Retiering the Classes: Evangelist, Favored Soul, Healer, Mystic, Spont. Cleric

[eggynack]

Here be the pseudo-clerics. Most of them are more similar to each other than classes that tend to fill out these groups, with all but the healer as more or less spontaneous versions of the cleric in different formats. Healer is significantly different, but it hangs out here by dint of being one of the last classes with basically nothing but casting that we're going to cover. Really, it'd just be the spontaneous clerics thread without it, but healers are neat and such.

Evangelist (Dragon Magazine #311, 52): Here's the first of the spontaneous clerics. This one is the most domain focused on the list, with most of its spells known coming from a wide array of domain choices.

Favored Soul (CDiv, 6): This is spontaneous cleric classic, with no domains at all, an above average number of basic spells known, and some nifty class features running around.

Healer (MH, 8): While oft maligned for its spell list with very little besides inferior-to-cleric healing, along with a massive bump from gate at the top of the list, the healer actually has a surprising amount of useful stuff. The companion, especially in its higher level incarnations, offers a whole bunch of magical utility, and sanctified spells from the book of exalted deeds and champions of valor alike grant a pretty smooth casting progression across a variety of niches.

Mystic (DCS, 47): And we're back to spontaneous clerics. This one lands between favored soul and evangelist in terms of reliance on domain spells, with fewer base spells known supplanted by a single domain.

Spontaneous Cleric (UA): And here we have a completely straightforward spontaneous cleric. Just straight up the cleric if it were spontaneous. In the domain dependency scale, which is seemingly the primary differentiating feature here, this one lands between mystic and evangelist.

What are the tiers?

The simple answer here is that tier one is the best, the home of things on the approximate problem solving scale of wizards, and tier six is the worst, land of commoners. And problem solving capacity is what's being measured here. Considering the massive range of challenges a character is liable to be presented with across the levels, how much and how often does that character's class contribute to the defeat of those challenges? This value should be considered as a rough averaging across all levels, the center of the level range somewhat more than really low and really high level characters, and across all optimization levels (considering DM restrictiveness as a plausible downward acting factor on how optimized a character is), prioritizing moderate optimization somewhat more than low or high.

A big issue with the original tier system is that, if anything, it was too specific, generating inflexible definitions for allowance into a tier which did not cover the broad spectrum of ways a class can operate. When an increase in versatility would seem to represent a decrease in tier, because tier two is supposed to be low versatility, it's obvious that we've become mired in something that'd be pointless to anyone trying to glean information from the tier system. Thus, I will be uncharacteristically word light here. The original tier system's tier descriptions are still good guidelines here, but they shouldn't be assumed to be the end all and be all for how classes get ranked.

Consistent throughout these tiers is the notion of problems and the solving thereof. For the purposes of this tier system, the problem space can be said to be inclusive of combat, social interaction, and exploration, with the heaviest emphasis placed on combat. A problem could theoretically fall outside of that space, but things inside that space are definitely problems. Another way to view the idea of problem solving is through the lens of the niche ranking system. A niche filled tends to imply the capacity to solve a type of problem, whether it's a status condition in the case of healing, or an enemy that just has too many hit points in the case of melee combat. It's not a perfect measure, both because some niches have a lot of overlap in the kinds of problems they can solve and because, again, the niches aren't necessarily all inclusive, but they can act as a good tool for class evaluation.

Tier one: Incredibly good at solving nearly all problems. This is the realm of clerics, druids, and wizards, classes that open up with strong combat spells backed up by utility, and then get massively stronger from there. If you're not keeping up with that core trio of tier one casters, then you probably don't belong here.

Tier two: We're just a step below tier one here, in the land of classes around the sorcerer level of power. Generally speaking, this means relaxing one of the two tier one assumptions, either getting us to very good at solving nearly all problems, or incredibly good at solving most problems. But, as will continue to be the case as these tiers go on, there aren't necessarily these two simple categories for this tier. You gotta lose something compared to the tier one casters, but what you lose doesn't have to be in some really specific proportions.

Tier three: Again, we gotta sacrifice something compared to tier two, here taking us to around the level of a swordsage. The usual outcome is that you are very good at solving a couple of problems and competent at solving a few more. Of course, there are other possibilities, for example that you might instead be competent at solving nearly all problems.

