Recommended Feats
Some feats have already been reviewed. For invoker class feats affecting your
Channel Divinity power or your
Covenant Manifestation, see the section on those abilities. For
domain feats, see the section on at-will powers.
When evaluating feats, you generally want to look for:
1. Additional targets: Anything that enlarges/expands your spells or adds more targets is a giant increase.
2. Accuracy: Much of the strength of your powers lies in their control effects and riders. You want to make sure your powers land.
3. Initiative: Like all controllers, you want to make sure you go first so that you can land a powerful control effect as soon as possible.
4. Damage type riders/At-will optimization: Anything that enhances one of your existing at-wills, or enhances a damage type you commonly use, is great.
5. Damage: You care about damage a bit more than other controllers, because it’s one of the ways to justify your multitarget at-wills.
6. Power Recovery: Anything that gets you your encounter/daily powers back is great, especially once you hit 27 with Word of the Gods.
Class Feats
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Many of these were covered in previous sections (Covenant/CD feats), but we cover the remaining ones now.
Heroic Tier
Angelic Harrier (D387): If you’re only hitting one target with your powers, you have other problems.
Carceri’s Manacles (D387): This has interesting implications, but I’m having trouble figuring out how to use it effectively.
Covenant of Io (PHR
B): I don’t know a lot about Dragonborn, but it seems like making dragon breath a divine power must have some applications.
Covenant Shifting (Githzerai, D378): Situational, but in certain builds, this will be an excellent addition.
Dark Invitation (Revenant, D387): One big pull an encounter seems decent enough for a feat.
Enduring Fury (D387): Decent enough, but why are you playing a half-orc invoker again?
Hand of Fury (D387): When you start doing the math on missing with your multitarget daily powers, you miss 3 targets like 3% of the time, 2 targets like 9% of the time. Not enough to be worth it.
Heaven’s Arrow (D387): Bonuses to hit are always good, but this one is a bit situational. Still, not bad.
Infernal Malediction (Tiefling, DP): Giving all your attacks the fear keyword combines with Talisman of Terror to produce a disgusting combination, but the problem is you can no longer control when you use Infernal Wrath like you could pre-Essentials.
Invoke Resilience (Human, DP): Too small a bonus for a 3-4 times a fight ability.
Invoke Teamwork (Half-Elf, DP): Same, ok bonus, but 3-4 times a fight isn’t that great.
Invoker Defense (PHB2): I completely disagree with the previous guide that this is a feat tax. Many invokers might not bother with this (those who prefer to operate from range). This is an essential power for a close blast specialist, however.
Longtooth Doom (Longtooth Shifter, D387): Decent enough bonus to damage.
Lucky Retribution (Halfling, D384): Won’t trigger enough to be relevant.
Maledictor’s Eye (Vistani, D380): Once an encounter sliding seems kind of subpar.
Nature’s Doom (Wilden, D387): Decent boosts to your racial power.
Reaper’s Touch (Shadar-Kai, D372): Rated black solely because making things MBAs might have some application to somebody somewhere.
Relentless Crusade (Warforged, D387): A +1 to only a single attack roll is pretty poor.
Righteous Summons (D387): All of these are rather nice improvements if you took 3 summon dailies (kind of unlikely).
Unsettling Omen (D387): This is actually a decent feat for a close blast specialist, such as a Devoted Orator. Other types of invokers are probably not interested.
Vanguard’s Eye (D387): A rather lackluster bonus.
Wild Wrath (Elf, D387): Too situational to be any good.
Paragon Tier
Awaken God Fragment (D382): This is a very solid feat, effectively providing you an additional Covenant Manifestation once an encounter. You have to go to the precompiled Dragon 382 just to find these (they’re not in the Compendium, and the individual article has poofed from the web site). Interesting ones include Avandra (when ally next to you saves vs. immob/restrain, can roll two dice; when you use encounter/daily, an ally adjacent to a target can save and roll two dice if it’s vs. immob/restrain); Corellon (+2 to Arc/Nat; when you use encounter/daily, you or an ally adjacent to you can teleport 5 squares); Kord (encounter/daily, you can push targets 2 squares); Moradin (+1 healing surge; when you use enc/daily, one ally you can see gets tmp hps = to Int or Con mod); Pelor (enc/dailies do extra radiant dmg = to Con or Int mod); Raven Queen (your enc/dailies slow all targets).
Invoker’s Blaze (DP): An excellent feat for fire/radiant specialists. For others, it’s
not worth it.
Invoker’s Control (DP): Lots of times, your save ends effects are control powers, and you don’t even want to be hitting those targets if they fail.
