your DM if it is okay.

D&D 5e Feats Ranked

As mentioned earlier, feats are the best way to customize your character build and make it unique. At the time of writing, there are 79 feats available in official 5e sources. We have separated these feats into 5 tiers that will allow you to determine the strength of different feats at a glance. We have avoided ranking setting-specific feats, like the ones included in Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos and Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, as they will skew the power scale and aren’t applicable in the majority of campaigns.

The ranking system we have created below is merely to get an idea of how a particular feat will improve the strength or utility of your build. Just because we rank a feat in the D Tier doesn’t mean it can’t be used to make your character unique to how you want to play it!

Also, these tiers may differ in rankings from our Class Guides. This is because some feats will be more powerful for certain builds.

S Tier

S Tier feats are the best of the best. These feats are extremely powerful and offer utility to a wide range of character builds.

Bountiful Luck

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

The halfling’s Lucky trait is good enough as it is but this feat takes it a step further. Being able to allow your party to reroll 1s as long as you are within 30ft is great. Being able to do this once every 6 seconds is absolutely amazing.

Outside of initiative, your party essentially gets automatic advantage for 5% of their rolls. This feat is great in just about any build, but keep in mind that it is restricted to the halfling race.

Great Weapon Master

Player’s Handbook

Great Weapon Master is widely considered to be the best feat to take for great weapon melee builds. Because D&D 5e’s AC doesn’t scale with levels, taking a -5 to hit to get +10 damage is a no brainer at higher levels.

This in itself would be enough to get this feat into the A Tier, but getting a free attack as a bonus action whenever you drop a creature to 0 or score a crit pushes this ability into the S Tier.

Fey Touched

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Misty step is a spell that every caster wants. Being able to pick misty step up, plus another spell from the Divination or Enchantment schools, plus increasing your spellcasting ability score is an insanely good deal. The reason this is ranked above its twin, Shadow Touched, is the Divination and Enchantment school of spells offer a wider variety of spells, including some insanely powerful 1st-level spells. While these spells can only be cast once a day without a spell slot, casters will be able to use their spell slots to cast more often, or potentially even upcast. Our choices for the best spells to grab with Fey Touched can be seen in our Fey Touched Guide.

Lucky

Player’s Handbook

Gain advantage on three attack rolls, ability checks, or saving throws per day day, your choice. This ability on its own makes this an S Tier feat, but being able to affect attack rolls against you is also extremely beneficial. This can make an enemy’s crit turn into a miss very easily.

Polearm Master

Player’s Handbook

Polearm Master is one of those feats that completely created a build archetype. The bonus action it grants allows you to add your STR bonus to the hit, which really stretches your damage per round and being able to take an opportunity attack when creatures enter your reach is pure action economy.

Classes like Paladins who can smite on either of the attacks granted by Polearm Master, or Battle Master Fighters who can use maneuvers absolutely love this feat. If combined with other feats like Sentinel, Polearm Master can get so good that it is now considered faux pas to play a Polearm Master/Sentinel build.

Sharpshooter

Player’s Handbook

Attacking at long range without disadvantage and ignoring cover is great for any ranged builds. Throw in the same ability from Great Weapon Master (GWM) and take a -5 on your roll to do +10 damage and you have an amazing feat.

This ability is usually even more viable than GWM because of the Archery fighting style, which is available to a number of builds. Granting an automatic +2 to all attack rolls with ranged weapons enables builds to utilize Sharpshooter’s -5 ability at much earlier levels and with more reliability than GWM.

War Caster

Player’s Handbook

War Caster is similar to Polearm Master because it enables a certain type of build rather than offering raw power to an already established build. 

There are tons of characters that like to wield magic in combat, which can mean taking damage from multiple sources each turn. The last thing these casters want to do is lose Concentration and waste an action, bonus action, or spell slot casting a spell again. Getting advantage on Concentration checks is absolutely massive for these builds.

War Caster also negates the need for a free hand for somatic components and can allow you to cast a spell as an opportunity attack. Without this feat melee spellcasters take a huge hit to their viability.