Tier four: Here we're in ranger/barbarian territory (though the ranger should be considered largely absent of ACF's and stuff to hit this tier, as will be talked about later). Starting from that standard tier three position, the usual sweet spots here are very good at solving a few problems, or alright at solving many problems.

Tier five: We're heading close to the dregs here. Tier five is the tier of monks, classes that are as bad as you can be without being an aristocrat or a commoner. Classes here are sometimes very good at solving nearly no problems, or alright at solving a few, or some other function thereof. It's weak, is the point.

Tier six: And here we have commoner tier. Or, the bottom is commoner. The top is approximately aristocrat. You don't necessarily have nothing in this tier, but you have close enough to it.

The Threads

Tier System Home Base


The Fixed List Casters: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, and Warmage


The Obvious Tier One Classes: Archivist, Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Sha'ir, and Wizard


The Mundane Beat Sticks (part one): Barbarian, Fighter, Samurai (CW), and Samurai (OA)


The Roguelikes: Ninja, Rogue, and Scout


The Pseudo-Druids: Spirit Shaman, Spontaneous Druid, Urban Druid, and Wild Shape Ranger


The Tome of Battlers: Crusader, Swordsage, and Warblade


The Jacks of All Trades: Bard, Factotum, Jester, and Savant


The NPCs: Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert, Magewright, and Warrior


The Vaguely Supernatural Melee Folk: Battle Dancer, Monk, Mountebank, and Soulknife


The Miscellaneous Full Casters: Death Master, Shaman, Shugenja, Sorcerer, and Wu Jen


The Wacky Magicists: Binder, Dragonfire Adept, Shadowcaster, Truenamer, and Warlock


The Slow Casting Melee Folk: Duskblade, Hexblade, Paladin, Ranger, Sohei, and Spellthief

The Rankings

Evangelist: Tier two

Favored Soul: Tier two

Healer: Tier three

Mystic: Tier two

Spontaneous Cleric: Tier two


And here's a link to the spreadsheet.

[Zombulian]

Wow. Never even looked at the Evangelist or the Mystic before. Interested to see how people weigh in on them.

[eggynack]

Wow. Never even looked at the Evangelist or the Mystic before. Interested to see how people weigh in on them.

I strongly suspect they're both going to get a lot of tier twos, like the favored soul and spontaneous cleric. None are likely to hit one, cause they're not better than high end tier two classes, and none are likely to hit three either, cause they're quite a bit better than those. Healer's the only one that seems plausibly controversial, which might be one of the better reasons to have included it. It's liable to get shifted upwards, but whether it gets shifted to three or four is up to the will of the masses.

[Anthrowhale]

Favored Soul, Mystic, and Evangelist are all gimped by one level for spell access. Healer (prepared) and Spontaneous Cleric are not. Spontaneous Cleric and S. Druid are the only spontaneous classes not gimped by a level in spell access that I know of.

Healer, Favored Soul, Mystic, and Evangelist all lose Turn Undead. (Mystic can regain it by choosing Sun domain.)

Evangelist probably has ~3 domains in practice, S Cleric 2, Mystic 1, Favored Soul and Healer 0. Favored Soul however has ~2 domains worth of extra spells known.

Favored Soul, Mystic, Healer, and Evangelist lose heavy armor proficiency. Healer loses medium armor also.

Healer is deeply gimped by the spell list. It's a chassis to add high level spells known via dipping domain granting prestige classes or sanctified spells. With that, probably Tier 3.5, noticeably worse than a Warmage.

Favored Soul, Mystic, and Evangelist are probably tier 2.

Spontaneous Cleric is better than these by an increment. It can persist spells from level 1 via divine metamagic or use other DMM and the advanced spell access is chronically useful even if it's only domain spells. For example a a human spontaneous cleric using the divine magician ACF with DMM[Twin] Sunstroke could inflict no save no type 4d6 damage with fortitude saves to avoid exhaustion at level 1. Overall, tier 1.75.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Evangelist: 1.5. This one really depends on domain selection, but you can end up with so many spells that you have functionally as many solutions are a tier one. Choose your domains poorly and you are pretty gimped. You don't feel the level loss as much given how crazy your list can get.

Favored Soul: 2. Dual stat casting and no domains really hold this back vs a cleric, but the list it casts off of is still strong.

