Tierlist for classes (lvl 1-10)

[Altaviir]

I was wondering if there is a formalized tierlist for levels 1-10 for 3.5.

All of the campaigns I run begin at low level and never go far beyond level 10.

When I look at the top tiers of the 1-20 tierlist, I would probably put druids and maybe clerics a full tier above wizards.

Thoughts?

[Biggus]

I don't know a separate tier list, but there are some differences which I think are pretty clear:

There's a smaller gap in power between high and low tier. Obviously spellcasting is a big factor here, without high-level spells casters can't dominate to the same extent (or at least, require a lot more skill to do so).

At low levels fragile classes like Wizard and Sorcerer are in real danger of death, a single good hit can take them out and they don't have the many layers of defences they do by mid-levels.

Agreed that Clerics and Druids gain over Wizards and Sorcerers; among other things, as early as level 3 they already have a huge choice of spells unlike arcane casters.

Because versatility is a large part of the tier rankings, the overall order of classes doesn't change very much. Classes who just hit things still just hit things, classes with loads of options still have them, just to a lesser extent. Some classes may move up or down one tier but rarely more than that I think.

Classes which really suck at high levels, like the Monk, often suck quite a bit less at lower levels. In the case of the Monk and other martial classes with 3/4 BAB like the Marshal, until level 9 they only lag one or two points behind the full-BAB classes.

There's lots more but those are the first things which stand out to me.

[Kurald Galain]

I was wondering if there is a formalized tierlist for levels 1-10 for 3.5.

I've never seen one, but it is a good point that forum discussion tends to over-focus on level 20 whereas most campaigns never get even close to that. The core classes probably still end up in the same tiers, but there's some relatively unknown classes where I've seen arguments that the class largely sucks but it gets Gate or Wish at level 19 so it's automatically tier one, stuff like that. Capping at level 10 would shut down such arguments.

When I look at the top tiers of the 1-20 tierlist, I would probably put druids and maybe clerics a full tier above wizards.

But this I don't get. The wizard spell list is hands down better than cleric or druid, and that starts right at level one.

[pabelfly]

It actually changes even over shorter level spans, so a tier list from levels 1 to 10 might still be misleading for specific adventure level spans.

For example, at very low levels, martials will be able to do consistent damage all day while casters will only have a few spells each day, and might not even be successful with those spells. There's also more niche examples of specific classes whose tier number over twenty levels looks like a stock market graph rather than a straight line

It's probably better to find a class you like, do some research, and optimise to the power level you expect the rest of your party to be at.

[Altaviir]

But this I don't get. The wizard spell list is hands down better than cleric or druid, and that starts right at level one.

My argument for this is that both the cleric and the druid have more HP, AC, saves and spell versatility than the wizard at lower levels. In addition the animal companion gives the druid another character that is quite effective in the early levels.

[Kurald Galain]

My argument for this is that both the cleric and the druid have more HP, AC, saves and spell versatility than the wizard at lower levels. In addition the animal companion gives the druid another character that is quite effective in the early levels.

Sure. Druid has slightly better stats and an animal companion, wizard has better spells. That's more-or-less a tie. Cleric is probably below both, at low level, but that doesn't drop him to tier two either.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

But this I don't get. The wizard spell list is hands down better than cleric or druid, and that starts right at level one.

The Cleric and Druid's other advantages count for more at lower levels:

With lower WBL having access to your entire spell list rather than the portion of it you can afford to copy in your spellbook (or happen to find) is more significant.

Better HP, saves and access to armour are less able to be compensated for.

A druid's animal companion and wild shape are proportionately a lot more useful. So are divine feats, albeit to a lesser extent with one gigantic metamagic-shaped exception.

[Anthrowhale]

Mystic Ranger really shines in 1-10. Full BAB, 6+Int skills, L5 spells, 2 good saves. Use Sword of the Arcane Order for access to Wizard spells.

[Bucky]

A tier list that stops at level 10 puts particular emphasis on a few points that stop being relevant more or less at level 11.

For at least half the level range, there are no iteratives in a full attack. Full BAB classes get theirs two levels early compared to 3/4 BAB, and 1/2 BAB classes don't have any iteratives. Feats can bring full attacks into play early - Rapid Shot, for example - but move-action damage boosters like, uh, Soulknife's psychic strike are relatively more valuable, as are Standard action attacks that can't combine into a full action like strike maneuvers.

The entire game also happens before flight or tactical teleportation become common. That puts more weight on relatively weak mobility options - simple fast movement, jumping and climbing, and things like a ranger's Woodland Stride to negotiate difficult terrain. The near-total lack of long range teleportation also means wilderness survival and traversal abilities aren't obsolete, which might range from riding as a class skill to casting Endure Elements on the party to avoid the effects of winter weather.

[Thunder999]

Flight and tactical teleportation are both available in that level range.

Swift fly and levitate are 2nd level, fly is 3rd.

