Best Feats for Battle Master Fighter 5e
by Prince Phantom
The Battle Master is the gold standard for martial subclass design in my opinion, so much so that a lot of groups actually add the maneuvers to all Fighters, sometimes even all spell-less martials. The nature of the maneuvers list also makes this one of the most highly customizable martials in 5e, meaning feat selection could vary wildly from Battle Master to Battle Master.
I’ll try to cover as many potential winners as I can and highlight all the possible synergies with different maneuvers, so hopefully your Battle Master can profit from this list no matter their speciality.
Best Feats for Battle Master Fighter 5e
Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter (ASAP): You definitely can build a melee Battle Master and do very well, but reading through the maneuvers list makes it very clear that a ranged character is optimal. So many maneuvers just work better for ranged characters as they have the ability to chose their targets freely. The melee Battle Master may not be able to reach the orc stabbing the Wizard to perform a Maneuvering Attack to get the Wizard out of danger, but the ranged character never has that problem. Menacing Attack is especially great at range, as fear restricts an opponent’s movement more and more the further away they are. Goading Attack is another example, as our opponent may not be able to reach us, meaning any attack they make will be at disadvantage. There are a few maneuvers that only work in melee, but they aren’t standouts so you aren’t missing much. As always, take Crossbow Expert first and then Sharpshooter, as Crossbow Expert provides more damage on average than Sharpshooter until you get extra attack.
Martial Adept (Lv 6): There are a ton of great maneuvers, so many in fact that you may not find you have enough selections to satisfy yourself. You definitely don’t need two more maneuvers and an extra superiority die, but Fighters get so many feats that taking this just because you want to isn’t going to hurt your build.
Slasher/Crusher (Lv 6): If you are a melee build, these two feats both help control enemy positions in different ways. Combining Crusher with Pushing Attack for example gives a 20ft push tacked onto your attack, and that is a ton of forced movement. Slasher reduces speed, which works well with something like Trip Attack, as knocking them prone is even worse for them the lower their speed is.
Magic Initiate/Fey Touched (Lv 8): These two feats give us a couple of magical abilities for our ever growing toolbox, and both have their merits. Magic Initiate is my choice if my party is lacking a familiar, and Fey Touched is for parties that do have one. Notably, our maneuvers require us to make a weapon attack, not attack with our action. This means that maneuvers work with Booming Blade. This is mostly relegated to multiclass builds that don’t intend to take advantage of extra attack and only want a maximum of 4 Fighter levels, but it is something interesting to build around.
Sentinel (Lv 8): Here’s a build concept for you if you want to play in melee: Grab Polearm Master and hit your enemy with a Menacing Attack with your 10ft of reach. Now, your opponent can only run away, as the frightened condition prevents them from stepping toward you. With Sentinel, we can stop their movement when they try to run, fixing them in place with no one to attack unless they have reach or a ranged attack. We don’t mind them making a ranged attack, as most monsters that have ranged attacks do much more damage in melee, and they will have disadvantage anyway.
Alert (Lv 10): If you are very interested in landing something like Menacing Attack like I am, doing so earlier in battle is always better. Putting a control effect on a creature is not something that many martials have the capability to do, so we should take advantage of this as much as possible. You can also potentially combine this with Ambush, and assuming you are Dexterity based, that gives you an average of +14.5 to your initiative. Depending on your point of view, that’s either overkill or perfect, and I can’t fault you for either opinion.
Resilient Wisdom (Lv 10): You want to know what the worst part about us being mind controlled is? Our DM can and will use up all of our Superiority Dice before we regain control of our character. I’d highly recommend you get at least a 12 in Wisdom, preferably a 14 after this feat gives you a +1, as Wisdom saves get very rough in higher tier play.
Inspiring Leader (Lv 12): There are maneuvers to support a more Charisma leaning Battle Master, so this might be a decent option for those builds. Party wide temporary hp is hard to come by, but once you have a sustainable source of it, you don’t need a second, so don’t take this if your party already has this department covered.
Tough/Lucky (Lv 14): Thanks to Fighter’s abundance of feats, you can probably fit both of these on your sheet by 20th level, and doing so provides a huge increase to our survivability. Lucky stacks with Indomitable to give us extra rerolls on saving throws and protects us from crits, and Tough is just more overall durability. Both are good, but I’d probably take Lucky first over Tough.
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