Mystic: 2. One domain is nice but no turn/rebuke unless you take a specific domain is not fun. Ultimately what you lose vs cleric compared to what you gain is not worth it.

Healer: Not sure TBH. I am inclined to say 2 because it can do some cool things with exalted spells are some of those companions are awesome.

Spontaneous Cleric: 1.5. It all comes down to domain choices. Choose one with amazing spells that you will want often and you can hold your own with the ones. Don't? Down with the twos.

[eggynack]

Healer: Not sure TBH. I am inclined to say 2 because it can do some cool things with exalted spells are some of those companions are awesome.

I'm kinda doubtful you could get to two. The good companions come online when you're already halfway through the game, and the spell list is good but not necessarily better than, like, a bard or something. Or a somewhat optimized warmage. I put them at three personally. They get a good amount of variety, and some quantity of strength, but not a ton of variety or a ton of strength. Everything else I have pegged at straight up two, though I suppose there's like a .5 of wiggle room.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Of the classes listed Healer is the only one I have not used. The rest of these come from experience, so I would defer to people who have actually used the healer. I can honestly say that I have seen evangelists and spontaneous clerics keep pace with equally optimized clerics. Evangelist has a massive and functionally unique list. They are bad at the buff spells divine magic is noted for since DMM is off the table, but there are a good number of spells ro directly affect a foe and some domains are quite powerful. The goal for both is to pick domains that are not redundant with each other and offer many spells that are not on the cleric list. Consider there are five domains that offer Polymorph Any Object as a spell and 4 that offer Shapechange (one domain offers both) and consider how many situations you can solve using just those two spells. Then consider evangelist has 4-5 more domains to work with.

[Cosi]

The Favored Soul is Tier Three. The Cleric list is good, but it's very often good either in concert with DMM (which the Favored Soul doesn't get) or because you get all the spells (which the Favored Soul doesn't get). Then you don't get domains, and you don't get to be SAD. You're like a Sorcerer, except your first level spells are bless and divine favor instead of color spray and sleep. You're also very likely to be mandated to pick up spells like restoration or raise dead which, while necessary for the party, aren't doing you any favors in combat. In Jormengand's thread, Giles had to go super deep to get a list that was about as good as what the Beguiler wakes up with. That's not Tier Two.

[Gemini476]

So the Evangelist gets two domains at level 1, +1 at 5/10/15/20. That ends up at six domains, which is a lot!

Here's the catch, though: with some notable exceptions (Elder Evil's Sertrous (comes with free [Vile] feats!), Eberron's Sovereign Host, and clerics worshiping an ideal), most gods don't have six domains. I think it's usually closer to fiveish, maybe?
Except for Core gods, because they're the only ones that are actually assumed to be part of the setting and thus get bunches of new domains whenever a new list comes out. Pelor goes from having four domains in Core to nine with splatbooks and twelve with Dragon Magazine.

I'm not sure why they went for +1/5 levels, really, when the standard PHB number of domains is 4?
Especially when you've got stuff like Deities and Demigods suggesting that

A deity has at least three domains. Deities can have more than three domains if they possess the Extra Domain salient divine ability.

This isn't really a problem with the variant's power as much as I just find it a puzzling design decision, though.


Also, well, unless you're worshiping one of the big three (Sertrous, Sovereign Host, an ideal) then you're kind of going to be pigeonholed eventually by what god you choose. If you choose Vecna because you like the look of Knowledge and Magic, well, I hope you like the Evil domain.
Not that this stops you from being really powerful, it's just that if you're not careful it's easy to end up with a "wasted" class feature. (That comes at, like, level 20. So you'll multiclass or prestige out before then, probably.)
It's a weird design issue, really, since the sixth domain you grab is almost by definition going to be the least attractive one. It's not really that much of a capstone.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Or it is the other one with a sexy 9th and not much else to speak of. Also funnily enough there is a god, Lastai, with one domain. Clerics of Lastai are just stuck in Limbo for their second domain choice. As an interesting note: evangelists get so many domains they can afford to grab a meh domain with an amazing power and still make it work (Pride comes to mind).