A Tier

A Tier feats add functional utility to specific character builds.

Aberrant Dragonmark

Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron

This feat is extremely good. It’s essentially a different version of Magic Initiate (Another A Tier feat). Casting the spell with CON isn’t usually an issue because CON is typically the second choice when it comes to pumping stats, even for casters.

Being able to (potentially) use a hit die outside of a short rest is great, and the fail case of doing damage if you don’t gain the temp hit points is also awesome.

Lastly, and most importantly, Greater Aberrant Powers is extremely powerful. Now, this is an optional part of the feat, but if included, this feat easily is brought up into the S Tier.

Alert

Player’s Handbook

A +5 bonus to initiative is massive in 5e and going first in initiative can be a huge momentum swinger.

The inability to be surprised and negating advantage from unseen attacks is something any character is happy to have.

This feat is useful for nearly any build, but some builds are going to like it more than others, most notably the Assassin Rogue. 

Crossbow Expert

Player’s Handbook

One of the more hotly debated feats (before the Errata), Crossbow Expert is still a worthwhile feat to pick up. Ignoring the “loading” property on crossbows enables Rangers, Fighters, and any other class with an extra attack to attack multiple times with a crossbow on a turn.

The second part of the feat, being able to make a ranged attack within 5ft, is also solid when ranged builds inevitably get encroached upon.

The third section is also a nice bonus action for light crossbow users, who will get to attack an extra time. 

Elven Accuracy

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Offering an ASI to DEX, INT, WIS, or CHA is solid and gaining “super advantage” on attacks that you have advantage on is really neat.

This ability has a huge range of utility because its benefits can be applied to DEX, INT, WIS, or CHA but, more often than not, it will be a DEX build that takes this feat. Because of DEX build’s inherent sneakiness, they will be able to get advantage on attacks more often than other characters. This feature makes it so hitting is all but certain and crits are all the more likely.

Gunner

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

This is an entirely setting dependent feat but, if your DM allows it, Gunner makes firearms more accessible. While this feat isn’t overpowered, it definitely enables a type of character build that isn’t otherwise possible (in published materials). Being able to increase DEX and ignore the loading property of a pistol (1d10) or musket (1d12) allows firearm users to keep pace with melee damage dealers because they can use the extra attack features.

Heavy Armor Master

Player’s Handbook

Getting a +1 to STR and reducing non-magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage by 3 points is highly effective for tanks, especially at lower levels. 

Magic Initiate

Player’s Handbook

Magic Initiate is a very solid choice for a wide variety of builds. Being able to choose 2 cantrips and a 1st-level spell from the full caster classes is a surprisingly beneficial ability.

Some of the most popular combinations are:

• Wizard: Booming Blade, Green Flame Blade, Find Familiar
• Warlock: Eldritch Blast, (literally anything else), Hex
• Bard: Vicious Mockery, (literally anything else), Dissonant Whispers

Mobile

Player’s Handbook

Mobile is an effective feat in a lot of situations. Raising your base movement speed by 10ft is never a bad thing and, while situational, being able to Dash through difficult terrain without spending extra movement is strong for characters that need to be in melee range.

Being able to attack a creature, then move an additional 10ft without provoking an opportunity attack, is awesome for skirting damage.

Rogues are going to absolutely love this feat, and so will melee builds that use Booming Blade.

Resilient

Player’s Handbook

Gaining an ASI and a free proficiency in a saving throw with the chosen ability is amazing for spellcasters that rely on Concentration.

Typically, for casters that will be battling while concentrating on spells, the play is to get War Caster with your first ASI and then get Resilient (CON) when you’ve maxed out your primary stat (STR for Eldritch Knights, WIS for Forge Clerics, etc).

Sentinel

Player’s Handbook

Sentinel is a great pickup for tanks that will be heading to the front lines. Usually, because their AC and HP is so high, enemies will focus on squishier party members.

Sentinel allows you to get close to an enemy and keep them away from your party members. If they happen to get an attack off, you can use your reaction (only one per round, but hey, it’s free attacks) to hit them for it. 

