D&D 5e 2014 Combat Feats: All 18 Weapon Feats Ranked

Introduction

Eighteen feats in D&D 5e 2014 exist to change what happens when you swing a weapon. Two of them are so much stronger than the rest that most optimisation conversations stop there. Several are excellent and almost never discussed. Two are traps. And a number of the claims repeated about this group, including on this site until now, do not match what the feats actually say.

This guide covers all 18 in one place: exact mechanics, a class-by-class rating for each feat, the pairings that matter, the mistakes players make, and how each one compares to the feats competing for the same Ability Score Improvement slot. Feats gated behind a spellcasting class, an ancestry or a specific campaign setting are covered in the caster, racial and setting feat guides instead.

Rating system:

• ● Blue Fantastic. Build around it.
• ● Green Good. Reliable across multiple builds.
• ● Orange Situational. Strong in the right build, dead weight outside it.
• ● Red Trap. Avoid.

Disclaimer

This guide covers all 18 feats as written in the 2014 Player's Handbook and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, a 2014-era supplement. All rules, terminology and class references follow the 2014 edition. Several of these feats work differently in the 2024 rules update, Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter most of all, and none of that is covered here.

The Short Answer

Five feats carry the group. Two more are strong on the builds that want them. Nine are worth taking in a build built around exactly what they offer and worth nothing outside it. Two should not be taken.

How To Read A Combat Feat

Three questions separate good picks from bad ones, and none of them is "how big is the number".

What does it cost on the turn you use it?

A feat that adds damage to an attack you were already making costs nothing. Great Weapon Master's +10 is free in this sense: you were swinging anyway.

A feat that wants your bonus action competes with everything else that wants it, and you have one per turn. Polearm Master, Crossbow Expert, Shield Master and Tavern Brawler all claim it. So do Rage, Cunning Action, Hunter's Mark, Second Wind, Healing Hands and every bonus action spell. Two of these feats on one character means one of them is idle most turns.

A feat that wants your reaction has the same problem and it is less obvious. Sentinel's ally-protection trigger, Mage Slayer's punish-the-caster attack and Shield Master's damage negation all spend the single reaction you also need for ordinary opportunity attacks. Sentinel's speed-to-0 clause is the exception worth noting: it rides on an opportunity attack you were making regardless, so it costs nothing extra.

How often does it fire?

Polearm Master's bonus attack fires on every turn you take the Attack action with a qualifying weapon. Crusher's critical hit effect fires on a natural 20, roughly one attack in twenty, unless you are a Champion Fighter with an expanded crit range or you have a reliable advantage source.

A small effect that happens constantly beats a large effect that happens rarely. This is the single most common error in feat selection, and it is why the two feats that trigger on critical hits alone sit in the orange band rather than the green one.

Is it gated on something outside your control?

Four feats depend on decisions that are not yours. Gunner needs firearms in the setting. Mounted Combatant needs terrain that fits a Large mount. Poisoner needs downtime and a market. Mage Slayer needs enemy spellcasters. Each is strong inside its condition and close to worthless outside it, and a two-minute conversation with your GM is worth more than any amount of analysis.

The -5/+10 arithmetic, once, for both feats that use it

Each point on a d20 is 5 percentage points of hit chance, so a -5 penalty costs 25 percentage points in absolute terms.

If you hit on an 11 or better, that is a 50 percent hit chance, and the penalty drops you to 25 percent. You have halved your output to add damage. On a greatsword averaging 7 damage plus a +4 modifier, that trade is a loss: 0.50 x 11 is 5.5 expected damage, against 0.25 x 21 is 5.25.

The trade turns positive once your clean hit chance is high enough that losing 25 points still leaves you connecting most of the time. In practice that means a total attack bonus around +8 or better against typical armour class, or any turn where you have advantage.

Advantage is the real unlock. It raises your effective hit chance by roughly 20 to 25 percentage points depending on the target number, which almost exactly cancels the penalty. This is why Reckless Attack on a Barbarian and the Archery style on an archer matter more to these two feats than any other pairing in the game, and why a Barbarian is the best Great Weapon Master user rather than the Fighter most players expect.

The Damage Engines

Two feats raise damage per hit by an amount nothing else in the edition approaches. They are the same feat with different delivery, and no character is ever choosing between them.

● Great Weapon Master

What it does. Two separate benefits, and the feat text gates them differently. Almost every summary of this feat, including the one that previously stood on this site, gets that difference wrong.

Benefit 1, the bonus attack. On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action. There is no heavy weapon requirement anywhere in this clause. Any melee weapon triggers it and any melee weapon can make the resulting attack. A rapier duelist gets this half of the feat in full.

Benefit 2, the trade-off. Before you make a melee attack with a heavy weapon you are proficient with, you can take a -5 penalty on the attack roll to add +10 to the damage on a hit. This half is heavy-gated.

The feat names no specific weapons at all, so the qualifying list for benefit 2 is simply every melee weapon with the heavy property: greatsword, greataxe, maul, halberd, glaive and pike.

Key details.

• You choose before you roll. You cannot see the result and then decide.
• The +10 is damage only. It never helps you hit.
• It applies per attack, so you can use it on some attacks in a turn and not others.
• The bonus attack triggers on reaching 0 hit points, not on death. A creature knocked unconscious counts.
• On a turn where you cut through several weak enemies, the bonus attack can fire repeatedly as each one drops.

