Quote Originally Posted by lord_khaine View Post
No its not, there isnt any Runestave that casts Animate Dead and Desecrate. So something that requires DM permission like custom magic items are really not relevant for tiering something in a neutral setting. It would be the same as using a reasearched spell that combined those two effects for tier evaluation.
It doesn't even matter. Runestaves are useless to Beguilers and Warmages, because you have to have the spell on your list. The description goes out of its way to make that clear. It also adds that spontaneous casters with nonfixed lists benefit the most from them, although wizards can use them too.

You'd think you would be able to UMD your way past that, but specific trumphs general.

Anyway, while I never finished the comparison, the resource cost went Beguiler-Dread Necromancer-Warmage. A very high-level Sorcerer could cover all the domains, although with some difficulty in the case of the Dread Necromancer, as some very useful spells just weren't on the Sorcerer list. Warmage was the easiest, requiring only a handfull of spells, and a feat. And some of the spells were even better than what the Warmage had. There is a reason the postal service does not recruit Warmages to deliver the mail.