Shield Master

Player’s Handbook

Being able to shove with your shield as a bonus action is a huge benefit. Because you can choose to knock the shoved creature prone, as opposed to away from you, you can provide advantage on melee attack rolls to all of your other party members. Keep in mind, the specific wording around this feat states that this can only be done after you use the Attack action, which means you will not get advantage on attacks.

The defense bonuses from being able to add your shield’s AC to DEX saves is also stellar for dodging AoE damage. In addition, taking no damage when you succeed in DEX saves against damage makes your character even less likely to take lethal damage.

This is a very tempting feat for builds where tanking is everything. 

Prodigy

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

This is a solid utility pickup that meshes with just about any build. Want to be persuasive? Want to be stealthy? Want to be a rockstar on the lute? You can pick up a proficiency even if your class and background didn’t have it available. 

On top of that, you get the ability to choose an expertise, something that is usually kept for Bards and Rogues. Getting at least +4 to a skill in the first tier of the campaign (1st – 4th level) is amazing and, as the game progresses, the bonus will scale with your proficiency bonus.

Keep in mind, this is a race-specific feat for Half-elves, Half-orcs, and Humans.

Shadow Touched

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Invisibility is one of the best low-level spells out there, but it is already available to the majority of the caster classes (bard, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard). With this in mind, this Shadow Touched also includes an ASI to INT, WIS, and CHA, a 1st-level spell from the Illusion or Necromancy schools, and the ability to upcast invisibility and the additional 1st-level spell with your caster’s spell slots. This makes Shadow Touched an amazing feat for spellcasters looking to pick up invisibility, like druids, clerics, and rangers, or builds that are looking to increase their utility while still pumping INT, WIS, or CHA. An interesting concept explored in the Shadow Touched and Fey Touched feats is they don’t require a spellcasting feature in order to pick up. This means that non-spellcasting, stealth-aligned builds, like a rogue or Way of the Shadow monk, can also pick this feat for once-a-day invisibility and added utility. Our choices for the best spells to grab with Shadow Touched can be seen in our Shadow Touched Guide.

Skill Expert

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

A slightly better version of the Prodigy feat, but not quite good enough to push it into the S Tier. Essentially, this is Prodigy, but instead of a free tool and language, you get an ASI. It also can apply to any race, not just half races.

Svirfneblin Magic

Elemental Evil Player’s Companion

This feat gives you access to a 3rd-level spell, two 2nd-level spells, and a 1st-level spell, all of which are fairly good. Now, most gnomes are wizards who can already learn all of these spells, but if you happen to be playing a different class, or want to pick up four spells in a single level, this is a great choice.

B Tier

B Tier feats are good but do not make or break a character build.

Artificer Initiate

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Not a lot of full caster builds want to pick up an Artificer cantrip and 1st-level spell, and cast them with their INT modifier. The only situation that really calls for this is a Wizard looking for Cure Wounds. That being said, the half-caster subclasses, like Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters, can gain quite the benefit from this feat. The Artificer spell focus allows you to ignore non-costly material components and the spell list has quite a few good options. For cantrips, you can pick up booming blade or green flame blade. For 1st-level spells, you can grab absorb elements, cure wounds, or another utility spell.

Chef

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Chef is a solid, flavorful (heh) pickup that is beneficial for any class. The biggest benefit is the “special treats”. These treats can be eaten as a bonus action and provide temp hitpoints.

Coupled with the fact that you get a CON or WIS ASI and bonus healing from hit dice for you and your party during a short rest and you’ve got yourself a feat worth having.

Crusher

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Crusher is a somewhat situational half-feat. The only build that really wants this feat is a melee build (preferably Champion Fighter) with a bludgeoning weapon. If this fits your build, being able to +1 your STR or CON while getting the bonus from crits is going to provide a lot of value for your party.

Dragon Fear

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

The Frightened condition is quite a powerful one, especially so here because it can affect multiple targets. Because this is a half-feat, you also get to pump one of your important ability scores.