Class ratings.

Pairings that matter.

Polearm Master. The best companion feat in the edition. A halberd or glaive grants a bonus action butt-end attack and an opportunity attack when enemies approach, and Great Weapon Master applies to all of it.

Sentinel. Completes the trident. Your entering-reach opportunity attack lands with +10 damage and sets the target's speed to 0.

Reckless Attack. Not a feat, and more important than any feat here. Blanket advantage is what makes the -5 affordable every single turn rather than occasionally.

Action Surge. Doubles your attacks for a turn. At level 5 that is four attacks each carrying +10, a burst of 40 extra damage.

Bless. A 1d4 bonus to attack rolls, averaging +2.5, which measurably shifts when the trade-off becomes worthwhile.

Common mistakes.

Leaving the penalty switched on. The most expensive error with this feat. Against armour class 16 at +5 to hit you are at a 25 percent hit rate with the penalty active. Toggle per attack, per target.

Forgetting the bonus attack must be a melee weapon attack. You cannot switch to a bow or a thrown weapon for it.

Not applying the trade-off to the bonus attack. It is an ordinary attack. If it is made with a heavy weapon, the -5/+10 is available on it too.

Playing it as pure damage. The bonus attack cascading through weak enemies is often worth more than the +10. Drop the killable target first, then spend the bonus attack on the dangerous one.

Verdict. The strongest melee feat in the edition, and the bonus attack half is better than its reputation precisely because it is not weapon-gated. First pick for any Strength-based melee character holding a two-handed weapon, and worth taking at level 1 through Variant Human if the concept allows.

● Sharpshooter

What it does. Three benefits. Two are passive and require no decision at all, which is why this feat is quietly better than the symmetrical comparison to Great Weapon Master suggests.

Benefit 1. Attacking at long range does not impose disadvantage. A longbow's long range is 600 feet, and with this feat you fire at full accuracy across all of it.

Benefit 2. You ignore half cover and three-quarters cover. Covered enemies are treated as if standing in the open. This applies on every attack, always, with no action or choice.

Benefit 3. Before a ranged weapon attack you can take -5 on the roll to add +10 to damage on a hit.

The cover clause is the underrated one. Cover is extremely common in dungeons and outdoors both, and the +2 or +5 to armour class it grants is exactly the margin that decides whether an attack lands. It does not beat total cover, which prevents the attack outright.

Class ratings.

Pairings that matter.

Archery fighting style. +2 to every ranged attack roll, which reduces the effective penalty from -5 to -3. This is the single most important pairing for the feat, and Fighting Initiate is how a class without Archery reaches it.

Crossbow Expert. The other half of the ranged core. It removes the loading cap and adds a bonus action hand crossbow attack, and Sharpshooter's +10 applies to that attack as well.

Hunter's Mark. An extra 1d6 per hit on the marked target, stacking directly with the +10 across every attack in the turn.

Steady Aim. The optional Rogue feature from Tasha's grants advantage after not moving, which is the cleanest way for a Rogue to make the trade-off reliably positive.

Common mistakes.

Taking it without Archery. The -5 is punishing without the +2 compensating for it, and Fighting Initiate exists specifically to solve this for off-list classes.

Expecting it to beat total cover. It ignores half and three-quarters cover only. You still cannot shoot what you cannot see.

Ignoring the long-range clause. It is passive and free, and players routinely stay at normal range out of habit rather than using the positional safety it grants.

Assuming it helps cantrips. Ranged spell attacks get nothing from this feat. That is Spell Sniper's job.

Verdict. Mandatory on any build holding a bow or crossbow, and equal in power to Great Weapon Master. The two never compete for a slot because no character is both a two-handed melee build and a dedicated archer.

The Action-Economy Feats

These add an attack rather than adding damage to one. On a build with a consistently free bonus action they are worth more than they look. On a build that already spends it, they are worth very little.

● Polearm Master

What it does. Two benefits with two different weapon lists, and the difference between those lists is the most misreported detail about any feat in this guide.

Benefit 1, the bonus attack. When you take the Attack action and attack with only a glaive, halberd, quarterstaff or spear, you can use a bonus action to make a melee attack with the opposite end of the weapon. It uses the same ability modifier and deals d4 bludgeoning damage.

Benefit 2, the approach trigger. While wielding a glaive, halberd, pike, quarterstaff or spear, other creatures provoke an opportunity attack from you when they enter the reach you have with that weapon. Normally opportunity attacks fire when a creature leaves your reach. This inverts the trigger.

Spear is on both lists. The claim that spear is excluded from this feat is common, repeated confidently, and wrong. Pike is the weapon with the restriction: it appears only in the second list, so a pike threatens approaching enemies but grants no butt-end bonus attack.

Reach is what makes benefit 2 dangerous. A glaive, halberd or pike has 10-foot reach, so the threatened zone is a 10-foot ring. A quarterstaff or spear has 5-foot reach, so the approach trigger fires at the same distance a normal opportunity attack would, which is far less useful.

Class ratings.

Pairings that matter.

Sentinel. The defining combination in melee. See the Sentinel entry below for the precise mechanism, because the usual explanation of it is imprecise.