Pillar of Heaven (D387): Again, you just do not miss very often when hitting multiple targets.
Speaker of the Gods (PHB2): Crit range of 18-20 on dailies, etc., is not bad.
Staff of Channeled Invocations (D387): Staff Expertise rendered this kind of worthless. This does turn a Power of Skill Divine Bolts into an MBA, though, but that has more implications for non-invokers.
Epic Tier
Devastating Invocation (DP): This is a solid feat if you have expanded crit range or radiant vulnerability. On a 3 target power, 10% chance to crit * 2 enemies in range * 13.5 damage = 2.7 damage added to every attack post-attack-roll, equivalent to a +3.5 dmg feat pre-attack-roll, so better than Implement Focus. With both expanded crit range and radiant vulnerability, this gets
really good.
Dreadful Invocation (D387): Simply incredible feat to give strikers attacks of opportunity. This should add quite a bit of damage, and the save ends attack penalty is pretty sweet too.
Invoked Devastation (PHB2): Almost every invoker will take this at level 21. Auto-enlarge on every encounter/daily power (and some at-wills, if you went that route) is just incredible.
Invoker Implement Expertise (D387): Combined with Devastating Invocation, Dreadful Invocation, Font of Radiance, and Punishing Radiance, invokers can really wreak havoc on multiple opponents with a single crit. This feat is well worth it for that reason, never mind the innate damage it adds.
Invoker’s Aura (DP): A nice feat to discourage enemies from attacking you, but Malediction/close invokers are unlikely to be radiant specialists to benefit from any vulnerability. And radiant has a lot of competition at epic for feats.
Reaching Invocation (D387): Pretty solid feat. It only has to add 1 or 2 targets a fight to be worth it.
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General Feats
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Feats are too numerous nowadays to cover them all. If you have one you want rated and added to this list, just post it. I’m just presenting the good feats I could locate.
Heroic Tier or Essentials
Armor Proficiency: Scale (PHB): Hard to qualify for at heroic for a Con-voker, because you don’t really want to kill your Reflex by starting with Int 11 Str 13, but this might be worth nabbing at paragon.
Battlewise (HotFK): Initiative is important for any controller. It is not a question of if you take this feat, but when.
Coordinated Explosion (PHB2): Not as good as it is for some classes, since you don’t want allies in your unfriendly blasts/bursts, and your at-wills will mostly be ranged attacks. Still decent, though.
Distant Advantage (PHB2): If you mostly use ranged/area attacks, this can be good. Not so great for the close attackers. Invokers struggle to get CA in this tier.
Echoes of Thunder (PHB2): A good feat for Devoted Orators, or Storm-Powered Vanguard’s Lightning users.
Expertise: Everyone will want some form of Expertise, so you will be taking one of these feats. I’ll break them down and rate them using the color scheme, though (always keeping in mind taking any one of them is gold).
Expertise Feats
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Staff Expertise (HotFL): The best of the expertise feats, because we make many ranged attacks, and not provoking attacks of opportunity is a huge benefit.
Mighty Crusader Expertise (Dr402): Very useful feat for hybrid invoker|clerics, or any invokers planning on using holy symbols but dabbling in weapon attacks.
Holy Symbol Expertise (HoS): For Malediction invokers who daze/stun themselves a lot, especially Divine Oracles, this is the ideal implement expertise to use. You pretty much never grant combat advantage. For invokers who operate from range, this is a
subpar choice.
Orb Expertise (HotFL): Although it requires a wizard/psion MC, this does pick up Orb of Nimble Thoughts, useful for adding your Int to initiative. This may be the choice for builds that want to use forced movement for something or hybrid for wizard imposition.
Rod Expertise (HotFK): Getting a shield bonus is a very good bonus, but rods just aren’t that great as implements compared to staffs.
Wand Expertise (HotFL): Not as good a benefit, and, again, it’s hard to see why you’d use a wand.
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Hafted Defense (PHB3): A pretty good bonus to AC/Reflex for Con-vokers, but it’s debatable if this is better than MC’ing Wizard for Orb of Nimble Thoughts for an Int-voker.
Heavy Armor Agility (HotFL): Unlikely to be that useful, as moving 5 isn’t really a huge drawback for a ranged/area class, and close blast invokers are probably Int-based.
Hidden Sniper (HotFK): Seems to be a good way for invokers to get CA on ranged attacks, but it doesn’t kick in unless/until you can get Armor of Dark Deeds (a level 14 item) plus Superior Reflexes to have CA in round 1. Phantom Chaussures at 18 (for Con-vokers, who couldn’t benefit from Armor of Dark Deeds) and Shadow Band at 27 are the other concealment options. Also doesn’t work on close/area attacks.
