Best Feats for War Wizard 5e
by Prince Phantom
For a subclass that advertises itself as a combination between an Evoker and an Abjurer, this really plays much more like a different flavor of Abjurer, with an absolutely laughable offensive feature thrown in to save face. Yeah Power Surge at level 6 is such a small damage bump that even the Goblin’s Fury of the Small outpaces it unless you are somehow collecting tons of surges every day. No, the real meat of this subclass is obtained right at level 2, Arcane Deflection. The +2 to AC is nice for when Shield would be overkill, but a +4 to saving throws is an absolutely insane bonus.
The cost of not being able to cast a leveled spell next turn is steep, but it actually plays into this subclass’s greatest strength; it’s multiclassing potential. Tons of Artificers, Eldritch Knights, Psi Warriors, Arcane Tricksters, and many other builds would benefit greatly from a two level dip to grab Arcane Deflection plus all the other great stuff that comes from being a Wizard. Playing the subclass straight to 20 isn’t a bad option either, as while our 6th level feature is lacking, both the 10th and 14th level features definitely go a ways towards making up for it. Of course I’ll be making this feat list assuming you are going mostly Wizard, and on that front, things are pretty standard overall, with a few small exceptions.
Best Feats for War Wizard 5e
War Caster (Lv 4): Since we can use Arcane Deflection to buff our concentration checks, this feat is really all we need to ensure our concentration for our entire campaign. If at very high levels you find yourself dropping concentration due to multiple high-damage attacks in a single round, you may want to consider Resilient Constitution, but we definitely don’t need that feat as much as most other Wizards do. The other features are build dependent, but to note, a large number of the multiclass builds that include this subclass do like to fight with their hands full.
Telekinetic (Lv 8): This feat gets a boost in importance for us, as we really want to be maximizing those turns where we can only cast a cantrip. Adding a consistent, resourceless 5ft shove to our arsenal opens a wide range of options, including keeping enemies inside the areas of our spells and getting friends out of bad situations by either pushing them to give them a free disengage or doing the same to break a grapple. Improvements to Mage Hand and our intelligence is also nice, especially because we want as high of an intelligence as possible ASAP to take full advantage of our initiative bonus. That same bonus also means we can comfortably skip Alert, as you don’t really need to go that overboard with boosting your initiative modifier.
Fey/Shadow Touched (Lv 8): These feats provide good spells known, prepared, and cast once per day for free, and that plus a bonus to intelligence all sounds like a great package to me, even if the best spells from these two feats are on the Wizard spell list normally. Because of that fact, I rate these two pretty evenly, so pick whichever fills the holes in your spell list the best.
Metamagic Adept (Lv 12): So I don’t normally recommend this feat to non-sorcerers just because it doesn’t add enough to justify a feat selection without a specific strategy in mind. That’s still entirely true here, I’ve just completely run out of feats that pair well with this subclass. To be clear, unlike the monk who desperately wants more feats to be relevant, this Wizard simply doesn’t need a ton of feats to be good. Just another bullet point of the ever-debated martial/caster divide I suppose.
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.
