Best Feats for Beast Barbarian 5e

by Prince Phantom

This subclass leaves my optimization trained brain confused. The highest damage option it provides for us is the claws, which I’ll explain later, the bite is only useful in niche circumstances, and the tail is a mediocre defensive option that uses up our reaction, something I’d much rather use on an opportunity attack provided by Polearm Master.

Best Feats for Beast Barbarian 5e

Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master (ASAP*): I’m sorry but the math is not in these natural weapon’s favor. The extra attack provided by our claws is outclassed on every turn except the turn we rage, and the bite and tail fair much worse. On turn one we can rage and take two swipes with our claws, but after that it’s time for the glaive, and even that strategy is only good until we get Great Weapon Master. The fact that Great Weapon Master can’t apply to any of our natural weapons is a death sentence to their usefulness. You’re free to ignore all this if you’d like, but I warn that you will fall behind in terms of damage when compared to other weapon users, very far behind at higher levels.
Poisoner (ASAP*): If you do instead to decide to go to the claws route, there is one method of increasing our damage. Poisoner allows us to use our otherwise unused bonus action to apply a poison to our claw, dealing at least an extra 2d8 poison damage on our first hit. Poison damage is famously the worst damage type in 5e, so I can’t recommend this wholeheartedly, but if your DM allows you to concoct or find special poisons, this might be worth your time. Definitely talk to your DM before picking this one up.
Dual Wielder (ASAP*): Here’s something funny, we can’t actually dual wield our claws without this feat. They aren’t considered light weapons. Yes, that is stupid, and yes, your DM should totally handwave that. I have to write these assuming you are playing by RAW however. If you want to fight with your claws and Poisoner isn’t going to be a good fit for you, this gives us a bonus action attack, but it’s only a d6 plus our rage bonus. You’ll want to take at least one level of Fighter to pick up the Two-Weapon Fighting Style, allowing you to also add your strength to the damage roll. The +1 AC isn’t bad either, but it’s not why we’re here. You could also just forgo all of this and hold a shield in your other hand if defense is your concern, grabbing the Dueling Fighting Style in that case.
Skill Expert (Lv 4): If you decide to go for the claws, you are conceding your damage dealing capabilities. This means that we need to specialize in something else to be useful to our party. No, being able to take a lot of physical attacks is not enough to make your existence in the party worthwhile. Taking Skill Expert for Athletics means that we will basically never fail a grapple check, and with our extra movement speed we can drag enemies around the battlefield exceptionally well. Work with your party to combine this with spells like Spike Growth and Wall of Fire.
Sentinel (Lv 8): If we go the weapon wielding route, this could be a decent selection for us. The combination with Polearm Master is obvious and time-tested, and keeping enemies on us is useful for protecting our allies.
Resilient Wisdom (Lv 8): No matter what our strategy is, we need to protect our Wisdom saves. It doesn’t matter how scary you think you look if you’re frozen in place by a Hold Person or worse, turned against your own party. Try and set your Wisdom to an odd number like 11 or 13 so that this increases your bonus as well when you take this feat.
Slasher (Lv 12): A bump to an ability score we care about, an extra effect on a crit, and a 10ft movement penalty to one target per turn. All this adds up to be decently worth it for us if we have an odd Strength score.
Lucky (Lv 16): A good defensive option to round out the character. We can force crits against us to be rerolled and get another chance at failed saving throws. Crits are more common against Barbarians because of Reckless Attack, so that first point is especially useful.

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