The Best Warlock Feats for D&D 5E

Also, generating power from the strength of a patron is a legitimate strategy in Dungeons & Dragons 5E. In fact, Warlocks are some of the strongest casters that you can choose, and they are stellar adventurers. As your Warlock grows in power, they can choose up to 5 optional feats to continue generating strength. These feats can prove immensely powerful, but there are a ton of options to choose from. What feats should you select to improve your power? And what are the best feats that a Warlock can select? Our Warlock feats list will inspire you and make you think about what ways you can best destroy your enemies.

The 10 5E Feats I Would Take as a Warlock

Before selecting feats as a part of the Warlock class, we highly recommend building your Charisma until you get to 20. 20 Charisma improves the effectiveness and damage of your spells, which is the most important part of being a Warlock. You may also want to improve your Constitution or Dexterity to allow you to tank hits better.

That being said, feats are incredibly enjoyable! These 10 feats are some of our favorites to use when we build Warlocks.

10. Tough

Tough is good for any Warlock, but especially for melee and Hexblade warlocks. this feat essentially gives you a +4 to your Constitution, when it comes to HP. That’s significant; 40 health at level 20 is enough to easily take an extra weapon hit, or negate enough damage from magic to keep you alive. That being said, it’s arguably not as good as +2 to Constitution, since you don’t get the bonus to Constitution saving throws. So, make sure you think about what’s more important; +1 HP per level, or +1 to your Constitution Saving Throw. It depends a lot on your specific Warlock build, and whether or not your Warlock has trouble with Concentration.

9. Telekinetic

This is a great feat. With the telekinetic feat, you get +1 to Charisma, negating half of the downside of taking a feat. You also get Mage Hand, which is a good cantrip by itself. Also, you can make it significantly stronger by knowing Mage Hand naturally; the buffs this thing gets to it’s stealth and range make it legitimately great. The bonus action allows the Warlock to have a consistently good option. 5 feet might sound like a short distance to push, but consider this; if an enemy is right next to you, threatening you, pushing them back 5 feet lets you escape without using an Action.

8. Shadow Touched

Shadow Touched is pretty great. Warlocks love the +1 to Charisma, as expected. While Warlocks can learn Invisibility, a Warlock has such limited spells known that learning an extra (and good) spell like Invisibility is wonderful. The additional 1st level spell is… Fine. Nothing here that you need to spend spell slots on. But, Ray of Sickness at least heightens with level. As does Color Spray, which the Warlock doesn’t have access to normally. Not bad at all!

7. Eldritch Adept

If you need that extra Invocation, you could do worse. Since you have a max of 8 invocations, this just brings you up to 9. That can allow you to get a strong invocation that you missed before; maybe you can finally get that Darkvision that you’ve always wanted, or pick up another level 15+ Invocation. That being said, Warlocks don’t benefit too much from this. You don’t get +1 to Charisma or anything like that, and it’s just a single Invocation. At least it lets you change two invocations for a level?

6. Metamagic Adept

Warlocks don’t have much to do with their bonus action. So, Metamagic Adept allows them to, once per day, cast a spell with their bonus action. This can be a huge surprise when you’re fighting a boss! Your damage potential is wild with Metamagic Adept, since you can cast a damaging spell and then use Eldritch Blast! A deadly combo. If you really want that burst damage, and maybe a bit of utility with something like Distant Spell or Empowered Spell, check Metamagic Adept out.

See Also: The Best Magic Items for Warlocks in 5E

5. Moderately Armored / Heavily Armored

The less you have to invest in Dexterity, the better. Moderately Armored allows you to get maximum AC out of just +2 Dexterity. That’s great, since it improves your survivability without needing high Dex. You won’t need Dexterity at all! Even better, if you were at 13 Dex, you can bump it up to 14 with Moderately Armored and max out your AC all in one go! Try to plan around this feat, if you want to take it, and you’ll benefit hugely!

For Hexblades, Heavily Armored does just the same thing, but even better! The Strength is mostly useless, but you get to ignore Dexterity entirely and still get a max of 18 AC. That’s big for your survivability! Great if you don’t want to invest in Charisma at all.

4. Inspiring Leader

This is one of the old feats that is actually pretty useful. You give everyone in your party (well, usually) an overshield until your next short rest. This shield is actually pretty huge when you think about it; at level 20 with 20 Charisma, you’re handing out a maximum of 150 HP per short rest. That’s extremely good! It can save the party from a fiery dragon’s breath, or be just enough health to keep a Lich from killing your Fighter. That’s really great, and one of the best ways a Warlock can support.

3. Fey Touched

The Fey Touched feat is all the way down here because I like it a lot more. +1 Charisma is a great start, but it just improves; Misty Step is my favorite 2nd level spell, and gives the Warlock a great spell to spend their Bonus Action on. The 1st level spells that you can choose from are also significantly better than the spells that Shadow Touched offers. Spells like Bless, Charm Person, Compelled Duel, Dissonant Whispers, Heroism, Hunter’s Mark (for a Hexblade), Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laughter… All legitimately good options for a Warlock! 