[eggynack]

The Favored Soul is Tier Three. The Cleric list is good, but it's very often good either in concert with DMM (which the Favored Soul doesn't get) or because you get all the spells (which the Favored Soul doesn't get). Then you don't get domains, and you don't get to be SAD. You're like a Sorcerer, except your first level spells are bless and divine favor instead of color spray and sleep. You're also very likely to be mandated to pick up spells like restoration or raise dead which, while necessary for the party, aren't doing you any favors in combat. In Jormengand's thread, Giles had to go super deep to get a list that was about as good as what the Beguiler wakes up with. That's not Tier Two.

I don't think the comparison is as bad as you're claiming. You're not generally getting bless and divine favor instead of color spray and sleep. You're getting bless, divine favor, and some third spell of your choice instead of just color spray or sleep. Y'know, at levels besides first. Sorcerers do significantly better in the comparison when it comes to first level spells. In any case, you get two or three times as many spells of any given spell level. And they're worse spells, sure, but not so much worse to justify a tier drop given that advantage, in my opinion. Meanwhile, favored soul is a lot better than any tier three class. The bard is significantly behind, and other classes are naturally going to be further back. Favored soul might be the worst tier two or close to it, but it's way closer to the second worst tier two than it is to the best tier three.

[Beheld]

I don't think the comparison is as bad as you're claiming. You're not generally getting bless and divine favor instead of color spray and sleep. You're getting bless, divine favor, and some third spell of your choice instead of just color spray or sleep. Y'know, at levels besides first. Sorcerers do significantly better in the comparison when it comes to first level spells. In any case, you get two or three times as many spells of any given spell level. And they're worse spells, sure, but not so much worse to justify a tier drop given that advantage, in my opinion. Meanwhile, favored soul is a lot better than any tier three class. The bard is significantly behind, and other classes are naturally going to be further back. Favored soul might be the worst tier two or close to it, but it's way closer to the second worst tier two than it is to the best tier three.

Warmage is leaps and bounds better than Favored Soul, that's probably Tier 3.

[eggynack]

Warmage is leaps and bounds better than Favored Soul, that's probably Tier 3.

I don't really agree with that claim. Favored soul offers a significantly wider variety of spells, and cleric spells ain't half bad at combat neither.

[Cosi]

I don't think the comparison is as bad as you're claiming. You're not generally getting bless and divine favor instead of color spray and sleep. You're getting bless, divine favor, and some third spell of your choice instead of just color spray or sleep.

You're the party divine caster, that spell is pretty sharply mandated to be cure light wounds. And what third spell is covering that hole? Your spells are offensively anemic, and unlike a Cleric, you're not following that up with Domains or Turning.

Sorcerers do significantly better in the comparison when it comes to first level spells. In any case, you get two or three times as many spells of any given spell level. And they're worse spells, sure, but not so much worse to justify a tier drop given that advantage, in my opinion.

Really? Because color spray versus bless, spiritual weapon versus glitterdust, or stone shape versus stinking cloud seems pretty loose to me. And while you get more spells, you have to burn those slots on divine caster utility stuff like remove disease or break enchantment, which cuts you down some.

Also, more but worse spells suggests a comparison to the Beguiler, which doesn't look great. The out of the bag Beguiler compared pretty well to the Favored Soul last time, even when the Favored Soul was pulling from every splat imaginable.

[Anthrowhale]

For cleric list value, this is a good reference.

level 1: Sanctuary (+summons), Cause Fear
level 2: Sound Burst [AOE damage+stun], Silence, Hold Person
level 3: Nauseating Breath, Blindness, Hesitate (immediate action will-or-lose)

[Beheld]

I don't really agree with that claim. Favored soul offers a significantly wider variety of spells, and cleric spells ain't half bad at combat neither.

It's really easy to claim that when you and everyone who advocates that refuses to ever actually present the spells. But as soon as someone presents actual spells they think are as good as a Warmage, they have to dive 17 books and present a single specific character concept that is the only Favored Soul comparable to a Warmage.

The same amount of optimization results in Warmages casting from multiple domains and a bloodline, and having their own decent spells too.

[Zancloufer]

So not sure about Evangelist or Mystic (will have to look them up) anyway.