This feat is absolutely amazing for Oath of Conquest Paladins because of their Aura of Conquest feature.

Drow High Magic

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Detect Magic, Levitate, and Dispel Magic are all great spells and this is a good way to pick them up if they aren’t in your class’s spells. The CHA spellcasting modifier makes this work well with any of the CHA casters.

Dual Wielder

Player’s Handbook

This is a great feat that adds utility to a number of builds. +1 AC halves the disadvantage of taking a second weapon instead of a shield, and being able to use one-handed melee weapons that aren’t “light” enables you to take a longsword for extra damage. 

Builds that will make the most out of this are Rogues who want to use their bonus action for more opportunities to land their Sneak Attack, Barbarians who want extra rage damage, and Rangers who want extra Hunter’s Mark damage.

Eldritch Adept

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

This feat allows you to pick up an unrestricted Eldritch Invocation from the Warlock class. Locking the invocations that have prerequisites behind the Warlock class is a fair choice but also drastically reduces the potential of this feat. As it stands, this feats best choices are the ones that allow you to turn a 1st-level spell into a Cantrip:

• Armor of Shadows – Great for any spellcaster that doesn’t have access to armor.
• Beast Speech – For those that want to talk to animals at will (Rangers and Druids mainly)
• Eldritch Sight – Casting detect magic at will is quite useful if you don’t have a spellcaster with ritual casting
• Mask of Many Faces – Casting Disguise Self at will is great for CHA-based casters that will be infiltrating hostile areas
• Misty Visions – Most casters can get by with Minor Illusion but an Illusion Wizard will absolutely love being able to cast Silent Image at will

Fade Away

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

This is an extremely strong ability with a long recharge time, but it is restricted to the Gnome race. Being able to go invisible when you take damage allows you to escape any more damage and get advantage on your next hit.

Great for Gnome Rogues, though Gnomes are usually more conducive to Wizards and Artificers.

Fey Teleportation

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Misty step is a fantastic spell. If your spell list doesn’t have it, this is a solid way to get it. Builds that will particularly love this are bards, paladins, and artificers. All classes that don’t innately have access to misty step but will benefit from the +1 to CHA or INT should consider Fey Teleportation.

If you are interested in this feat Fey Touched (A Tier) is a better version, if you don’t care about learning Sylvan.

Flames of Phlegethos

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Great feat for fire-focused Wizards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks that can increase the damage of spells and provide some protection.

Infernal Constitution

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

+1 to CON is beneficial for HP and CON saving throws, and damage resistances are always quite strong. Gaining resistance to poison or cold damage individually would simply be too narrow to put this feat in the B Tier but the combination, plus advantage against being poisoned makes it worth it.

Inspiring Leader

Player’s Handbook

There are plenty of ways to get temp hitpoints, but this is free and can be repeated every long rest. The fact that it takes into account your level plus CHA modifier means that this feat will scale quite well as you level up.

Mage Slayer

Player’s Handbook

Mage Slayer is one of those feats that can shift based on your campaign quite easily. If your DM throws enemy spellcasters at you quite often, this can easily be an A Tier feat. If you never go up against them, this is a D Tier feat. Right now it’s in the B Tier because in an average game, Mage Slayer will end up being useful every couple of encounters.

Metamagic Adept

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

This is a very similar feat to Martial Adept in the sense that you gain a good class feature, but its usefulness is limited by the number of times you can use it per long rest. This feat is teetering on the edge of being an A Tier feat because of the utility it can offer casters, the lack of uses per long rest just weighs it down.

This is also similar to Martial Adept because Metamagic Adept is arguably the most useful when taken by a sorcerer, though it can work decently well in any CHA-based caster class.

Moderately Armored

Player’s Handbook

Easily the best armor proficiency feat. This allows light armor wearers to pump their AC by at least 4 (breastplate + shield) or even 5, if you are okay with disadvantaged Stealth checks (half plate + shield).

Coupled with the fact that it’s a half-feat so you can still pump DEX by 1, Moderately Armored is a tempting feat for any class without better AC options. 

