Best Feats for Rogue 5e
by Prince Phantom
My vote for the second worst class in the game, Rogues struggle to compete in terms of damage, durability, and out of combat utility. You might seek to debate that last one, and I’ll give you that among the martials, Rogue has the best utility, but that’s like saying a rabbit is the fastest of a group of it and 3 turtles. Rogues have to play by the rules, spellcasters do not.
A rogue has to actually get close to that trap to disarm it, potentially putting themselves in harms way, while the Wizard can just throw an expendable summon at it. Sneak Attack makes it look like a Rogue is doing a ton of damage to new players, but masks the fact that every other class in the game (besides Monks at higher levels) outpaces their DPR. All this to say, we need a ton of help from our feats. I’ll be denoting if a feat is better for a melee or ranged Rogue, but do note that ranged Rogues are better in general, dealing more damage and staying out of harm’s way for most of the fight.
Best Feats for Rogue 5e
Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter (ASAP, ranged): This is why ranged Rogues deal more damage. Because of the restrictions around Sneak Attack, no weapons compatible with Great Weapon Master work for us optimally. We need both of these feats and we need them fast to deal decent damage, and even then we are still outpaced by other classes who take the same feats. Crossbow Expert is especially necessary because it gives us a second chance to land our Sneak Attack.
Magic Initiate (ASAP for melee, Lv 8 for ranged): While this feat is good for both builds, it (or 1 level in Wizard) is necessary for melee Rogues. Grab Find Familiar and summon one that can fit in your pocket. My favorite is the crab because it has blindsight. Now, throw that crab in your pocket and you always have Sneak Attack, because as long as you are within 5ft of your enemy, your familiar is, and your familiar counts as an ally. Also pick up Booming Blade for extra damage to somewhat make up the difference between you and a ranged build, and your other favorite utility cantrip. For ranged builds, still take Find Familiar, but you’re more free on what two cantrips you want.
Fey Touched/Shadow Touched (Lv 8): I rate these pretty evenly for Rogues. Both primary spells are useful and will come up often, and while Shadow has far fewer options for the 1st level spell, the good options are very useful for a Rogue, namely Silent Image. As for Fey; Silvery Barbs, Bless, and Gift of Alacrity are all good choices. I think I just like Silent Image more because it gives us another tool that we wouldn’t normally get. Honestly, if I have the room for it I might take them both.
Lucky (Lv 10): Rogues give us an extra feat at level 10, and thank goodness they do. Lucky is a good defensive option when things go really south from a bad saving throw or an enemy getting a crit on us. Please be picky with how you use those 3 luck points, I have seen far too many people throw them away on useless ability checks.
Resilient (Lv 10): We’re choosing between Con and Wis saves, and the answer is campaign dependent. Pay attention to which of these your DM uses more, and which ones are effecting you the worst. Constitution saves are generally less detrimental, but Wisdom saves are rarer on average. Obviously you should take Con if your build relies around concentrating on a spell, like might be the case for Arcane Tricksters.
Ritual Caster (Lv 12): An odd choice at first glance but a very fun one. This is how the Rogue gets to break the rules finally. By this level, almost every ritual in the game is available to us if we can find it and copy it down. Hey, you’re already a Rogue, time to get to some swiping and stealing. With this we can get excellent out of combat spells like Detect Magic, Unseen Servant, or even Telepathic Bond. We can even use this to empower our combat with something like Phantom Steed, giving us an admittedly fragile but extremely fast mount, perfect for staying out of our enemy’s range.
Honorable Mentions:
Elven Accuracy (ranged): This is a racial feat an available to elves and half-elves, so I didn’t put it on the list as it potentially isn’t an option for your character. If, however, you do qualify, this is a decent option. As of Tasha’s, Rogues can grant themselves advantage whenever they want, so we can expect this feat to come up regularly. The increased accuracy is quite nice and increases our overall damage pretty significantly for ranged Rogues.
Revenant Blade (melee): Ok this one is a really deep cut. Coming to us from Eberron (so if you aren’t playing in that setting, ask your DM before taking this) is the double-bladed scimitar, a weapon with some really cool properties that just happen to work well with the Rogue. The actual math of it is beyond the scope of this article, but the short of it is that this weapon plus this feat equates to the most damage that a melee Rogue can put out without help from spells or teammates. It’s also just really freaking cool. Tell your DM I said they should allow this.
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