Best Feats for Swarmkeeper Ranger 5e
by Prince Phantom
A personal favorite of mine among the Ranger subclasses, the Swarmkeeper provides a litany of control and defensive options that really expand the Ranger’s base capabilities in a very unique way. Right at 3rd level, we are presented with their best feature, a choice between damage, forced movement, or moving ourselves once per turn when we hit our target.
Damage is nice, but a forced 15ft move is incredible, and opens up a ton of synergistic possibilities. You can rake your foes over a Spike Growth, toss them back into a Web (a spell also granted by this subclass), and so much more. These are the things we need to be looking to synergize with when selecting feats, and as such the ten feats below are ranked in accordance with which ones I believe further the Swarmkeeper playstyle the most.
Best Feats for Swarmkeeper Ranger 5e
Sharpshooter/Great Weapon Master: Do you remember what I said about synergies? Yeah, forget that for just a second. We are making weapon attacks, therefore we must take at least one of these and build ourselves around them to be effective. The mathematical difference between someone who does and someone who does not take one of these is staggering. Sharpshooter is probably the best of the two, as we probably don’t have the ability scores to pump up Strength, Dexterity to 14 (to max out medium armor), Constitution, and Wisdom. However, if you rolled crazy stats and want to try something unique, a Strength-based Ranger is a lovely choice.
Crusher: Okay, we’re back on the synergy train. Crusher gives us a free 5ft push on a hit from any bludgeoning damage. Stacking this with our 15ft push gives us a massive control effect for no resource cost, and still gives us a 5ft push when the enemy succeeds their save. How do we get bludgeoning damage you ask? Well, the strength based ranger uses a mace or a polearm with Polearm Master (the butt-end attack is bludgeoning damage), and the ranged Ranger has a few options. You could take a 1 level dip into Dao Genie Warlock, giving your proficiency bonus in bludgeoning damage to one attack per turn. This stretches our ability scores a lot, as we want a very high Wisdom so enemies fail their save. In my opinion, the best way is to use a sling plus the Magic Stone cantrip. This is still compatible with Sharpshooter and allows us to attack with our wisdom, removing the need to max our Dexterity.
Alert: Going first in initiative is great for anyone, but for a Swarmkeeper it's amazing. This lets us set up a Spike Growth or Web before the enemies get mixed up with martial characters or casting their own control spells. This plus our good Dexterity should give us a +7 or more to our initiative. The other benefits to Alert are nice, but we’re here for the initiative boost.
Fey Touched: This is another feat that is good for everyone but great for us. We don’t have any teleportation options until very high level, so Misty Step is wonderful for us. As for the free spell, talk with your DM about getting Gift of Alacrity. The D8 to initiative plus Alert will ensure that we almost always go first in combat. You may also want to start your campaign with an odd number wisdom score so this can bump you up to a higher modifier.
Resilient: We are already proficient in Dexterity saves, so we’re taking this for either Wisdom or Constitution. If your DM loves to throw Wisdom saves at you, definitely take Wisdom as failing one of those could take you out of a fight entirely. Constitution does help our concentration checks, but there are other ways to boost those, whereas there are no additional ways to boost Wisdom saves.
Polearm Master: For the Strength-based Rangers, Polearm Master gives us bludgeoning damage to enable Crusher, extra damage in the form of a bonus action attack, and an almost guaranteed opportunity attack every turn. If you’ve got the stats for this build, you can crank out crazy high damage numbers every turn. Remember that the butt-end attack is still eligible for Great Weapon Master.
Metamagic Adept: We’re mostly here for Quickened Spell, so take that plus whichever other one you want. We’ll use Quicken Spell on the first turn of our biggest fight of the day to lay down our control spell and still make our attacks. As for other options, I’m partial to Subtle Spell just for the shenanigans it can provide. It also allows us to keep an important spell from being counterspelled if you find that your DM loves to keep you from having fun.
Ritual Caster: We’ve got the wisdom for it, and we don’t really care about more cantrips, so this is the best way to get Find Familiar. Other ritual spells are nice, and you should basically pick up as many of them as you can throughout your campaign. Make sure to talk to your DM about the possibility of finding more rituals as you play. If they say you’ll never find any and you still want Find Familiar, take Magic Initiate instead.
Crossbow Expert: If you went the Dao Genie dip to get bludgeoning damage for Crusher or just don’t care about Crusher at all, you’ll want to take this if you plan to fight at range. The bonus action attack just adds so much damage every round that it basically invalidates the longbow. If you get a feat at level 1, this actually adds more damage than Sharpshooter per turn. Just make sure to take Sharpshooter at level 4.
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