First Favoured Soul is a Tier 2. Dual stat casting and somewhat delayed progression hurt, but saying it is VASTLY inferior to the Sorcerer is a bit harsh. First as mentioned they have 2-3 times as many spells known as the Sorcerer does. A HUGE advantage is that a FS learns 3 spells when they gain a new spell level vs the 1 a Sorcerer does. They also cap at 6 spells known by the time Sorcerers hit 4. Even if you say that Arcane spell X is better than Divine Spell X, Y and Z (unlikely) you also have the Chassis to consider. FS gains d8 HD, 3/4 BAB and all good saves. They also get some half decent DR, free feats with their deity's chosen weapon and eventually gain Ex flight. Even saying that the Sorcere has better seplls they know ALOT LESS of them and get complete crap for a chassis and class features, especially vs the FS. Solid tier 2
Also who said you HAD to be the party heal bot? It's like saying "Sorcerer gets crap spells per day cause they have to learn those niche arcane spells that are sometimes useful".

Healer is probably a tier 3. They are REALLY GOOD at healing. Like the can heal all the things. Their Unicorn mount gives them some extra options and at high levels they do gain a few silly spells.

Spontaneous Cleric is tier 2. They know the same number of spells as the FS but they gain Turn Undead and two domains. Also worth nothing while they technically do not have delayed progression 2 of your spells known (and the first two spells you know of each new level) are from your domains. So they actually have slightly less flexibility in choosing spells known.

[Cosi]

level 1: Sanctuary (+summons), Cause Fear

cause fear is already on the Sorcerer's list, and people don't take it over color spray or silent image (and something the Dread Necromancer gets for free). Having one of your three spells at 1st level be something that locks you out of offense seems pretty weak to me.

level 2: Sound Burst [AOE damage+stun], Silence, Hold Person

sound burst and hold person are solid. silence is something the the Beguiler gets for free.

level 3: Nauseating Breath, Blindness, Hesitate (immediate action will-or-lose)

nauseating breath is roughly as good as stinking cloud, except its SpC instead of core. blindness seems less good than glitterdust, which the Sorcerer had for two levels already. hesitate is good, but is also a thing the Beguiler just gets for free.

[eggynack]

You're the party divine caster, that spell is pretty sharply mandated to be cure light wounds. And what third spell is covering that hole? Your spells are offensively anemic, and unlike a Cleric, you're not following that up with Domains or Turning.

I mean, you can just get a wand, at least at slightly later levels, and use cure minor to handle stabilizing. Gotta point out, I might be mistaken, but really low level cleric spells have always seemed a bit mehdiocre to me. Thirds are where it seems to start getting really good, and it's largely solid from there on. As you note below, the color spray to bless comparison is pretty anemic for the soul.

Really? Because color spray versus bless, spiritual weapon versus glitterdust, or stone shape versus stinking cloud seems pretty loose to me. And while you get more spells, you have to burn those slots on divine caster utility stuff like remove disease or break enchantment, which cuts you down some.

It seems a lot like you're counting the capacity to heal as a downside, which strikes me as odd. Either the spells are good, in which case you can take them and that's an advantage, or they're bad, and you don't take them. There might be some kinda healer's onus perspective here, but that doesn't seem like a particularly important perspective for tiering. But, in any case, while the comparison between, say, stone shape and stinking cloud is likely sorcerer favored, the comparison between stone shape, dispel magic, and, I dunno, animate dead? Blindness? Seems quite possibly favored soul... favored. You could even make that last spell remove whatever. Whole kinda utility the sorcerer isn't bringing to the table. The sorcerer is ahead, very likely, but these comparisons you're suggesting, where the favored soul is doing a kinda worse thing with their "main" slot, then a second thing that's also kinda worse, and then maybe healing or doing a totally different third thing with their third slot, seems pretty solid for the favored soul.

Also, more but worse spells suggests a comparison to the Beguiler, which doesn't look great. The out of the bag Beguiler compared pretty well to the Favored Soul last time, even when the Favored Soul was pulling from every splat imaginable.

The beguiler compared well, but it wasn't precisely soaring over by leaps and bounds. I got to around where I got with the sorcerer, which is that the beguiler is favored for maybe half of levels, and the soul is favored for the other half. Diminishing optimization hurts the favored soul, but I doubt the beguiler is ever pulling by that many levels ahead. The dread necromancer is probably pulling ahead by even fewer levels, maybe a couple levels behind at high op and a couple levels ahead at low op. I mean, there's a reason I was so in favor of beguiler for tier two, and it's because the class was consistently dominating just about any tier two class, even when those classes were optimized. It's really no surprise that the favored soul would be in a similar position.

