Best Feats for Artificer 5e
by Prince Phantom
Artificers can serve a wide range of party roles, from damage dealer to tank, stealthy lock picker, control caster, party buffer, and even the very important role of worst character if you picked Alchemist! That being said, you really should focus down one specific role and hone your build towards it.
Artificer already gives a bunch of opportunities for customization thanks to their infusions, and your feat selection will be extraordinary dependent on your build. For this reason, I’ll try to give a few feats for each appropriate level, hoping that at least one fits the build you are looking for. I’ll also denote what subclasses these feats are best for, as Artificer subclasses have major effects on how the character plays.
Best Feats for Artificer 5e
Sharpshooter (ASAP, Battle Smith and maybe Armorer): These two subclasses provide extra attack, and it’s definitely worth investing in our weapon attacks. Of course, if you insist on melee then take Great Weapon Master instead, but I really don’t recommend that any Artificer besides a Defender Armorer intentionally go into melee. D8 hit die just doesn’t do it most of the time.
Heavy Armor Master (Lv 4, Armorer only): Armorers are the only Artificer to get heavy armor proficiency, so this only applies to them. This is a great way to increase an Armorer’s durability at early levels, and while it doesn’t scale, it’s still nice to have at later levels. If you are going to take this, take it at or before level 8. After that, other feats will be much more impactful. This is especially needed for Defender Armorers, as they are expected to be in the front line, and -3 damage to every attack makes a D8 hit die go a lot farther.
Magic Initiate (Lv 4, all): It’s time for the part of these articles where I talk about how great Find Familiar is and how everyone should grab it if possible. We are also starved for cantrips, and some Artificers are basically forced to take Mending, meaning they only get one other choice, which should probably be Guidance. I will note that a single or even few level dip into Wizard is really good for many Artificers. Only Battle Smiths get access to Shield, and the expanded spell slots are a very welcome addition. If you do this dip, you won’t need this feat.
Telekinetic (Lv 8, Alchemist and Armorer): These two subclasses generally leave our bonus action free, which is perfect for this feat. Move allies out of danger, move enemies into danger, and get a cool utility cantrip. What’s not to love?
Sentinel (Lv 8, Defender Armorer only): Defender Armorers are trying to fulfill the tank role of a party. A big fallacy is that a good tank is someone who can simply survive a ton of hits. This can’t be farther from the truth. Your huge sack of hit points is pretty worthless when the rest of your party is bleeding out because the enemies knew they couldn’t hit you and your 23 AC. Enemies with any semblance of intelligence will go after the weaker looking members of your party first, and the massive, golem-like monstrosity of metal and death is definitely not an appealing target. You need ways to make enemies focus on you. Thankfully, the Defender Armorer provides one avenue for that, and this provides us another. Note that the attack of opportunity granted by this feat happens before the attack targeting your friend is actually rolled for, meaning if you hit, they now have disadvantage on that attack and all subsequent attacks. Your party will love you for this one.
Fey Touched (Lv 8, all): More spells on a half caster just feels so good, and the list of spells you can get with this is crazy. Did I ever mention you can get Silvery Barbs with this feat? Teleportation is also pretty hard to come by on Artificers, so this fills a hole in our spell repertoire. I promise you will never feel disappointed with Fey Touched.
War Caster (Lv 8, all): All Artificer spells require material components (your tools of choice), so you may even want to grab this early if you plan on holding a weapon and a shield. All but the Alchemist (lol) can get around this issue with abilities from their subclass. Artillerists use their gun, Armorers their armor, and Battle Smiths can use an infused or magic weapon as their focus. Despite this, this feat is still quite worth it. As a half caster, it hurts us a lot more to drop concentration on a spell, and getting Booming Blade opportunity attacks as a Defender Armorer is pretty sweet.
Resilient (Lv 12, all): Time to shore up our Wisdom saves! This combines with our Flash of Genius Artificer ability that we gain at 7th level to ensure it will be very rare that we fail a save we care about. Always remember, it doesn’t matter how high your AC is when your DM asks you to make a Wisdom save.
Tough (Lv 12, all but especially Defender Armorers): Tough is just a good filler feat at high levels, but if we want to be a Defender Armorer on the front lines, we need this at 12th level. As we get to higher levels, we will be fighting enemies with +10-20 for their attacks. We can’t rely on our AC quite as much anymore.
Gift of the Gem Dragon (Lv 16, all): Use this wonderful defensive feature when you are fairly sure that the creature doesn’t have enough movement left to get back to you and make the rest of its attacks. Great for everyone, wonderful for Defender Armorers who are likely to be attacked and are likely finding that their AC is not holding up as well in these higher levels.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.