Great Weapon Master. Applies to the butt-end attack when the polearm is heavy, which glaives and halberds are. A quarterstaff build gets the bonus attack but cannot apply the trade-off to it.

Reckless Attack. Advantage on three attacks per turn rather than two, all carrying +10.

Terrain. Not a feat, and it belongs in this list anyway. A doorway or corridor forces every enemy through your threatened ring, which is where this feat earns several times its value.

Common mistakes.

Assuming a pike gives the bonus attack. It does not. Glaive, halberd, quarterstaff and spear only.

Assuming a spear does not qualify. It qualifies for both benefits. This error has circulated widely.

Forgetting the bonus attack is unconditional. It is not once per encounter or once per rest. Every turn you take the Attack action with a qualifying weapon, it is available.

Standing in the open. The approach trigger fires once per enemy per approach. In an open field, enemies approach once and then stay. At a chokepoint, they have nowhere else to go.

Verdict. Excellent alone and half of the strongest melee control setup in the edition. If you are building a melee defender, plan Polearm Master and Sentinel together as a two-feat package from level 1.

● Crossbow Expert

What it does. Three benefits, each solving a separate mechanical problem that crossbows otherwise have.

Benefit 1. You ignore the loading property of crossbows you are proficient with. Loading otherwise caps you at one shot per turn no matter how many attacks your class grants, so this is what makes Extra Attack function at all with a crossbow.

Benefit 2. Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature does not impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. The clause says ranged attack rolls, with no restriction to crossbows anywhere in it, so a longbow fired point-blank benefits identically.

Benefit 3. When you use the Attack action to attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a hand crossbow you are holding.

Key details.

• You must be holding the hand crossbow. On your back or in a pack does not count, and drawing it costs your object interaction.
• The triggering attack must be with a one-handed weapon, so a two-handed heavy crossbow as your main weapon does not enable the bonus attack.
• Most builds simply use the hand crossbow as the primary weapon, which satisfies both requirements at once.

Class ratings.

Pairings that matter.

Sharpshooter. The essential partner. Every attack in the sequence, including the bonus action one, can carry +10 damage.

Archery fighting style. +2 on all of them, reducing the effective penalty to -3.

Hunter's Mark. With three attacks a turn at level 5, an extra 3d6 against the marked target.

Common mistakes.

Not holding the hand crossbow. The single most common way to find the bonus attack unavailable mid-combat.

Assuming it competes with Two-Weapon Fighting. It does not, because it uses crossbows rather than paired melee weapons. It does compete with Cunning Action, bonus action spells and Hunter's Mark.

Taking it on an Eldritch Blast Warlock. Nothing in the feat applies to spell attacks.

Overlooking benefit 2 as a Rogue. Many Rogue players never notice that this feat lets them stand adjacent and fire without disadvantage, which is its best use on that class.

Verdict. The other half of the ranged core. Strong on its own for the loading fix alone, and close to mandatory alongside Sharpshooter on a dedicated archer. Audit your bonus action economy before taking it on a Rogue.

● Dual Wielder

What it does. Three benefits, none of them large.

• +1 to armour class while holding a melee weapon in each hand.
• Draw or stow two weapons when you would normally draw or stow one.
• Two-weapon fighting with non-light weapons, so two longswords or two rapiers instead of two shortswords.

What it does not do. It does not add your ability modifier to the off-hand attack. Only the Two-Weapon Fighting fighting style does that. It grants no extra attack beyond the bonus action attack two-weapon fighting already gives, and it does nothing for accuracy.

The honest summary: it upgrades the off-hand die from a d6 to a d8, worth roughly one average damage, and adds a point of armour class.

Class ratings.

Pairings that matter.

Two-Weapon Fighting style. Required, not optional. Without it the off-hand attack adds no ability modifier and the whole style is weak.

Mobile. Strike with the main hand, disengage freely, reposition. A dual-wield skirmisher pattern that plays well even if it does not optimise well.

Common mistakes.

Taking it without the fighting style. The off-hand attack deals weapon damage with no modifier. Upgrading that from a d6 to a d8 does not fix it.

Expecting it to compete on damage. It cannot. One average damage against Great Weapon Master's ten.

Taking it when the bonus action is already spoken for. If Cunning Action, Rage or Hunter's Mark owns your bonus action, the off-hand attack rarely happens and the feat is mostly +1 armour class.

Verdict. Take it because fighting with two blades is the character you want to play. It makes that build as good as it can be, which is still behind a two-handed build, and that is a legitimate trade for a concept you actually want.

● Tavern Brawler

What it does. Four benefits, and one of them is the reason to take it.

• +1 Strength or Constitution. A half-feat bump. Constitution is often the better pick on a grapple build for the hit points and concentration.
• Proficiency with improvised weapons, so bottles, chairs and torches use your full attack bonus.
• Unarmed strikes deal d4 bludgeoning damage instead of 1 plus your Strength modifier.
• Bonus action grapple when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike or an improvised weapon.

The grapple clause is the feat. Grappling normally replaces one of your attacks; here it rides on a hit you already landed, which is an action-economy gain rather than a damage bump.

Class ratings.

Pairings that matter.

Athletics proficiency or expertise. The real prerequisite. Grapples are contested checks and fail without it against the enemies you wanted to stop.

