Exploring space is no easy feat, and it’s especially difficult in Starfinder! You’re going up against the toughest Sci-Fi Fantasy creatures that Paizo has mustered. You’re going to need your wits, your weapons, and most of all, your fantastic character-building skills! That being said, there are a ton of feats in Starfinder, and a ton of them are incredibly situational! Being good at specific things is all well and good, but there are a few feats that are good in a lot of situations that you should consider! This Top 10 Starfinder Feats guide will show you some shining stars!
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Top 10 Starfinder Feats
This guide will not work perfectly for every single build. There are a ton of different classes and directions to move in Starfinder. And, with 10 feats to play around with per character… Not all 10 of these will work for every build! However, these feats should be on your mind as you evolve to suit any combat situation.
For the purposes of covering as many classes as possible, Proficiency feats have been left out. While Heavy Armor Proficiency is great on a melee Biohacker, it’s not as important for a ranged Technomancer. Please consider feats like Longarm Proficiency if your build allows you to get it and you’re otherwise stuck with small arms.
10. Skill Focus/Skill Synergy
Boosting skills can be hard to do in Starfinder. And that’s a big problem, because your DCs are going to be sky-high for most of the campaign! You’ll need to roll well, so that’s where the Skill Focus or Skill Synergy option comes from. Most classes can benefit from a +2 or +3 in a specific skill; the Operative, for instance, can use Skill Focus to make their trick attacks better. A Soldier can use it to bump up their Pilot skill and become a more effective flier. A Witchwarper can become as good at talking as an Envoy with a +2 in Bluff and Diplomacy.
Choose Skill Focus if you need to focus on one skill – like an Operative or an Envoy might. Choose Skill Synergy if you want a more diverse skill kit. They are both very similar, but one is definitely better for some builds than another.
9. Adaptive Fighting
Adaptive Fighting is a fairly late-game feat for most classes which allows you to have a stored feat. You get three feats to choose from, kind of like how you would prepare a spell. Then, you have one feat “slot” that you can use as a Move Action to get that feat for a minute. Honestly, this is an impressive utility ability. A lot of Starfinder feats are exceptionally situational. So, having three feats that you can pick from means you can set up 3 unique situations that your character will be better in. For instance, let’s say you store Blind-Fight, Improved Great Fortitude, and Underwater Brawler as your feats. Then, you can cover blindness, anti-Necromancy, and Underwater scenarios! That’s pretty great.
Consider Versatile Fighting if you take Adaptive Fighting, so you can adapt more often.
8. Coordinated Shot
Coordinated Shot is a must-have for a melee fighter. This feat grants all ranged allies a +1 bonus to attack the target you threaten. This is massive; you’ve given your party a 5% higher hitrate against the person you’re beating up. Make sure your party isn’t going to be full of melee fighters before taking this… But, even if only two people benefit from this, you’re going to be an extremely handy frontliner!
7. Stand Still
Stand Still is an aggressive option for a melee character. Your attack of opportunity entirely stops movement, which means you can keep a ranged character right next to you. This means you don’t have to spend more actions to beat the crap out of them; they stay right into your danger zone. Your DC to hit them increases dramatically, so this is best used on Solarions and Soldiers.
Alternatively, Step Up and Step Up and Strike are fantastic options to keep up your aggression. For these, you don’t have to hit KAC + 8 to keep them in your danger zone. However, the enemy is still in control the entire time. You could be stepping into a bad situation.
6. Barricade
This is a sleeper feat that can really come in handy. As a move action, you set up cover. This cover is fragile, but grants a +2 bonus to AC and a +1 bonus to Reflex saves. It’ll fall apart relatively quickly, but it stays up for a minimum of 1d4 rounds. For the bonuses that this feat gives, this is a fantastic support option that doesn’t restrict your ability to shoot your gun in that round. Almost any character can benefit from this feat as well; it just requires 1 rank of Engineering. An exceptional way to spend a Move Action.
5. Adaptive Casting
Adaptive Casting is a stronger version of the Adaptive Fighting feat. Adaptive Fighting suffers a bit from feats being relatively weak if you only have them for 1 minute. Instead, for Adaptive Casting, you get 3 prepared spells and 1 spell slot to cast them with. In Starfinder, you have very limited spell slots, and most casters don’t have many spells known at all. This feat lets you get exceptionally situational spells and one slot to cast them with. The spells can be any level, other than your highest level spell. This is just a spare spell slot, but that spell slot can be exceptionally powerful, and suffers from no time limit. A must-have for a 7th level caster.
4. Shot on the Run
With a Mobility Tax, this feat pays for itself. Being able to move, then attack, then move some more is exceptionally safe. Which is perfect, since Starfinder is a system where movement is so crucial if you want to stay alive during gunfights. Move from cover to cover with ease! This doesn’t work for melee builds, which stinks. But, every single class can have a viable ranged build, and this feat caters to that demographic well. This is especially good on Operatives since you get a more flexible Trick Attack from it.
3. Quick Draw
You draw a weapon. You no longer need to use a move action, you can just pull it out as a swift. This means you can go from 0 to 100 so much faster, making the first round of combat incredibly easy. You can also make grabbing grenades much easier, or make thrown weapon builds possible at all. You can even bring a shield out, protecting you from danger. The more arms you have, the better this feat gets! It’s so important to have multiple weapons for multiple situations, and this feat enables improvisation and full-attacking much better than you’d otherwise have access to.
2. Improved Initiative
Initiative is critical. If you’re a caster, you get to buff up first. If you’re a Solarion, you get in your enemy’s face first. A Vanguard gets a point, a Biohacker gets to debuff… the list goes on. The Improved Initiative feat bumps your Initiative by +4. This is gigantic, since it’s basically a 20% chance to go earlier in a fight. Beefing it up is important for every single class, and you can easily argue that this is the best feat in the system. However, there is an argument to be made for our number 1 spot…
1. Deadly Aim
You take a -2 penalty on attack rolls with weapons to deal half your character level in damage. Early on, this doesn’t do much. Later, adding 5 damage to your weapon attacks is incredible. If your character has Full BAB (like for a Soldier or Vanguard), your damage will skyrocket. Even for lower BAB classes, you can easily decimate enemies with higher damage. This is one of the very few Starfinder feats that has a somewhat easy condition to deal extra damage. That’s hard to find in Starfinder! So, make use of this one!