Observant

Player’s Handbook

Observant provides a fair amount of utility for a half-feat. Being able to read lips is extremely beneficial while sneaking or playing in political campaigns.

The +5 to passive Perception and Investigation is always useful, though the obscure rules around passive skills may prevent this feat from providing as much as a benefit as it should. Adding +1 WIS at the end of all of these utility buffs makes this feat a great pickup for any builds concerned with WIS. 

Orcish Fury

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

This is a solid half-feat that can benefit any half-orc melee character. The +1 to STR and CON is solid and so is the weapon attack after using Relentless Endurance, but the main benefit comes in the extra damage dice.

The efficiency of adding one of the weapon’s damage dice will really depend on what weapon you’re using. If you take this feat you should really consider a greataxe because a greatsword will only add 1d6 (instead of 2d6).

It is also suggested that you leave this ability for when you land a critical hit because you can use this ability “when you hit” and double the dice, much like a Paladin’s smite.

Piercer

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Piercer is essentially the half-orc’s Brutal Critical combined with the Savage Attacker feat and you get to +1 STR or DEX which is a lot of value from one feat.

Something to keep in mind is that this damage isn’t restricted to melee combat, so this is a great feat to pick up for a ranged build as well.

Poisoner

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Crafting has never been a large focus in 5e and this feat is a good start. When it comes to using poison in combat, ignoring poison resistance isn’t nearly as helpful as ignoring poison immunity would be, but being able to apply the poison to a weapon as a bonus action, rather than an action helps with the feat’s viability.

One thing to note is this feat also provides the ability to make poison at a much faster rate than ever before. For reference, in the PHB, it states that it would take 20 days to craft a single vial of basic poison. In comparison, this feat allows you to create your proficiency bonus worth of vials in an hour.

Ritual Caster

Player’s Handbook

Ritual Caster is a solid feat with a reasonable floor. Usually, the best combination would be to take the Wizard spell list and learn Detect Magic and Find Familiar, as these are both powerful 1st-level spells to be able to cast whenever you want (as long as you have 10 minutes).

This feat really begins to shine if you start to find ritual spells throughout the campaign. Keep in mind, this may need discussion with your DM to ask if they could include spell scrolls or spellbooks as loot.

Now, this feat does have a fairly high trade-off. Having to pump your INT or WIS when you are not usually using those for other class abilities will use a fair amount of resources to get up to 13 + taking a feat. That said, this is a great feat for Eldritch Knights, Arcane Tricksters, and Rangers who all have either a WIS or INT spellcasting modifier but no Ritual Casting by default.

Squat Nimbleness

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

This is a solid half-feat because it provides a lot of small benefits that add together into something that is viable. Usually, this will be chosen by a melee STR dwarf or DEX halfling so they can even out the disadvantages of their “small” race.

Telekinetic

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

This feat can offer some serious utility. Never underestimate an invisible mage hand that can move 60ft and shove as a bonus action. Plus, an increase to INT, WIS, or CHA never hurts.

Telepathic

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Being able to communicate telepathically at up to 60ft offers a fair amount of utility and the Detect Thought spell is extremely strong in roleplaying scenarios. Throw in a free ASI to INT, WIS, or CHA and you’ve got yourself a viable feat.

Tough

Player’s Handbook

Tough is always good, if not very exciting. An extra 2hp per level certainly adds up and will be an extra 40 hit points by level 20.

Wood Elf Magic

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

This feat allows you to pick up some pretty good spells. Druid cantrips aren’t particularly exciting because Thorn Whip is about as good as it gets. Longstrider isn’t very useful, but Pass Without Trace is an absolutely amazing spell, even if you don’t have great WIS.

This is a strong pickup for a wood elf Bard, Paladin, Sorcerer, or Warlock who is looking for some extra utility.

C Tier

C Tier feats have some utility, but are often situational.