2. Alert

Alert is crazy good. As a Warlock, you’ve likely had situations where you swear you could have ended the fight early if you just went first. Alert is the best way to go first in the game, with a +5 to your Initiative being as much as 20 Dexterity. If that wasn’t enough, you are much better against stealthy ambushes and can’t be surprised very easily. This is a great feat, but not necessarily the one which we think is best for the Warlock’s game plan.

1. Spell Sniper

As a Warlock, you might always be just a bit worried about getting close to the enemies. With Eldritch Blast being the primary source of damage for the class, you have to be within range of arrows, spells, and more to do well. Not anymore! Spell Sniper doubles the range of your magic. That means an Eldritch Blast build can shoot a Blast and hit someone from… 600 feet away. And guess what? If you took Metamagic Adept, you can increase that range to 1200 feet! You can snipe someone from a quarter mile away! This matters less in dungeons than it does in open fields, but even in dungeons your attacks ignore cover. That’s an accuracy buff! Finally, you get a cantrip. That doesn’t matter too much, but some of these cantrips still have decent range on them.

Best Feats for Every Warlock Subclass

The differences between subclasses are significant, especially among warlocks. It should come as no surprise then that your choice of feats can also vary based on the patron you choose. Below, I’ve listed my favorite feat based on each warlock subclass.

• Archfey. Inspiring leader provides the Archfey warlock – and their friends – with temporary HP. Not bad.
• Celestial. For the celestial warlock, I generally recommend the old standby of war caster. With so few spell slots, holding onto concentration is especially nice.
• Fathomless. I would typically go with war caster for the Fathomless warlock as well.
• Fiend. With Eldritch Adept, the field warlock has a ton of options thanks to the addition of an eldritch invocation.
• Genie. Fey touched offers the Genie warlock access to two spells that are a perfect fit for them: misty step and silvery barbs.
• Great Old One. It’s hard to go against the old standby here. The great old one warlock pairs well with war caster.
• Hexblade. Unlike most other subclasses, hexblade warlocks are going to focus on melee combat. I love Great Weapon master here, especially when you will probably have +5 Charisma fairly early on.
• Undead. Moderately armored gives the undead warlock proficiency in medium armor, which can dramatically increase survivability.
• Undying. the shadow touched feat gives the undying warlock access to more spells, and it is nice and flavorful.

Synergies Between Feats and Pact Boons

Not only can your choice of subclass have an impact on your feat choices, but your pact magic will too. What works for the pact of the blade is often very different than a build focused on the pact of the tome. Below, I’ve covered the feat that has the best synergy with each of these pact boons.

Best Feat for Pact of the Blade

See Our Pact of the Blade 5E Guide

Great Weapon Master. If you’re going with pact of the blade, there is a pretty good chance you’re also playing a Hexblade warlock. At this point, it is going to be hard to do better than Great Weapon Master. Sacrificing your attack bonus is no fun, but if you play Hexblade you’ll be able to max out Charisma quickly anyway. Honorable mention to polearm master, which makes for some great combos with the Thirsting Blade and Lifedrinker invocations.

Best Feat for Pact of the Chain

See Our Pact of the Chain Guide

Actor. The Actor Feat in greatly complements the Pact of the Chain by allowing a player to mimic voices and sounds with advantage in Bluff and Performance after observing a subject for a minute, enhanced by Voice of the Pact Master for remote execution. This is one of those situations where your creativity can really shine! Incorporating Mask of Many Faces and Misty Visions multiplies the possibilities for deceit, enabling players to cloak familiars in illusions for added realism, change appearances with Disguise Self or Alter Self. This synergy offers boundless opportunities for creative problem-solving and role-playing within your campaign. As far as highlighting aspects outside of combat, this is one of the most fun options I have ever tried.

Best Feat for Pact of the Talisman

See Our Pact of the Talisman Guide

Lucky. You’re going to be making a lot of rolls with Pact of the Talisman, and some of those aren’t going to go your way. I love having a little luck in my back pocket on those days! This feat lets you reroll a bad bounce of the die as long as you call it before the outcome is announced.

Best Feat for Pact of the Tome

See Our Pact of the Tome 5e Guide

Eldritch Adept. Tome warlocks usually lean into spellcasting, and there are tons of invocations that can really enhance that build. The tough part is settling on the ones you want. Eldritch Adept gives you additional invocations, which I find helpful for basically every warlock build.

Conclusions – Warlock Feats

How did we do? Did we overvalue Spell Sniper? Undervalue Tough? Did we miss any feats like Mobile or Telepathic that deserve to be on this list? Tell us in the comments, and give us your favorite Warlock feat synergy that we missed out on! Be sure to see our Feats 5E guide for more options.