Shield Master. Both give a bonus action option, and you only have one bonus action, so they alternate rather than combine. Shove prone one turn, grapple the next.

Grappler. Grants advantage against a creature you are grappling, which Tavern Brawler sets up. Both feats are mediocre, so this is two slots for a modest result.

Common mistakes.

Taking it on a Monk. Redundant in almost every respect.

Expecting the unarmed damage to scale. The d4 is a low-level convenience. By level 10 it is irrelevant and only the grapple matters.

Skipping Athletics. The feat's main benefit is gated behind a check you are not proficient in.

Verdict. Narrow but functional, and the only feat that makes unarmed fighting viable for a non-Monk. Take it for a Strength-based grapple control build with Athletics, or not at all.

The Denial Feats

These take an option away from the enemy rather than adding anything to your own numbers. It is the least intuitive group and it contains one of the five best feats in the edition.

● Sentinel

What it does. Three benefits, and the range on each one differs. Getting those ranges wrong changes how you position, so each clause is set out separately here with its own wording.

Benefit 1. When you hit a creature with an opportunity attack, that creature's speed becomes 0 for the rest of the turn. No range qualifier appears in this clause at all. It applies to any opportunity attack you land, at whatever reach your weapon has.

Benefit 2. Creatures provoke opportunity attacks from you even if they take the Disengage action before leaving your reach. This clause says your reach, not 5 feet. Disengage does not protect anything from you.

Benefit 3. When a creature within 5 feet of you makes an attack against a target other than you, and that target does not have this feat, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against the attacking creature. This is the only clause with a 5-foot limit, so a reach weapon does not extend it.

The Polearm Master combination, stated precisely. Polearm Master makes enemies provoke an opportunity attack when they enter your reach. Benefit 1 then sets their speed to 0 when that attack hits. The enemy is stopped at the outer edge of your reach, 10 feet away with a glaive, before closing to melee at all. The combination works through benefit 1, which has no range limit, and not through benefits 2 or 3. Explanations that credit the 5-foot clauses for this interaction have it wrong.

Class ratings.

Pairings that matter.

Polearm Master. The strongest melee pairing in the edition, through benefit 1 as described above.

Great Weapon Master. Opportunity attacks carry the +10 as well, so the enemy that gets frozen also gets hit hard.

War Caster. Lets you cast a spell in place of the opportunity attack. Shocking Grasp both freezes the target through benefit 1 and removes its reaction, which shuts down Shield and Counterspell.

A chokepoint. Same as Polearm Master: the feat is worth several times more where enemies have no route around you.

Common mistakes.

Forgetting speed 0 lasts only the current turn. The enemy moves normally on its next turn. Sentinel interrupts movement, it does not root anything.

Spending the reaction carelessly. You have one. Punishing a weak enemy that attacked your Fighter means not stopping the dangerous one closing on your Wizard.

Assuming benefit 3 extends with reach. It does not. That one is fixed at 5 feet no matter what you are holding.

Taking it with a low attack bonus. Every benefit requires the opportunity attack to hit. This feat scales with accuracy more directly than any other in the guide.

Verdict. The definitive melee control feat and arguably the best feat in the edition on a build that reliably lands opportunity attacks. Plan it alongside Polearm Master rather than as a standalone pick.

● Shield Master

What it does. Three benefits, all of which require a shield in hand.

Benefit 1. If you take the Attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action to try to shove a creature within 5 feet of you with your shield. This resolves as the normal contested check, your Strength (Athletics) against the target's Athletics or Acrobatics, and success either knocks the target prone or pushes it 5 feet.

Benefit 2. If you are not incapacitated, you can add your shield's armour class bonus to any Dexterity saving throw you make against a spell or other harmful effect that targets only you.

Benefit 3. If you are subjected to an effect that allows a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you can use your reaction to take no damage at all on a success, interposing the shield between yourself and the source.

The timing question. The text reads "if you take the Attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action to try to shove". Whether the shove may come before your attacks or must follow them is the single most argued sentence attached to any feat in this guide, and the answer changes the feat's power substantially, because shoving prone first means every subsequent melee attack has advantage. Get a ruling before building around it.

The scope distinction worth noting. Benefit 2 is limited to effects targeting only you, so it does not apply to Fireball. Benefit 3 has no such limit and does apply to Fireball, which is where most of this feat's defensive value actually sits.

Class ratings.

Pairings that matter.

Athletics proficiency or expertise. The shove is a contested check and unreliable without it.

Sentinel. Shield Master creates the prone condition; Sentinel punishes the target for standing and moving away.

Tavern Brawler. Two bonus action options that alternate rather than stack, since you have one bonus action.

Great Weapon Master. Not compatible in practice. A shield means one-handed weapons, and no one-handed weapon has the heavy property.

Common mistakes.

Not settling the shove timing. Build around the favourable reading only after your GM confirms it.

Losing the shield. All three benefits vanish at once if you are disarmed or drop it.

Assuming benefit 2 covers area effects. It does not. Only benefit 3 does.

Shoving without Athletics. A losing contest against most of the enemies worth shoving.

Verdict. The most mechanically dense feat in the guide, and its Dexterity save clauses quietly solve a real weakness for Paladins and melee Clerics. Strong on any build already carrying a shield, and pointless on any build that is not.

● Mage Slayer

What it does. Three benefits, all keyed to being adjacent to an enemy caster.