Actor

Player’s Handbook

A cool feat, if a little clunky. This Mission Impossible style feat is solid for infiltration, though there are spells that are similarly as effective. The fact that it is a half-feat certainly makes up for it a bit, but it’s questionable to choose a feat that a spell like Invisibility can accomplish quite easily, if in a different manner.

Defensive Duelist

Player’s Handbook

Being able to add your proficiency bonus to your AC is a great use of your reaction. This is a solid trait for finesse builds that don’t have access to spells like shield or some other defensive reaction. Unfortunately for Defensive Duelist, several classes already offer better defensive abilities, some that don’t even need a reaction. Even still, Defensive Duelist isn’t outright bad and can contribute to the survivability of a DEX-based martial character.

Dragon Hide

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

This feat unfortunately just doesn’t synergize that well with Dragonborns. The unarmored bonus is nice, but only really for classes that don’t get access to armor or an unarmored defence feature.

The claws only do 1d4 and use your STR modifier, so even if you pump DEX for the unarmored defense, you are leaving behind damage for the claws.

The class that this feature synergizes with most is probably Bard, Sorcerer, or Warlock so you can always have the equivalent of Mage Armor, use the Dragonborn’s CHA for spellcasting, and use the claws as a backup.

Durable

Player’s Handbook

Unless you are in a very hard, gritty game of D&D, Hit Dice don’t run out very easily. If your campaign doesn’t allow for Long Rests very often (lots of dungeon delving, etc.), this could be a worthwhile pickup.

Dwarven Fortitude

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Usually, this feat will be taken by a tanking melee class. If there is one thing support casters don’t want is the tank using their entire action to take the Dodge action.

With the wide variety of ranged healing options, melee fighters really shouldn’t be in a situation where they need to take this feat.

Elemental Adept

Player’s Handbook

The damage added by Elemental Adept is certainly disappointing, so the main draw of this feat is to ignore resistances. Damage resistances really shouldn’t be an issue to a well-rounded character, but if you want to run, say, a pure fire sorcerer, then this could be worth it.

Fighting Initiate

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

While the initial idea is great, this feat just lacks the power it needs to be a truly sought-after feat. Most builds that use fighting styles will get access to the ones they need through their class features. Even if you don’t have access, taking a dip into the Fighter class provides a d10 hit dice, tons of good proficiencies, a fighting style, and second wind.

Healer

Player’s Handbook

This feat’s rating is one of the most variable depending on the type of campaign your DM runs. If your DM runs low-magic settings, prefers using the typical 5-6 encounters per adventuring day, or uses the gritty realism variant, this feat will be much more valuable. This feat is also great for Thief Rogues that can use a bonus action to use the healer’s kit and when your party that doesn’t have a Paladin or Cleric.

Heavily Armored

Player’s Handbook

Heavy armor is one of the more sought after proficiencies due to the non-scaling AC of 5e. That said, it comes with a fair amount of downsides in that you have to devote a lot of resources to STR, and you get disadvantage on Stealth checks.

If your character build values AC over ASI for their primary stats, this is a reasonable pick up.

Lightly Armored

Player’s Handbook

This half-feat can be useful for casters who want to save spell slots instead of casting Mage Armor each day. That said, caster classes don’t get a lot of ASIs, so taking this feat comes at quite the opportunity cost.

Martial Adept

Player’s Handbook

This is a good feat because Battle Master maneuvers can be quite strong, but it is limited by the superiority dice. You only get one die and it doesn’t scale with your level. 

This feat is usually most effective for the Battle Master subclass from which it came. This is because you get two new maneuvers and an extra superiority dice, which is a reasonable increase in place of an ASI.

Medium Armor Master

Player’s Handbook

This isn’t a bad feat, it is just limited by which classes actually want to use it. Because you have to have proficiency with medium armor, this limits the pool of eligible classes. Additionally, most of the classes that have medium armor proficiency would rather use heavy armor (Fighters, Clerics, and Paladins). Then, you have the classes that have medium armor proficiencies but likely won’t use them (Barbarians, Druids). The more you look at it, the more you realize that this feat will only be picked up constantly by Rangers.

