[3.5] What tier are Wu Jen?

[Lateral]

Title says it all. Their spell list is limited compared to the Wizard/Sorcerer list, but they're prepared casters and their spell list still has plenty of really nice spells on it. I figure that this probably puts them in tier 2 territory, but I'm not sure where in the tier.

Also, which elemental mastery do you guys think has the best spells? It really isn't that big a deal, but +2 CL is always nice and you'd want it on the spells you're most likely to use.

[Big Fau]

Tier 2 if you have access to just CArc. They hit about Tier 2.5 if CM and Dragon Magic are allowed.

[Lateral]

Tier 2 if you have access to just CArc. They hit about Tier 2.5 if CM and Dragon Magic are allowed.

I assume you mean 1.5.

Okay, so on the high end of 2. That's about what I figured.

[GoatBoy]

Tier 1 in theory (unlimited access to spell list), tier 2 in practice since they don't have the same level of support as the wizard.

They would have been a candidate for tier 1 if WotC had ever made that Spell Compendium web enhancement which assigned SpC spells to the lists of the wu jen, hexblade, etc. But they didn't so they're not.

If you could argue that any wizard spell with the [Earth], [Water], or [Fire] description could be on their list, they'd be back to tier 1. One of those three would be a good elemental choice in that case, since I don't think there are any spells with [Wood] or [Metal] descriptions. You might get away with some druid spells counting for [Wood], though.

[Psyren]

They would have been a candidate for tier 1 if WotC had ever made that Spell Compendium web enhancement which assigned SpC spells to the lists of the wu jen, hexblade, etc. But they didn't so they're not.

SpC may not have singled out specific spells, but they certainly advised adding elemental spells to their list other than Air (SpC pg. 4.) I think they'd still be at T2 even with that though.