Benefit 1. When a creature within 5 feet of you casts a spell, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against it. This fires whether or not the spell targets you.

Benefit 2. When you damage a creature that is concentrating on a spell, it makes its concentration saving throw with disadvantage. This applies to any damage you deal, not only the reaction attack.

Benefit 3. You have advantage on saving throws against spells cast by creatures within 5 feet of you.

Benefit 2 is where the value is. Enemy concentration spells are among the strongest effects in the edition, and a frontline character who can reliably break them is doing something no amount of extra damage achieves.

Class ratings.

Pairings that matter.

War Caster. The strongest combination available. It lets you cast a spell as the reaction, so Counterspell in that window actually stops the triggering spell, and Shocking Grasp removes the caster's reaction entirely.

Sentinel. Mage Slayer punishes casting, Sentinel punishes movement. An adjacent caster can neither cast safely nor walk away.

Great Weapon Master. More damage means a harder concentration save, and the two stack cleanly.

Common mistakes.

Taking it in a campaign without enemy casters. Against beasts and martial humanoids this feat is blank. Ask your GM about the campaign's enemy mix first.

Expecting the reaction attack to interrupt the spell. It resolves first. You are punishing, not countering.

Forgetting benefit 2 covers all your damage. Many players use it only on the reaction attack and miss most of its value.

Verdict. Among the best feats in the guide in a caster-heavy campaign and dead weight in one without. This is the most swing-dependent feat here after Gunner, and the swing is decided by your GM rather than your build.

The Damage-Type Trio

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything added three feats built around a damage type rather than a weapon or a fighting style. They share a chassis and differ only in the rider attached to it.

Pick the one matching the damage type of the weapon already in your hand. There is no meaningful power gap between them, and choosing a weapon to fit one of these feats is the wrong way round.

One thing worth noticing in that table: only Piercer adds damage. Crusher adds nothing to your own output and hands the benefit to your allies. Slasher subtracts enemy movement. Ranked as damage feats, two of the three look weak, which is why both get skipped.

Hot Take: Crusher, Piercer and Slasher get filed as damage feats because they shipped together and share a stat line, and only one of them is a damage feat. Judged as what they actually are, one reroll feat and two control feats that happen to come with a free +1, Crusher is the best of the three for any party that fights in melee together, because party-wide advantage on a crit is worth more than a single rerolled die. Nobody picks it, because it sits on a list next to Great Weapon Master's flat +10 and loses a comparison it was never in.

● Crusher

What it does. +1 Strength or Constitution. Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an attack dealing bludgeoning damage, you can move it 5 feet to an unoccupied space, provided it is no more than one size larger than you. And when you score a critical hit dealing bludgeoning damage, every attack roll against that target has advantage until the start of your next turn.

The push happens after the hit has already landed, so it never costs accuracy the way a shove action would. The critical hit clause is the most generous effect in the trio because it benefits the entire party, not just you.

Bludgeoning weapons: club, greatclub, light hammer, mace, quarterstaff, warhammer, maul, and unarmed strikes. A war pick deals piercing damage despite the name.

Class ratings.

Pairings and mistakes.

Champion's expanded crit range is the pairing that defines the feat. Shield Master gives a second, separate way to reposition an enemy in the same turn. Sentinel does not conflict, because a 5-foot push does not remove a target from your reach.

The mistakes: taking it with a non-bludgeoning weapon, forgetting the push is once per turn rather than once per attack, pushing a target out of your own reach and losing your next attack, and expecting the crit advantage to last past the start of your own next turn.

Verdict. Better than its reputation and the strongest of the trio on a party that fights together in melee. Take it on a Champion or a Barbarian already swinging a maul.

● Piercer

What it does. +1 Strength or Dexterity. Once per turn, when you hit with an attack dealing piercing damage, you can reroll one of the attack's damage dice, and you must use the new roll. And when you score a critical hit dealing piercing damage, you roll one additional damage die.

The reroll being mandatory is the detail players miss. Use it on a 1 or a 2 only, never on a middling roll you hope to improve.

The crit die is added after the critical hit has already doubled the weapon dice. A rapier crit rolls 2d8 from the crit, then one more d8 from Piercer, for 3d8 before modifiers.

The one thing Piercer does that nothing else in this guide can: it works on bows. Savage Attacker, its closest competitor for a reroll, is melee only, which makes Piercer the only damage reroll available to an archer at all.

Class ratings.

Pairings and mistakes.

Champion's crit range and Assassinate are the two triggers worth building toward. Elven Accuracy competes directly for an Elf archer's slot and wins on any build with a reliable advantage source. Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert both outrank it, so Piercer is a third or fourth feat, not a first.

The mistakes: taking it with a non-piercing weapon, using the reroll on a roll that was merely unimpressive, expecting the crit die to show up often at low levels without an expanded crit range, and defaulting to Dexterity when a Strength-based pike or lance build wants the other option.

Verdict. A clean half-feat with no downside for a piercing build that already has its core feats. The only reroll available to archers, which is its strongest single argument.

● Slasher

What it does. +1 Strength or Dexterity. Once per turn, when you hit with an attack dealing slashing damage, you can reduce that creature's speed by 10 feet until the start of your next turn. And when you score a critical hit dealing slashing damage, the target has disadvantage on all its attack rolls until the start of your next turn.

