The Wizards Most Powerful Feats to Choose: DnD 5e Guide

Last Updated on January 22, 2023

There are over 50 published feats for DnD 5e and dozens more in DnD’s playtest material, Unearthed Arcana.

If you’re building a Wizard and want to pick some feats, the choices can be overwhelming.

Luckily, this guide provides an excellent way to sort through the options.

We’ve ranked the feats that work best with the Wizard class so that you can quickly and easily see when you should pick a feat and which ones will help you make the most out of your Wizard character. 

What Are Feats and Should I Pick One for My Wizard?

At Levels 4, 8, 12, and 16 Wizards are allowed to increase one of their ability scores by two points (or two ability scores by one point). This is a valuable powerup. 

You can also choose to forgo this boost in exchange for a feat that can give access to new spells and abilities, or change the way your Wizard interacts with the world.

Choosing a feat is always a tradeoff between increasing your ability scores and gaining access to these new abilities.

If you choose to take a feat you should always be confident of what you’re getting out of it.

Feats are often best utilized with certain playstyles or certain character builds; make sure to consider how you want your character to work before selecting a feat. 

If you want to play a character that is a skilled spy you may decide to take the Actor feat which allows you to more perfectly pretend to be another person.

However, this feat provides no combat advantages and can only be used in certain situations, so taking it without a plan to use it often can result in a character who is underpowered. 

This guide will discuss the best feats for the Wizard. There are other feats of course, but these either don’t work well with a Wizard’s abilities or simply aren’t good for Wizards in general.

For example, the feat Spell Sniper helps increase the range for spell attacks, but Wizard’s rarely find spell ranges to be a problem. Therefore, this feat and similarly less-than useful-feats have been excluded. 

DnD 5e Feats Available to Wizards

Before reading about feats, check out the key to this  guide. Feats will be ranked in two ways. First, each feat will be color coded according to the following scale:

Second, each feat will be listed as either OFFENSIVE, DEFENSIVE, UTILITY, or VERSATILE (can be useful in multiple situations). This is so that if you are only interested in offensive or utility feats you can easily look at just those options.

There will also be an additional section at the end for Unearthed Arcana feats. These are not official DnD 5e material!

Instead, they are playtest material that DMs can optionally decide to include. As playtest material, they aren’t as well balanced and you should always check with your DM before picking them. 

The Alert feat grants you a +5 bonus to your initiative and prevents you from being surprised. Plus, it negates the advantage that enemies get if they are hidden from you. 

This feat can be tempting for Wizards who can influence the course of a battle if they go first and who likely have bad Dexterity scores. 

However, a +5 bonus won’t always let you beat Dexterity based characters like Rogues. Plus, a Wizard’s utility isn’t totally lost if they don’t go first, so it’s best to only take this feat if you really need your spells to go off ASAP.

This feat gives you a cantrip and a 1st-level spell from the Artificer spell list, plus proficiency with one type of artisan’s tools (your choice) that you can use as a spellcasting focus.

You can cast the 1st level spell once per long rest without using a spell slot, a common ability for feats that grant spells. 

Artificer’s have a few spells Wizards don’t, like Cure Wounds and Faerie Fire, so this can be a good option for Wizards looking to get a few spells outside their class. 

This feat is available only to Drows, but it is an excellent choice. It grants Levitate and Dispel Magic, each of which can be cast once for free per long rest. It also grants unlimited castings of Detect Magic, no spell slots required.

Unfortunately, you have to use Charisma as your ability with Dispel Magic, which is likely to be low on a Wizard, but this shouldn’t be why you take the feat.

In the right campaign unlimited uses of Detect Magic can be extremely useful. The only reason this feat isn’t ranked higher is because of its limitations to the Drow race and the fact that in some campaigns you’ll never need Detect Magic at all. 

This feat gives Wizard’s access to a single Eldritch Invocation from the Warlock class that doesn’t have a prerequisite. While this limits your options, Eldritch Invocations can be quite useful.

Plus, whenever you gain a level you can swap your Invocation for another!

This is a fantastic option to gain abilities for certain Wizard builds. None of the Invocations will be game breaking, but all of them do provide excellent and hard to find abilities.

Plus, there are lots of opportunities for fun synergy! 

When you take this feat, you can pick an elemental damage type. Your spells then ignore resistance to that damage type, and you can change all 1s to 2s whenever you roll damage of that type for a spell.

The real feature here is the ability to ignore resistance. The best option is probably fire, which has a multitude of spells and a similar glut of creatures with fire resistance. 

This ability does not help with damage immunity, which can really put a cramp in a wizard’s style if they’ve chosen to specialize in a particular element. 