Implement Focus (HotFL): Probably worth taking, since adding damage is worthwhile for invokers on their at-wills. Radiant/fire-only invokers will switch to Invoker’s Blaze at paragon, though.
Improved Defenses (HotFL): This borders on gold, but some builds might take both Superior Will and Superior Reflexes and skip this.
Improved Initiative (PHB): This is still very good, but it’s not 100% essential to take both this and Battlewise early on.
Mark of Storm (EPG): If you use thunder and lightning powers, and if dragonmarks are allowed, this feat is fantastic. Divine Bolts and Vanguard’s Lightning both slide, as do Thunder of Judgment and Devoted Orator blasts, etc.
Nimbus of Light (DP): A pretty good bonus for a radiant party, but not that great for everyone else.
Oncoming Storm (PHB2): This is ok if you’re using Divine Bolts and thunder encounter powers.
Power of Amaunator (FRPG): Can be used for free on any power with no range restrictions like Solar Enemy has, but it's only good for one attack, whereas Solar Enemy can be good for as many as three (with an action point) + more if someone grants you another. Worth considering as a 2nd CD in a radiant build, though, if you have a way to use more than one an encounter.
Resilient Focus (HotFL): A +2 bonus to all saving throws can come in handy.
Shield Proficiency: Light (PHB): This is unlikely to be a correct choice for many builds, really. Con-vokers can more easily take Hafted Defense, and Int-vokers would rather start with Con 12 than Str 13.
Silvery Glow (Sehanine, D386): A better bonus for radiant damage or winter-powered Hand of Radiance. Slightly better than Invoker’s Blaze, unless you’re spending more than half the time bloodied or using fire-only powers.
Skill Power (PHB3): There are some decent options here (Deliverance of Faith for Con-vokers, especially); can look at the powers section for ideas.
Solar Enemy (DP): Two full turns of radiant vulnerability adds up to a ton of damage, even subtracting out your invoker CD. If anyone else in the party uses radiant, this gets very sick very fast.
Superior Fortitude (HotFL): A Con-voker will probably just skip this for Improved Defenses.
Superior Implement Training (PHB3): The general choice will be accurate for a constant +1 to hit, or possibly quickbeam staff for some thunder/lightning builds, or defiant rod for radiant builds.
Superior Reflexes (HotFL): Combat advantage isn’t the easiest thing to get going first, and this radically improves your first control spell. Definitely not a bad choice. If you get Armor of Dark Deeds and Hidden Sniper, this feat becomes part of a CA-generating combo for ranged attacks. This is an Int-voker-only solution, though.
Superior Will (HotFL): This is a very solid feat for invokers, even moreso than for other classes because of all the self-dazing/stunning powers. This feat really imbalances the intended design of many of those powers by cutting the drawback in half. Note that the Circlet of Arkhosia, if available in your game, can eventually replace this feat.
Toughness (PHB): Not a bad choice for close blast invokers; others can probably skip it.
Vicious Advantage (PHB3): Invokers really don’t have enough slowing/immobilizing powers to make this useful. Even Power of Earth only slows on Visions of Blood until the start of next turn.
Wintertouched (PHB): Half of Frostcheese, mentioned for those who use Power of Winter with Hand of Radiance.
World Serpent’s Grasp (HotFK): With the addition of Ooze Master, this feat has gained in value immensely. You can use Sudden Slime to set up a prone on a ToJ. This feat also works great with Tide of the First Storm, allowing you to prone during your control nova rounds.
Paragon Tier
Armor Specialization (Hide) (PHB): Int-vokers won’t qualify for this until epic, but it’s not a bad choice.
Armor Specialization (Scale) (PHB): Con-vokers likely won’t qualify for this until epic, where competition for feats is fierce, but this is decent enough. Questionable whether or not you’d go w/Dex 13 over Int though.
Clinging Radiance (DP): A sometimes-relevant benefit if you’re a radiant invoker.
Danger Sense (PHB): Many invokers might skip this and just opt for Battlwise+Imp/Sup Init. Still can’t be a bad choice.
Fiery Blood (HotEC): Mentioned in case you're somehow doing a fire invoker, in which case this feat will be useful.
Lasting Frost (PHB): Even if you went Power of Winter, this is only affecting your at-wills, as invokers don’t have that many cold powers.
Lightning Soul (HotEC): If you're a lightning blaster, this could be good; not generally useful.
