The Definitive Spherecasters Tierlist

[Logalmier]

The OG spherecasters really suffer from "Hedgewitch ate my lunch" syndrome. Fey Adept is a great example of this. Create Reality is a really powerful and cool class feature. So cool in fact, that it's basically Fey Adept's only meaningful class feature. Guess which class can outright just steal Fey Adept's main shtick, while also getting to be a Hedgewitch?

The idea behind Elementalist is that you get to have a really good chassis (d8, 3/4 BAB, all good saves, Evasion) while still being a Mid to Full caster. In exchange you basically don't get class features. Whether this is a good tradeoff when you could have just picked Hedgewitch is a question that's up to you.

I have a love-hate relationship with Mageknight. They are very strong, very fun and tactically interesting to play, and very boring to build. You pick the strongest Mystic Talents, pick the gish-Spheres, and then juggle spell-point and action economy while maneuvering around the battlefield. They also require no class investment - everything worthwhile about Mageknight can be done with just a 2 level dip, 3 if you want Stalwart (all the better to fill the next 18 levels with Hedgewitch). The Marshal Controller archetype is also pretty much just a straight upgrade, and a rather absurd power increase.

I'm surprised you didn't put Thaumaturge at F. They suck and feel terrible to build/play. Attempting to balance class features with talent paucity was way more common at the beginning of Spheres' life cycle, back before the developers figured out that people using Spheres wanted to actually, y'know, use Spheres.