It isn’t necessary to use a feat to get around fire resistance if you simply have spells of multiple damage types.

Unless you have a very particular character concept in mind it’s best to leave this feat to Sorcerers and other casters with a much more limited spell selection. 

This gnome-only feat grants a soft ASI to Dexterity or Intelligence, as well as the ability to become invisible as a reaction to taking damage. The ability resets on a short or long rest making it quite useful, though the invisibility only lasts until the end of your next turn or until you attack, deal damage, or force someone to make a saving throw. 

None of those conditions apply to casting most illusion spells however, or other utility spells. For Wizards, this can be an excellent way to avoid being targeted by the enemy while still being able to provide some support to your party or set up your personal protections for when you reappear. 

This feat is only available to High Elves. It grants a soft ASI to Intelligence or Charisma, fluency in Sylvan, and the ability to cast Misty Step without using a spell slot. 

This last ability recharges on a short or a long rest, putting it a little bit ahead of the next feat (depending on how often your party rests of course!)

This feat grants a soft ability score increase (one point instead of two) to Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma as well as the Misty Step spell and one additional 1st level Divination or Enchantment spell.

Both spells have the option of being cast without expending a spell slot once a long rest. 

Most of the spells you could learn will already be on your spell list so learning these isn’t a great advantage. 

The feat is saved from obscurity by its effective granting of additional spell slots for the feat-specific spells, and because it allows you to raise your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score by 1.

The soft ASI makes this a solid if mediocre option, instead of an objectively bad one. 

A similar feat is Shadow Touched. The only difference is that feat grants you the spell Invisibility and one 1st-level Illusion or Necromancy spell. 

Keen Mind grants a soft ASI to Intelligence, as well as the ability to always know which way is North, the ability to always know the number of hours left before the next sunset or sunrise, and the ability to accurately remember anything you heard or saw in the last month. 

This last ability is why this feat is worth considering for Wizards. If your DM allows it, this feat could enable a Wizard to keep a memory of their spellbook in their head, or to remember spells that they see in another Wizard’s spellbook for future copying.

While a Wizard couldn’t cast a spell without having it written down in their spellbook, if your DM allows it this feat could be a useful way to protect against losing your spellbook.

However, the wording of this feat is a little vague, and your DM might rule that your memory is not accurate enough to transcribe spells. Always ask about this feat before taking it!

The Lucky feat gives you a pool of three luck points per long rest, each of which can be spent on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw to gain advantage.

This can be a useful tool for important checks, especially spell attack rolls or concentration checks you really need to pass. 

The Wizard however, doesn’t make a lot of attack rolls, ability checks, or saving throws compared to other more martial classes, and there are other ways to get a bonus to your concentration saves.

Still, sometimes you really need to maintain concentration or hit your spell attack. For those moments, Lucky can be a lifesaver. 

The Magic Initiate feat is a classic for letting characters expand their spellcasting abilities. After choosing a spellcasting class you can learn two cantrips and a 1st level spell from their spell list. 

Like other feats which give you additional spells, this is unlikely to be a major game changer for the Wizard, but it can be for certain builds. In particular, cantrips like Eldritch Blast and Guidance are both extremely useful and not on the Wizard’s spell list. 

You only get one casting of the 1st level spell you gain with this feat per long rest, unlike other similar spellcasting feats which let you use spell slots for additional castings.

Metamagic Adept is one of the best feats for Wizards. It allows you to pick two metamagic options from the Sorcerer class and gives you two sorcery points per long rest to use those metamagic options. 

Metamagic can be extremely useful, and it is sometimes recommended that Wizards multiclass into Sorcerer to gain them.

However, it takes three levels of Sorcerer to gain access to metamagic, so if you don’t want to invest the levels this feat is an excellent option.

The only downside is that having only two sorcery points can be pretty limiting.

With that in mind, I recommend carefully choosing your metamagic options as you’ll only be able to use them at most twice a day. 

The full list of metamagic options can be found in the Sorcerer class, but the best options with just two sorcery points are Subtle Spell, Quicken Spell, and Twinned Spell. 

Subtle Spell costs one sorcery point and lets you cast a spell without verbal or somatic components. This can be extremely useful in social situations where it is otherwise impossible to hide from others that you just cast Charm Person or Suggestion on someone.

Quicken Spell costs two sorcery points, but it lets you cast any spell with a casting time of one action as a bonus action instead.

Being able to shorten the casting time of a spell allows for interesting combos, though you can only cast a cantrip with your action if you cast a spell with your bonus action. 

Twinned Spell costs a number of sorcery points equal to the spell’s level (or one point if the spell is a cantrip), so you can only use it on spells of 2nd level or lower.