The speed reduction is capped at once per turn. The critical hit clause is not, and it is a defensive benefit for the whole party rather than an offensive one for you.

Class ratings.

Pairings and mistakes.

Champion's crit range again, and Reckless Attack. Note that Slasher stacks across characters: two party members with Slasher apply 10 feet each to the same target.

The mistakes: taking it with a non-slashing weapon, expecting 10 feet to lock a target down when a 30-foot enemy still has 20 feet left, and overvaluing the crit rider on a build that crits only on a natural 20.

Verdict. The weakest of the trio in most encounters, for a specific reason: the speed cut only matters against an enemy that wants to move away, and a melee enemy fighting you usually does not. Take it if your table fights skirmishers, archers and fleeing casters.

The Conditional Feats

Each of these is strong inside a condition you do not control and close to worthless outside it.

● Fighting Initiate

What it does. With proficiency in a martial weapon as a prerequisite, you learn one Fighting Style of your choice from the fighter class. That is the entire feat.

It grants no ability score increase. It is not a half-feat, despite being described as one nearly everywhere, including previously on this site. What it does offer that most feats do not: whenever you reach a level granting the Ability Score Improvement feature, you can replace this feat's fighting style with another one from the fighter list you do not already have. The choice is not locked in.

The styles available, and the ones worth the slot:

Class ratings.

Common mistakes. Picking a style you already have, since they do not stack. Overlooking Superior Technique. And assuming the choice is permanent, which it is not.

Verdict. Permanent, passive, resource-free and re-selectable. The missing ability score increase is a cost that most write-ups fail to mention, and the style is still worth a slot on any class that gets none from its own list.

● Gunner

What it does. +1 Dexterity. Proficiency with firearms. You ignore the loading property of firearms. And being within 5 feet of a hostile creature does not impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.

This is Crossbow Expert for guns, minus the bonus action attack and plus a stat bump.

The condition. Firearms are optional rules in the Dungeon Master's Guide, and your GM controls whether they exist and whether you can get one. The feat grants proficiency, not a weapon. In Spelljammer, Eberron or a renaissance setting it is a solid pick; at a standard table without guns it does nothing whatsoever.

Note that the Giff already ignore loading and long-range disadvantage through Firearms Mastery, which makes this feat largely redundant for that ancestry.

Class ratings.

Pairings. Sharpshooter is the essential partner and the Dexterity bump helps pay for its penalty. Archery via Fighting Initiate helps further. Action Surge with loading removed produces very large firearm bursts at high levels.

Common mistakes. Taking it before confirming firearms exist. Expecting it to help crossbows, which is Crossbow Expert's job. And ignoring the Dexterity bump, which matters at an odd score.

Verdict. Ask your GM first, and take it only if firearms are a persistent feature rather than an occasional prop. The most campaign-dependent feat in Tasha's.

● Mounted Combatant

What it does. While mounted: advantage on melee attack rolls against unmounted creatures smaller than your mount; the ability to force an attack aimed at your mount to target you instead; and your mount takes no damage on a successful Dexterity save and half on a failure.

On a Large warhorse, "smaller than your mount" covers every Medium or smaller creature, which is the large majority of humanoid enemies. That makes benefit 1 close to a permanent Reckless Attack for a class that has no such feature, which is a much bigger effect than the feat's reputation suggests.

The condition. Terrain. Most dungeon corridors and chambers cannot accommodate a Large mount, so in a dungeon-heavy campaign this feat rarely comes online at all.

Class ratings.

Pairings. Great Weapon Master is the standout: constant advantage is exactly what makes the -5 affordable, so a mounted GWM Fighter in open terrain is one of the highest damage builds available. Sentinel plus a 60-foot mount covers an enormous threat area. Find Steed is the enabler.

Common mistakes. Taking it in a dungeon campaign. Failing to protect the mount, which dies quickly without the redirect. And using a fragile riding horse instead of a warhorse or a summoned steed.

Verdict. Strong in the campaign it is built for and close to blank outside it. Confirm the terrain your table actually fights in before spending the slot.

● Poisoner

What it does. No ability score increase, unusually for a Tasha's feat. Three benefits instead.

Benefit 1. Your poison damage ignores resistance to poison damage.

Benefit 2. You can apply poison to a weapon or piece of ammunition as a bonus action rather than an action.

Benefit 3. You gain proficiency with the poisoner's kit. With one hour of work and 50 gp of materials you create a number of doses equal to your proficiency bonus. An applied dose keeps its potency for 1 minute or until the coated weapon hits, whichever comes first. On a hit, the target makes a DC 14 Constitution save or takes 2d8 poison damage and is poisoned until the end of your next turn.

Two limits that decide the feat. The DC is fixed at 14 with no scaling from level, proficiency or ability score, so the condition lands progressively less often as the campaign goes on even though the 2d8 stays useful. And benefit 1 ignores resistance, not immunity, so constructs, most undead and oozes take nothing at all.

Class ratings.

Pairings. Assassinate above all. Downtime and market access is the real prerequisite, more than any class feature. Any finesse build folds it in without changing ability priorities, since the feat does not care what drives your attack.

Common mistakes. Forgetting immunity is not covered. Applying poison several rounds early and losing it to the 1-minute limit. Building around it in a campaign with no downtime. And expecting the DC to scale, which it never does.