It's really easy to claim that when you and everyone who advocates that refuses to ever actually present the spells. But as soon as someone presents actual spells they think are as good as a Warmage, they have to dive 17 books and present a single specific character concept that is the only Favored Soul comparable to a Warmage.

The Giles list featured a whole lot of alternative options, as I recall. Meaning you're not strictly reliant on one particular build but rather on a lot of possible subsets. I'm not really cleric list presenting guy, y'know? I'm more like, hey, that cleric list someone else produced is convincing, guy. And it was a very convincing list. Least as far as I'm concerned.

[J-H]

Does anyone else prefer Healer as a spontaneous whole-list caster? If someone wanted to play a healer in one of my games, I'd allow it.

[Beheld]

The Giles list featured a whole lot of alternative options, as I recall. Meaning you're not strictly reliant on one particular build but rather on a lot of possible subsets. I'm not really cleric list presenting guy, y'know? I'm more like, hey, that cleric list someone else produced is convincing, guy. And it was a very convincing list. Least as far as I'm concerned.

"If I just provide literal maximum optimization to this ****ty dual attribute caster, it's almost as good as a warmage that took weapon focus on 8 different weapons! This proves that Favored Souls are Tier 2 because spell list is the only thing I ever look at and I refuse to consider equal optimization"

Sure thing buddy.

[Anthrowhale]

..Dread Necromancer ... Beguiler

You are switching comparators on the fly which seems likely to cause confusion in comparisons. FS needs to be notably better than only 1 T3 class or approach just one T2 class to be judged T2.

cause fear is already on the Sorcerer's list, and people don't take it over color spray or silent image

Cause Fear is less impressive than Color Spray, but it's in the same realm unlike Divine Favor as you were pointing out. You trade AoE for single target but lose the geometric constraints of little cones and gain a debuff on save.

Having one of your three spells at 1st level be something that locks you out of offense seems pretty weak to me.

Sanctuary is a level 1 spell for later levels. Many problems can be solved via Sanctuary + summon monster spam.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Low-level Cleric spells can be a bit anemic, sure, but it starts kicking up at higher levels. Just in the 3rd/4th level spell range, you've got things like Animate Dead, Blindness/Deafness, Locate Object, Speak with Dead, Clutch of Orcus, Nauseating Breath, Tremor, Death Ward, Dismissal, Divination, GMW, Lesser Planar Ally, Wall of Sand, Wrack, and the Summon Monster line is starting to get good*. And you definitely do get enough spells known to take a downtime spell or two and not cripple your combat casting-- I'd say a minion spell, a divination, and two combat spells of each level is enough to surpass the Warmage, and that's not really touching on the remaining two situational spells you can take later on.


*List generated by taking a few minutes to quickly scan the PHB and SpC. That's certainly easy-low optimization.

[Troacctid]

Or it is the other one with a sexy 9th and not much else to speak of. Also funnily enough there is a god, Lastai, with one domain. Clerics of Lastai are just stuck in Limbo for their second domain choice.

I assume you're actually stuck in whatever plane you pick for your Planar Domain! Either that or you're taking Divine Magician, or the Incarnum domain.

I think most Evangelists are probably going to want to worship a pantheon!

It's really easy to claim that when you and everyone who advocates that refuses to ever actually present the spells. But as soon as someone presents actual spells they think are as good as a Warmage, they have to dive 17 books and present a single specific character concept that is the only Favored Soul comparable to a Warmage.

The same amount of optimization results in Warmages casting from multiple domains and a bloodline, and having their own decent spells too.

Remember that Favored Souls have a little extra leeway compared to the Warmage because they have a beefier chassis giving them a better baseline competency level before bringing their spells in. (Much like Beguiler does compared to Sorcerer.)

[eggynack]

"If I just provide literal maximum optimization to this ****ty dual attribute caster, it's almost as good as a warmage that took weapon focus on 8 different weapons! This proves that Favored Souls are Tier 2 because spell list is the only thing I ever look at and I refuse to consider equal optimization"

Sure thing buddy.