However, it lets you duplicate the effects of a single target spell to a second target, effectively letting you cast that spell a second time in the same round for free! 

Ritual Caster gives you a ritual spell book, along with two 1st level ritual spells from a class spell list of your choice. 

This is an interesting feat, as it allows you to further copy spells with the ritual tag into your spell book if you come across them as scrolls or in a Wizard’s spell book. 

For Wizard’s this is best used to gain access to some useful utility spells outside your spell list.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many of these that are worth a feat, and you might find that other members of your party already have the spell. This can be useful, but is limited by the selection of spells with the ritual tag. 

This feat is limited to Gnomes. It grants the ability to cast Blindness/Deafness, Blur, and Disguise Self once per long rest, as well as the ability to cast Nondetection at any time without using a spell slot or needing the material component.

This can be very useful in campaigns with a lot of scrying. However, you can only cast Nondetection on yourself, preventing you from making your whole party forever immune to being spied upon.

In addition to giving you a soft ASI for your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score this feat grants an invisible, component-less version of the Mage Hand cantrip (that has an additional 30 feet to its range if you already knew the spell) and a telekinetic shove ability. 

This last ability is what makes this feat top tier. As a bonus action you can shove a creature within 30 feet of you 5 feet towards or away from you.

The creature can resist with a Strength saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + the ability modifier of the score this feat increases) if they want to.

Wizard’s don’t often have a lot to do with their bonus action, and there are no limits on how often you can use this feat. That means you can shove every turn if you want. 5 feet isn’t a lot, but it can be enough for environmental hazards or breaking a grapple. 

Unlike its Telekinetic cousin, this feat is a little lackluster. This feat grants a soft ASI to Intelligence, Charisma, or Wisdom, language-dependent telepathy, and the Detect Thoughts spell with a free once-per-long-rest usage. 

Even with the dependence on language this would be blue, silent communication among the party can be extremely useful.

However, creatures cannot respond to your telepathic messages unless they also have telepathy, so there’s no chance of setting yourself up as a communications hub. 

War Caster is a neat feat that helps Wizards with casting in combat, It grants advantage on concentration checks made while taking damage, allows you to perform the somatic components of spells when holding weapons, and lets you replace your opportunity attack with a single target spell (as long as that spell only takes 1 action to cast). 

This last ability is especially nice as it essentially lets you cast certain spells with your reaction instead of your action. The only other mechanic that lets you shorten spell casting times so drastically is Metamagic.

The only real downside is that opportunity attacks put you up close and personal with enemies, a dangerous proposition for most wizards.

Unearthed Arcana

This feat gives a soft ASI to Intelligence, proficiency with Arcana (or expertise if you’re already proficient), and the spells Prestidigitation and Detect Magic (which can be cast without a spell slot once per long rest). 

While Wizard’s already have access to these spells, and expertise is nice, the feat will only shine in the right campaigns. It is especially useful when you often need to identify the spells the enemy is casting.

Wizard’s can be squishy, so this feat can be tempting for them. It grants a soft ASI to Strength Dexterity, or Constitution, proficiency with shields, the ability to don or doff shields as a free object interaction, and the ability to use shields as a spellcasting focus. 

Unfortunately, Bladesingers (the Wizard’s most likely to engage in melee combat) can’t use shields with their Bladesong. A +3 shield does grant a hefty AC bonus of +5, but this feat will only be worth it for certain builds. 

This feat grants a soft ASI to Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma and gives you an offensive action you can use as a reaction when you take damage. 

When you take damage from a creature within 10 feet you can use your reaction to deal 2d8 force damage and push the enemy 10 feet away from you.

They get a saving throw of course (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + the ability modifier of the score increased by this feat), but what’s nice about this feat is that the number of uses is tied to your proficiency bonus (and refreshes on a long rest).

What’s not nice is that if they succeed on the saving throw there is no effect at all. This can be a useful action to get people away from you and prevent opportunity attacks, but it might also compete for attention that you should save for a counterspell.

Plus, you could cast Shield and potentially avoid taking any damage in the first place, which is usually better. 

Final Word

There are a lot of feats to choose from, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Picking feats for Wizard requires understanding where the class’s weaknesses lie. 

Feats that increase the number of spells you have are generally not worth it for a class whose central advantage is already knowing a lot of spells. Instead, you should pick feats that provide additional options for your character. 

If you already know a spell, being able to cast it once a day without a spell slot isn’t a great advantage.

But if you took the Eldritch Invocation Devil’s Sight (which lets you see in magical darkness), your Wizard’s ability to use the Darkness spell would be greatly enhanced. 

Take a feat you’ll have fun using!

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