Mounted Combatant

Player’s Handbook

This is a solid feat, but it needs a fair amount of setup in order to be effective. Because most mounts are quite squishy (Warhorses only have 19 hit points) even taking half damage from a fireball or dragon’s breath can be enough to finish it off.

This feat really shines for the paladin class because of find greater steed, and is really the only viable option for this feat.

Revenant Blade

Eberron: Rising from the Last War

This feat is mainly beneficial to Rogues who are using the double-bladed scimitar with both hands. Rogues like this feat is because it gives +1 to AC while also allowing you to use your DEX to attack with it.

2d4 + 1d4 is better damage on average than 2d6 (dual wielding short swords), and the 1d4 bonus action doesn’t count as an offhand attack, so you can still add your DEX to attack and damage.

Combined with the fact that this is a half-feat and you can still pump your DEX makes this is a solid feat to build a character around.

Second Chance

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

This half-feat allows you to make a target roll at disadvantage if they hit you. It’s an alright ability, but really only worth it if you have a high AC in the first place. A spell like Shield is always a better use of your reaction.

Skilled

Player’s Handbook

Not great, not terrible. If you want to offer more utility to your party, Skilled is a decent way of doing so. Unfortunately, this ability is outdone by Prodigy, which is the far superior skill-based feat.

Skulker

Player’s Handbook

This feat certainly has some use for a very specific build. Being able to hide while lightly obscured is a wood elf trait, and being able to see in dim light comes with Darkvision, so if you are a human Rogue or Ranger, this could be a good pick up.

Slasher

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Unfortunately the worst of the melee damage type feats. This doesn’t offer as much damage as Piecer and the effect you impose on hit and crit is more situational than Crusher.

Spell Sniper

Player’s Handbook

A good feat that is somewhat kneecapped by the fact that the cantrip you get to choose from another class’ list uses their spellcasting modifier. 

Every class would love to have eldritch blast, and be able to cast it from 240ft away while ignoring half and three-quarters cover, but this is only going to be viable for other CHA-based casters.

Tavern Brawler

Player’s Handbook

Unfortunately, Tavern Brawler isn’t a fighting style-defining feat like Shield Master, Sharpshooter, or Great Weapon Master. Even with this feat, grapple-based character builds that use improvised weapons will always be outpaced by regular melee classes.

D Tier

D Tier feats do not offer much of anything to a character build. These feats are mainly chosen for flavor purposes, not to improve your character.

Athlete

Player’s Handbook

The only thing in this feat really worth anything (apart from the STR or DEX ASI) is the elimination of extra movement cost to climbing.

Only take this feat if that stipulation is extremely important to your class build.

Charger

Player’s Handbook

Without considerably building around this feat, Charger is not a good use of your turn when you have an extra attack. Of course, there will be situations where dashing and taking an attack will be useful, but taking an ASI to +2 STR or DEX will always outpace this feat.

Dungeon Delver

Player’s Handbook

This feat could be useful if your campaign revolves primarily around dungeon delving (as the feat suggests). Otherwise, it has a very low floor.

Grappler

Basic Rules

This feat falls flat when it comes to making grappling a worthwhile use of action economy. The main issue is that you have to use a full action to attempt to pin a creature in order to restrain them. Even then, the creature can attack with disadvantage.

Keen Mind

Player’s Handbook

This half-feat can be somewhat mitigated by playing with a bit of discipline. If you are forgetful, taking notes during your session can completely negate the need for this feat.

The other parts of this half-feat are extremely situational and are not likely to be relevant in a campaign very often.

Linguist

Player’s Handbook

There are way better ways to provide secret information in D&D 5e than sending a ciphered message. The extra languages may come in handy in your campaign, as long as you choose correctly.

Savage Attacker

Player’s Handbook

Unfortunately, the math just doesn’t check out on this feat. For a more in depth explanation, see this Reddit thread.

Weapon Master

Player’s Handbook

Most builds that want to use a specific weapon have proficiency in that weapon. This isn’t even worth it as a half-feat.