Pervasive Light (DP): The problem with this power is that it “breaks the cycle” and you don’t get the next turn of damage (if you’re the Morninglord, that is). But this can still be a fair bit of damage if you have some non-radiant powers in your build, and it’s great if someone else is the Morninglord.
Psychic Lock (PHB): Great with Visions of Blood and many encounter powers. It won’t be for every invoker, but it’s great for some.
Reserve Manuever (PHB2): This option should always be kept in mind for when your level 11 paragon path power is terrible.
Resounding Thunder (PHB): If you’re using thunder powers (especially Power-of-Storm Vanguard’s Lightning), you’re taking this. Increased size on bursts is a giant improvement, and it’s not bad on blasts either.
Solid Sound (PHB): This is only really good if you’re a Devoted Orator using Visions of Blood, or you’re using Storm’ed Vanguard’s Lightning as your main at-will.
Thunder's Rumble (HotEC): Mandatory feat for Thunder Blasters.
Uncanny Dodge (PHB): This feat is worth noting for the close blasters, since it will negate the +2 from dazing/stunning yourself.
Epic Tier
Divine Mastery (DP): Once you get Compel Action at 27, this feat is probably
essential. Great even before then, though.
Echo of Letherna (D380): This seems interesting, as not a lot of stuff resists both necrotic and radiant.
Epic Fortitude/Reflex (PHB2): Generally speaking, you should at least shore up your weakest defense with one of these feats.
Epic Resurgence (PHB): Getting back Compel Action is a fantastic result, but this only applies to one attack a round.
Better for Divine Oracles with Invoker Implement Expertise, since they'll be critting 19% a round.
Epic Will (PHB2): Probably skippable, but it’s not a bad choice if you do take it.
Fires of Heaven (D377): Mentioned in case you have some way to deal ongoing radiant damage a lot.
Font of Radiance (PHB2): This isn’t bad, but, of the many epic crit-enhancing radiant/invoker feats, it is probably the weakest (if you’re looking to skip any).
Long Step (PHB3): This might have some utility if you’re a close blaster. Probably not needed for most other invokers, as they don’t provoke w/ranged/area.
Punishing Radiance (DP): Extremely powerful combined with Devastating Invocation (apply this first, then do the damage). Adds more than 2 damage to each attack just based on that, never mind the bonus from subsequent attacks.
Superior Initiative (PHB3): A huge bonus to initiative is well worth taking.
Unfettered Stride (PHB): Ignoring difficult terrain is great if you’re a Keeper of the Nine. For others, this is
just ok. Dwarves will take Solid Footing instead.
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Multiclass Feats and Feats from Other Classes
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This will be a far from complete coverage. If you’d like a feat added to this section, just post.
Arcane Admixture (Arcane, PHB2): Not a bad choice if you went with Power of Arcana on your Divine Bolts.
Arcane Initiate (Wizard, PHB): This is a fantastic feat, since it gives you an encounter power and opens up orbs as implements.
Disciplined Talent (Psion, PHB3): Opens up Orb of Nimble Thoughts, but it doesn’t do much beyond that.
Divine Healer (Cleric, DP): Since you already get Religion, I think this is the best way to cleric MC.
Dizzying Mace (Fighter, D378): This feat can be incredibly effective on powers like Deadly Doubt, Thunder of Judgment, and Brilliant Revelation. Requires hybrid/MC to a holy symbol class, or the use of Ironscar Rod.
Domain Synergy (Cleric, D379): Decent attack bonus to at-wills, but needing both the CD feat and the “Power of...” feat can be rough.
Enabling Shot (Warlord, MP2): If you’re doing the radiant critfishing build, this can be a nice addition.
Initiate of the Old Faith (Druid, PHB2): Druid is a solid option for MC for invokers.
Insightful Leader (Warlord, MP2): This opens up some options like Enabling Shot.
Mending Spirit (Shaman, PP): Used in between fights, this can be quite incredible for a non-leader class to have.
Quickened Spellcasting (Arcane, Epic, AP): If you went for Power of Arcana Divine Bolts, this must have been one of the reasons.
Radiant Advantage (Cleric, Epic, DP): Permanent CA for you and all your allies is great for radiant builds.
Spirit Talker (Shaman, PHB2): Shaman is another decent MC option for invokers.
Starfire Womb (Warlock, D366): Giving yourself a save when you use a radiant power is pretty good.
Student of Artifice (Artificer, EPG): Artificer probably has too many weapon powers to be that great a hybrid/MC.
Thunder Hammer (Fighter, MP): Useful feat in Dizzying Mace builds to impose some save penalties.