Verdict. A free spell attack bolted onto a weapon hit, for 50 gp and an hour you were resting anyway. Judge it entirely on whether your table actually plays out downtime and shopping, not on whether the numbers look good.

The Two To Skip

● Savage Attacker

What it does. Once per turn, when you roll damage for a melee weapon attack, you can reroll the weapon's damage dice and use either total.

Why it fails. On a greatsword, taking the better of two 2d6 rolls moves the average from 7.0 to roughly 8.7. That is about 1.7 damage, once per turn, regardless of how many attacks you make. Great Weapon Master adds 10 on every hit.

It also rerolls only weapon dice. Divine Smite, Sneak Attack, Hunter's Mark and Hex dice are untouched, and those are where a big hit's damage actually comes from. A Half-Orc's Savage Attacks racial feature is a different thing entirely despite the near-identical name, and the two do not interact.

A +1 weapon does roughly the same work and costs no feat slot. You will probably find one by mid-campaign.

Class ratings. Red across the board. The least-bad case is a Paladin making one large attack per turn, where the once-per-turn reroll is not wasted on a second attack, and even there War Caster or Resilient is the better pick.

The one use case. A melee piercing build choosing between this and Piercer: Savage Attacker rerolls all the weapon's dice rather than one, which is a larger reroll. Piercer still usually wins on the +1 and the crit die, and Piercer works at range where this does not.

Verdict. Skip. If you already took it, replace it at your next Ability Score Improvement and move on.

● Grappler

What it does. With Strength 13 as a prerequisite: you have advantage on attack rolls against a creature you are grappling, and you can use your action to pin a grappled creature by making another grapple check.

Why it fails. The feat's own text says that on a successful pin, "you and the creature are both restrained until the grapple ends." Restrained means your speed is 0, your Dexterity saves have disadvantage, and attackers have advantage against you. The second benefit hands your enemies the same gift it hands your allies, and it costs your entire action to set up.

The first benefit is real and useful. It is not worth a feat slot, because grappling requires no feat at all: replace one attack with a contested Strength (Athletics) check and you are grappling. Strength and Athletics proficiency are what make a grappler reliable, and Tavern Brawler's bonus action grapple is strictly more action-efficient than anything here.

Class ratings. Red across the board. A grapple-focused Fighter at a table where the GM rules the pin restrains only the target reaches orange, and that is a house ruling rather than the feat.

Better uses of the slot. Great Weapon Master for damage, Sentinel for control without any grapple setup, Shield Master for a bonus action prone shove, or Resilient for concentration.

Verdict. Skip under the rules as written. Ask about the pin ruling before dismissing it completely, because a one-sided pin is a different feat.

Ancestry Pairings Worth Knowing

Most of these 18 feats do not care what ancestry you picked. They care about your class, your weapon and your attack bonus. A handful of ancestry traits interact with these feats specifically enough to be worth planning around, and they are collected here once rather than repeated under every feat.

The Variant Human point, stated once. Variant Human grants a feat at level 1, which is the most efficient feat timing in the game. Great Weapon Master, Sharpshooter, Polearm Master or Sentinel from session one shapes the character before most classes have unlocked their core features, and it frees the level 4 Ability Score Improvement for a stat increase instead. This applies to every feat in this guide, which is exactly why it is not a recommendation about any particular one. If your table allows Variant Human and your concept tolerates it, front-load whichever feat defines your build.

The three pairings that change the math

Half-Orc with Great Weapon Master. Savage Attacks rolls one of the weapon's damage dice an additional time on a critical hit. A critical hit with Great Weapon Master active already doubles the weapon dice, adds the +10, and grants a bonus action attack. Stacking Savage Attacks on top makes Half-Orc critical hits the single largest damage events a martial character produces in this edition. Note that this racial trait is unrelated to the Savage Attacker feat despite the near-identical name, and the two do not interact.

Wood Elf with Sharpshooter. The +2 Dexterity feeds the attack roll that Sharpshooter's -5 is eating into, longbow proficiency comes free with the ancestry so no feat or class choice is spent acquiring it, and Fleet of Foot means the extra 5 feet of movement keeps you at the ranges where ignoring long-range disadvantage actually matters. Three traits pointing at one feat.

Halfling with anything that takes the -5. Lucky lets you reroll a natural 1 on an attack roll. The -5/+10 trade turns low rolls into guaranteed misses, so removing the worst result from the distribution is worth more here than on a character making ordinary attacks. It is a small effect and it is the only ancestry trait in the game that specifically softens the downside of these two feats.

Where ancestry does not matter

Mage Slayer, Mounted Combatant, Poisoner, Gunner, Fighting Initiate and the Tasha's damage-type trio are all effectively ancestry-agnostic. Their value is decided by your class, your campaign and the weapon in your hand. If you are choosing an ancestry for one of those six, choose for the character you want to play, because the mechanical pairing is not there.

Ancestry-gated feats are a separate group entirely. Bountiful Luck, Dragon Fear, Dragon's Hide, Elven Accuracy, Orcish Fury and the rest require a specific ancestry to take at all, and those are covered in the racial feats guide rather than here.

