Feats or Ability Points?

[Shadowbane13]

Hey guys,

My party just hit level 4 and I have a EK fighter building up. I'm mainly focusing on thunder and lightning spells (Trying to be like thor a bit :P) but I am unsure what I want to do as far as feats or ability mods. I use a warhammer and sometimes a shield, depending on battles.

My stats are as follows:
STR - 18
Dex - 14
Con - 17
INT - 15
WIS - 12
CHA - 8.

My DM is open to homebrew feats as long as they do not seem OP. We mainly use D&D beyond for searching but I can take anything from almost anywhere.

Let me know what you guys think would be ideal. I am currently leaning towards taking the Arcane Infusion Homebrew feat which allows me to store a spell in my weapon to be used when i hit with a melee attack. Could be clutch for being surrounded and using thunderwave.

[Vorpalchicken]

War Caster is probably your best bet. Your stats are already quite better than most would expect at your level but it can't hurt to max your strength. Unless your DM is likely to drop a giant strength belt your way (not usual for your level but depends on the campaign. )
Your homebrew feat sounds lackluster. I'd give it a pass.

[Rukelnikov]

If you are planning on taking more levels of EK (which is what I'm gonna be assuming), you have to think, what do I want for lvls 4 and 5? At 6 you will get another ASI, so anything that won't be that useful before lvl 6 you can skip.

The homebrew feat is pretty good if its something you can do at will, like at any time you can spend an action to cast a spell in your warhammer and release on hit afterwards. In 3e I played a Gish that had a sword with that property and it was all kinds of awesome. Currently it would allow you to do a shocking grasp for free on one hit of every encounter, its good considering its 1d8 free damage, and allows you to retreat if necessary since the opponent cant take reactions. At 5 it would increase to 2d8, which is pretty nice, almost a free attack once per encounter.

I'll list some of the other "standard" feats for a S&B EK:

Resilient - Get proficiency in a save, always great, I'd go for Wis

War Caster - Getting to cast with weapon and shield in hand is good because it makes it so you don't have to juggle your gear around to cast, and for instance, allows you to cast shield while wearing a shield. The advantage in concentration saves is also great, but it's something that'll probably become more useful later on since I don't think you'll be casting that many concetration spells before then. And the AoO spells is good for Booming Blade, but how much use you'll get out of it is largely dependant on your DM.

Sentinel - This feat is great if you wanna hold the line, it makes you REALLY sticky, and punishes those that don't focus you in combat. If what you wanna do is tank, this would be my main recommendation.

Lucky - Always useful, no matter what.

Stats:

I've a personal aversion to getting STR to 20, because at my table I know that sooner or later I am going to get a STR item, and I'll feel like I wasted an ASI. However, you are the one better qualified to know what are the chances of getting a STR item at your table, and whether or not that will be at a reasonable level to justify skipping the increase in STR.

Having said that, you can also Increase your Con and Int with a single ASI, and while Int may not be THAT important, its probably still gonna be useful. Con is great for you since it means HP and saves to keep concentration.