If you have a massive array of possible spell lists, then you obviously don't require maximum optimization. And, as always, warmage, baseline, can only do about two things. Blast, and BFC. They can do the first quite well, and the second pretty well. A favored soul can absolutely do those things, and also a lot of other things. I mean, jeez, the core third level spell list includes animate dead, dispel magic, and stone shape. That seems to easily stand up to the warmage's two really good BFCs and only blasting after that. And then a level later the comparison becomes more in the favored soul's favor. And, keep in mind, the blasting spells aren't adding a niche. They're expanding on one that was already present. Fourth level spells are similar. One high quality BFC spell, and then all blasting. We're still at literal two things. The favored soul is casting lesser planar ally at this level if they're optimized, and a solid array of spells from a lot more categories than two if they're not. You can buff, heal, defend, have mobility, see the future, and control the battlefield. All on an only reasonably optimized favored soul build.

I've looked at both lists. The cleric list, picking at least three and generally more spells of each spell level, is significantly better. Way more versatile, frequently more powerful, and the ceiling is pretty great too.

[Cosi]

Also who said you HAD to be the party heal bot? It's like saying "Sorcerer gets crap spells per day cause they have to learn those niche arcane spells that are sometimes useful".

Someone has to deal with downtime healing. Eggy is right that between encounter HP restoration can come from a wand, but scrolls of raise dead get expensive eventually.

I mean, you can just get a wand, at least at slightly later levels, and use cure minor to handle stabilizing.

True, but then you get another problem -- you probably don't need cure light wounds at 7th, but you might need it at 1st, and swapping is minimal. This is a big disadvantage for the organic Favored Soul. Recall that Giles' list didn't have anything to remove status conditions below heal.

The beguiler compared well, but it wasn't precisely soaring over by leaps and bounds.

The Beguiler compares well when you ignore the various random utility options it gets, most of the advanced learning, and the possibility to use feats/Knowstones/Prestige Domains. And this was to a Favored Soul pulling from everything from the Book of Vile Darkness to web content to Dragon Magazine.

FS needs to be notably better than only 1 T3 class or approach just one T2 class to be judged T2.

I don't think either of those really holds. The first assumes we have a class that sits a the ceiling of Tier Three, which I think is unlikely, and the second assumes that there's a a well defined worst Tier Two, which I also doubt. Absent that, it's reasonable to look at the overall comparisons, then ask whether the class is sufficiently worse to land a tier down.

Cause Fear is less impressive than Color Spray, but it's in the same realm unlike Divine Favor as you were pointing out. You trade AoE for single target but lose the geometric constraints of little cones and gain a debuff on save.

The AoE seems like a much bigger deal than partial effects. Also, you're still pretty spatially constrained by close range.

Sanctuary is a level 1 spell for later levels. Many problems can be solved via Sanctuary + summon monster spam.

That sounds pretty resource intensive for an unimpressive effect. summon monster is not a terribly good spell, and the number of slots you spend on something like that seems prohibitive.

Just in the 3rd/4th level spell range, you've got things like Animate Dead, Blindness/Deafness, Locate Object, Speak with Dead, Clutch of Orcus, Nauseating Breath, Tremor, Death Ward, Dismissal, Divination, GMW, Lesser Planar Ally, Wall of Sand, Wrack, and the Summon Monster line is starting to get good*.

A lot of those seem pretty situational for a spontaneous caster to be throwing slots at.

[Grod_The_Giant]

A lot of those seem pretty situational for a spontaneous caster to be throwing slots at.

Um, what? I'll give you Locate Object, Death Ward, and Dismissal are probably later-game picks, but everything else is rock-solid, widely-useful spells.

[Troacctid]

Yeah, Animate Dead and Summon Monster are like the opposite of situational.

[Cosi]

Um, what? I'll give you Locate Object, Death Ward, and Dismissal are probably later-game picks, but everything else is rock-solid, widely-useful spells.

speak with dead, and divination too (less so). Getting downtime spells is a little rough as well, though less than for the Sorcerer. The combat stuff looks to be equivalent to middle of the pack Wizard spells.

Yeah, Animate Dead and Summon Monster are like the opposite of situational.

animate dead sure. summon monster may be non-situational, but it's also just not very good.

[Zombulian]

Does anyone else prefer Healer as a spontaneous whole-list caster? If someone wanted to play a healer in one of my games, I'd allow it.

I would be inclined to agree, but a lot of people argue that Sanctified spells are more important.