Corrections To Claims Commonly Made About These Feats

This guide replaces 18 separate pages, and consolidating them surfaced five errors repeated across them. They are recorded here rather than quietly fixed, because all five circulate widely outside this site as well.

1. Great Weapon Master names no weapons. Lists including lance and greatclub are common and wrong. The feat references only the heavy property, and neither weapon has it.
2. Great Weapon Master's bonus attack is not heavy-gated. Only the -5/+10 requires a heavy weapon. The crit-or-kill bonus attack works with any melee weapon.
3. Spear is on both Polearm Master lists. The claim that spear is excluded is repeated confidently and is incorrect. Pike is the weapon restricted to the opportunity attack clause only.
4. Fighting Initiate grants no ability score increase, and its Fighting Style can be replaced at every Ability Score Improvement level. It is routinely called a half-feat with a locked style. Both halves of that are wrong.
5. Sentinel's anti-Disengage clause uses your reach, not 5 feet. Only the ally-protection clause is capped at 5 feet. A reach weapon extends the Disengage punishment and does not extend the ally trigger.

Verdict

If you are holding a two-handed heavy weapon, take Great Weapon Master. If you are holding a bow or crossbow, take Sharpshooter, and get Archery first if your class allows it. Those two decisions cover most martial characters and there is no close second to either.

After that the question stops being damage and becomes role. A defender takes Sentinel, and takes Polearm Master alongside it if a glaive or halberd suits the character, because those two feats were designed to be used together. A sword-and-board fighter takes Shield Master. A character whose class granted no Fighting Style takes Fighting Initiate. A character already committed to a specific damage type picks up the matching one of Crusher, Piercer or Slasher as a third or fourth feat, and Crusher is better than its reputation.

Mage Slayer, Gunner, Mounted Combatant and Poisoner are each excellent in the campaign that supports them and worthless in the one that does not, so ask your GM rather than guessing. Dual Wielder and Tavern Brawler serve specific character concepts rather than optimisation goals, which is a perfectly good reason to take a feat.

Savage Attacker and Grappler are the two to leave alone.

Related reading: the caster feats guide covers the 11 feats that improve spellcasting, including Spell Sniper, the spell-attack counterpart to Sharpshooter, and War Caster, which pairs with Sentinel to turn every opportunity attack into a spell. The defense, skill and utility feats guide covers the remaining 14, including Alert and Lucky, which are the two most common follow-up picks once a martial has bought its core damage feat. The racial feats guide covers the 10 ancestry-gated feats, including Orcish Fury, which a Half-Orc should take only after Great Weapon Master. The setting feats guide covers the five standalone setting-book feats, including Gift of the Chromatic Dragon, which loses to Crusher, Piercer and Slasher because it gives no ability score increase.

FAQ

What is the best combat feat in D&D 5e 2014? Great Weapon Master in melee, Sharpshooter at range. Both trade 5 points of accuracy for 10 points of damage, the largest swing any feat offers, and both improve with every extra attack your class gains.

Do I need a heavy weapon for all of Great Weapon Master? No. Only the -5/+10 requires a heavy weapon you are proficient with. The bonus action attack on a critical hit or on reducing a creature to 0 hit points triggers on any melee weapon.

Which weapons does Great Weapon Master work with? The feat names none. It references the heavy property only, so greatsword, greataxe, maul, halberd, glaive and pike qualify. Lance and greatclub do not, despite appearing in lists that circulate widely.

When should I switch the -5/+10 off? Whenever your clean hit chance is below roughly 65 percent and you have no advantage. At +5 to hit against armour class 16 the penalty cuts your hit rate from 50 percent to 25 percent.

Does Sharpshooter help my cantrips? No. It applies only to ranged weapon attacks. Ranged spell attacks are covered by Spell Sniper instead.

Does Polearm Master work with a spear? Yes, for both benefits. Pike is the weapon with the restriction: it grants the entering-reach opportunity attack but not the bonus action butt-end attack.

How do Polearm Master and Sentinel actually combine? Polearm Master makes enemies provoke an opportunity attack as they enter your reach. Sentinel's first clause, which has no range limit, sets their speed to 0 when that attack hits. They stop at 10 feet without reaching you.

Does Sentinel stop enemies who Disengage? Yes, anywhere in your reach. That clause says "before leaving your reach" and carries no 5-foot cap. Only the ally-protection clause is limited to 5 feet.

Does Crossbow Expert's melee clause cover a longbow? Yes. It says "your ranged attack rolls" with no restriction to crossbows, so any ranged weapon fired at point-blank range benefits.

Can I shove before attacking with Shield Master? The text makes the Attack action the trigger and does not settle the order. It is a table ruling, and it matters enough that you should ask before building around it.

Which of Crusher, Piercer and Slasher should I take? Whichever matches your weapon's damage type. They are near-identical in power. Crusher for mauls and warhammers, Piercer for rapiers, daggers and bows, Slasher for longswords and greatswords.

Does Fighting Initiate give an ability score increase? No. It grants one Fighting Style and nothing else, and it lets you swap that style whenever you gain an Ability Score Improvement.

Does Poisoner get through poison immunity? No. It ignores resistance only. Constructs and most oozes take zero damage from its doses.

Which combat feats should I skip? Savage Attacker, worth about 1.7 damage per turn, and Grappler, whose pin restrains you alongside the target and whose core function needs no feat at all.