White Lotus Riposte (Arcane, D374): Not a bad feat if you went with Power of Arcana on your Divine Bolts.
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Racial Feats
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Invoker class feats have already been discussed above, but other general racial feats are discussed blow. If you want anything else rated that you don’t see here, just post.
Heroic Tier
Action Surge (Human, PHB): Old faithful. Great with your daily attacks that hit multiple targets.
Battle Intuition (Deva, D374): With the +2 feat bonus to initiative, this is better than Battlewise for Devas until/unless you take Improved Initiative.
Bred for Battle (Mul, D391): A +2 to initiative is nothing to scoff at.
Darkening Mind (Shadar-Kai, 391): You can get a 2nd round of shadow jaunt goodness if you take the Noble Adept theme and mc a psionic class (or hybrid psion). I personally don't think this is worth it, as this will take up your theme and one feat slot. The best way to get a 2nd round of prone is to use Dread of Sakkors+World Serpent's Grasp. Hybrid assassin is another wacky possibility to take the feat to recharge shadow jaunt.
Distant Swarm (Shardmind, D387): This is interesting for both getting combat advantage and getting into position for a close Malvoker attack.
Doom of Jiksidur (Shadar-Kai, D391): This is an absolutely mandatory feat for Shadar-Kai invokers and singlehandedly makes the race an excellent choice. Take it at level 1, and use Thunder of Judgment as a daze/prone/almost-stun. This is even more potent if you can somehow get the power point/psionic qualifications to use Darkening Mind to gain this benefit for 2 full turns.
Dread of Sakkors (Shadar-Kai, D391): Combined with World Serpent's Grasp, this feat can be used to add control in the 2nd round (the round after you use shadow jaunt). For example, ToJ w/Doom of Jiksidur and this, and you can push 2, daze, prone, and slow, and combined with WGS, will be able to prone the targets again the next round.
Drowning of Nhalloth (Shadar-Kai, D391): This one's not as good as the other feats, since the slide and -2 to hit aren't going to turn your encounter powers into almost-stuns the way push+prone+daze can. It does work nicely with immobilize powers though (slide+immob way better than plain immob since you can demob allies and guarantee a foiled attack).
Dual Mind Strength (Kalashtar, D385): A nice damage bonus if you’re a Malvoker specialized in psychic.
Hellfire Arcanist (Tiefling, D381): Interesting feat to give you more forced movement and fire damage. Devoted Orator+Mark of Storm+Visions of Blood is one way to use this.
Liberating Shard Swarm (Shardmind, PHB3): An extra save isn’t bad.
Miryath’s First Strike (Githzerai, PHB3): Not a bad little damage boost in the first round.
Psychic Focus (Shardmind, PHB3): A good boost if you’re specialized in psychic attacks.
Radiant Recovery (Deva, D374): Temp hps on every radiant attack is great, but it’s too bad it doesn’t match the Deva’s stats.
Resilience of Stone (Dwarf, MP2): This is a fantastic feat for Muls, not so much for dwarves.
Solid Footing (Dwarf, D391): Combined with Keeper of the Nine, this is glorious. Ignore all the rubble you generate with your powers. For others, it’s
a terrible choice.
We Were Once One (Shardmind, D387): For Con-vokers, this might not be a bad feat.
Paragon Tier
Burden of Liberty (Wilden, PHB3): A teleport isn’t a bad thing to have.
Dispater’s Iron Discipline (Tiefling, PHR:T): Huge combined with Superior Will to get rid of your self-dazes/stuns. Again, it will often be Devas who take this through Soul of the World.
Secrets of Belial (Tiefling, PHR:T): Free utility swap without needing a multiclass feat.
Shared Danger Sense (Githzerai, PHB3): Group bonus to initiative is great.
Versatile Master (Half-Elf, PHB2): Making your Dilettante power permanent is nice, but many invokers might take Knack for Success instead.
Epic Tier
Adamantine Mind (Githzerai, PHB3): Makes it twice as likely you get to prevent an attack with Iron Mind.
Peerless Recovery (Githzerai, PHB3): This has interesting applications with Flame of Hope, etc.
Rejuvenating Shard Swarm (Shardmind, PHB3): Adding a free surge per fight is excellent.
Royal Command of Asmodeus (Tiefling, PHR:T): Turning all your stuns into dominates is phenomenal; all devas and tieflings should take this. This will see more play in the hands of a Deva Soul of the World, though.
Secret of Enduring Vigor (Wilden, PHB3): This could be great if you take an Epic Destiny without a pop-back-up feature.
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