Dilemmas upon conundrums stacked on top of even more quandaries. One can use that to sum up character creation in a game that offers more options and complexity than its Dungeons and Dragons roots. Hence, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is an intimidating venture for beginners of the CRPG genre.
Feats, for example, is a sea of jargon that any uninitiated RPG fan will find perplexing. After all, one would still want their heroes and carefully crafted characters to be competent or even overpowered in the fight against a literal demonic invasion. Hence, picking these feats will ensure a more battle-ready chosen one.
Updated on January 31, 2023, by Sid Natividad: In Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, players must build their characters wisely or suffer the consequences of an inefficient chosen one. Thankfully, respecs are given for free but without knowledge of Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous feats, they might end up with suboptimal choices.
Thankfully, this list features Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous and its best feats. It just so happens that there are tons of Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous feats so picking the best is always quite the ordeal. Thus, we've expanded the list to make room for even more incredible character traits to make them ultimately better.
Now that the game is more available to a wider audience due to the widespread multiplatform release, it's high time to add more to this Pathfinder best feats list. Some are lesser-known compared to heavy hitters such as Cleave, but they still offer some rather game-changing uses most especially in combat.
20 Spell Penetration
- Requirement: N/A
- Usage: Strengthening caster spells
Caster builds or magic users are some of the most powerful characters or builds in the game but they're not exactly jacks of all trades. They excel at one thing usually and that's dealing massive crowd control or massive damage. Take that away from them and they're sitting ducks in the party.
That's why ensuring that the casters in the party are all adequate in their capabilities is a must. Their spells need to break through enemy defenses for them to actually be of use, so the Spell Penetration feat is almost always mandatory; don't make casters waste their turns with whiffs.
19 Seize The Moment
- Requirement: Combat Reflexes
- Usage: Singling out soft targets and focusing attacks
Seize the Moment is well-suited for melee characters and builds who stand side by side in the heat of a combat encounter. It's a perfect trigger for ganging up on enemies since any character who has this feat that scores a crit will grant adjacent party members an attack of opportunity against the same target.
Hence, all this feat needs is a good combination of crit-fishing feats and weapons. Before players know it, targets will start popping up in red mists because their melee characters will abruptly focus-fire on certain unlucky targets.
18 Iron Will
- Requirement: N/A
- Usage: Added resistance to attacks and effects with a Will check
The majority of the enemies in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous are treacherous and deceptive demons who frequently inflict some debilitating status effects. Most of these go against the will saving throw, so it's always a good idea to bulk up that stat check.
Granted, Iron Will doesn't really sound like much since it only adds +2. But that +2 can be a lifesaver especially when certain in-game handicaps such as minus-level effects and fatigue start creeping in inevitably. A character who has this just might prevent a party wipe.
17 Skill Focus
- Requirement: N/A
- Usage: Bolster a skill and its corresponding skill checks
If players want to specialize on their skill checks even more, then the Skill Focus feat is always a good idea. Players can choose it multiple times for multiple specializations. It's useful not just for combat but also for exploration.
The most obvious and beneficial choices would be Stealth, Persuasion, Perception, Athletics, and even Mobility. In combat, players might just be able to wiggle themselves out of tricky situations if they have a character who has had multiple Skill Focus picks.
16 Critical Effect Feats
- Requirement: Critical Focus, other Critical effect feats
- Usage: Enhancing critical attacks
Critical attacks are pretty powerful already, but players can even make their crit-focused builds and playstyles even more overpowered with feats such as:
- Exhausting Critical
- Tiring Critical
- Blinding Critical
- Staggering Critical
- Sickening Critical
They're pretty self-explanatory. They just add more debilitating status effects to critical attacks. Against bosses, these make the fight a lot easier though players might not benefit too much from them against regular enemies. Still, they're fun feats with plenty of good synergistic opportunities.
15 Outflank
- Requirement: Base Attack Bonus of 4
- Usage: Triggering reaction damage and increasing flanking damage
Players should consider Outflank as more of an investment as this feat will only be useful if there is at least one other party member who has it. Consequently, if all party members have it, then any lone boss is probably going to get beat up real bad before dying.
Outflank gives a +4 bonus on attack rolls for flanking attacks, assuming another party member has it. Also, scoring a critical hit against the flank target will trigger an attack of opportunity for allies. It's by far one of the best boss-killing feats in the game.
14 Combat Reflexes
- Requirement: N/A
- Usage: Increased number of Attacks of Opportunity
Combat Reflexes might look a bit underwhelming and tailor-made for classes and builds that stack up on Dexterity but it's still quite a beast for those kinds of characters. Because when paired with the feat above, Outflank, then it can turn a boss fight into a poking contest.
Combat Reflexes increases the allowed number of Attacks of Opportunity per round based on Dexterity bonus. Moreover, any character who has this feat also gets to perform Attacks of Opportunity even when they're flat-footed. That's pretty handy against ambushes.
13 Shatter Defenses
- Requirement: Weapon Focus, Dazzling Display, Base Attack Bonus of 6
- Usage: Makes enemies unable to defend themselves
Shatter Defenses is a little misleading as it's not a feat that actually destroys the target's defenses. Instead, this feat allows players to beat down an already defenseless enemy to submission. Shatter Defenses makes it so that striking enemies with compromised defenses makes it so that they can't do anything about the attack.
In addition to that, enemies with some of the most common status effects in the game that get hit by a character with this feat also become flat-footed, meaning they can't react properly to combat situations. This will prevent them from making attacks of opportunity against a disengaging teammate.
12 Blind Fight
- Requirement: N/A
- Usage: Mitigating invisible enemy damage and increasing hit chance against them
Blind Fight is a feat most players won't think they need until the late game in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous where invisible enemies are thrown against them left and right. Blind Fight will have been a godsend then and there because it makes invisible enemies a joke.
The key benefit of Blind Fight is that lets characters reroll a missed attack against a concealed target. This increases the hit chance at the very least. Moreover, invisible targets can't get bonuses when attacking a character who has this feat. It's quite handy and reduces one of the most difficult aspects of late-game.
11 Vital Strike
- Requirement: Base Attack Bonus of 6
- Usage: Special single attack with high damage
Vital Strike is one of the attacks available for any damage-dealer character as it effectively deals double damage since the weapon's damage roll is rolled twice then added, assuming the attack connects. This is calculated before all the other bonuses such as Strength modifiers and such.
This easily makes Vital Strike a must-have as a standard attack per action. Moreover, the whole Vital Strike feat line is also great and players can't go wrong by picking the improved and higher versions of this special attack.