Benign Transposition is 1st level, Baleful Transposition and Dimension Hop are 2nd level, Dimension Step is 3rd.

Items aren't really a tier thing, but Anklets of Translocation are only 1400gp, cheaper than a +1 weapon.

[Ramza00]

Flight and tactical teleportation are both available in that level range.

Swift fly and levitate are 2nd level, fly is 3rd.

Benign Transposition is 1st level, Baleful Transposition and Dimension Hop are 2nd level, Dimension Step is 3rd.

Items aren't really a tier thing, but Anklets of Translocation are only 1400gp, cheaper than a +1 weapon.

Stop describing my time mage that I am generating currently as a stress-building cope

(That and an intelligent item with Pathfinder Spells casting very low level "gifts" for the main character / nearby allies.)

[RandomPeasant]

1st to 10th is too big of a range. You're going from the very start of the game, which is largely balanced and when unbalanced is unbalanced in ways that don't really track to the rest of the game (the best party for a 1st level one-shot is something like Druid/Beguiler/Warblade/Incarnate), to a point where all the big caster tricks are online to one degree or another. A 10th level Cleric can DMM: Persistent divine power and righteous might. A 10th level Wizard can have Shadow Illusion from Shadowcraft Mage, Metamagic Effect from Incantatrix, or Circle Magic from Red Wizard. By 10th level, you have teleport, raise dead, and plane shift (not to mention all manner of lesser utility magic). You're one level off of planar binding breaking the minionmancy game wide open, but people already get animate dead, lesser planar ally, charm monster, lesser planar binding, and dominate person, which are more than fit for purpose.

At low levels fragile classes like Wizard and Sorcerer are in real danger of death, a single good hit can take them out and they don't have the many layers of defences they do by mid-levels.

This is only true for a fairly specific part of the 1-10 level range. At 1st level, pretty much everyone is fragile, and "the orc rolled a crit" will take you out of the game regardless of whether you're a Dwarf Barbarian or an Elf Wizard. There's certainly a level range where those durability differences do come through, but it's not the whole thing.

Agreed that Clerics and Druids gain over Wizards and Sorcerers; among other things, as early as level 3 they already have a huge choice of spells unlike arcane casters.

Over Wizards, maybe, but Sorcerers get basically the same deal at low levels that they do at high levels. It takes much more wealth, and a much higher level of optimization, to beef up their spell access than it does for a Wizard to add a bunch to their book.

In the case of the Monk and other martial classes with 3/4 BAB like the Marshal, until level 9 they only lag one or two points behind the full-BAB classes.

The reason the Marshal sucks is not that it doesn't get full BAB.

Mystic Ranger really shines in 1-10. Full BAB, 6+Int skills, L5 spells, 2 good saves. Use Sword of the Arcane Order for access to Wizard spells.

That strikes me as the big one. Most classes will have done whatever power development over 20 levels by 10th level, whether that's becoming better (the Artificer) or becoming worse (the Incarnate) or staying basically the same (the Beguiler). But the Mystic Ranger at 10th level is able to play with the full casters, whereas at 20th level it's only marginally better than the regular Ranger.

[Troacctid]

I think we as a community don't really have this sort of partial tier list because it just feels weird to evaluate only half a class. Also, the breakpoints are in different places for different classes.

If I were to make such a thing, then I think 1–6 and/or 1–12 would be better ranges because they line up with E6 and E12, both of which are more commonly played than E8. Alternatively, a Mega Tier List project could analyze every single class at every single level, allowing for the creation of some interesting infographics once the whole thing is done.

1st to 10th is too big of a range. You're going from the very start of the game, which is largely balanced and when unbalanced is unbalanced in ways that don't really track to the rest of the game (the best party for a 1st level one-shot is something like Druid/Beguiler/Warblade/Incarnate), to a point where all the big caster tricks are online to one degree or another.

Okay. But to be fair, the traditional tier list is 1–20.

[Harrow]

I've always wondered why clerics were considered Tier 1 at all.

Roughly speaking, games I've been in average around one appropriately leveled encounter per hour of game time. Estimating again, I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 encounters per level. So, assuming you start at level 1, never die, take permanent negative levels, or spend frankly gratuitous amounts of XP on item crafting and spell casting, and retire your characters before you hit level 21, that gives a character a timespan of about 260 hours, charitably speaking considering how few games make it that far.

Clerics get some good 9th levels spells. Gate, True Resurrection, Astral Projection, and, of course, Miracle. But, those are 9th level spells. You don't get them at all until level 17. That's over 200 hours into the 260 that you get, and that's assuming that you make it all the way to 20 before retiring or something happens to the campaign. There are some games that start at higher levels, but I'd estimate that more games end before level 8 than start at a higher level than that.

So, lower level spells. Clerics get their full list without having to worry about scribing scrolls or selecting spells known, but any time I play a cleric I find myself floundering and flailing looking for good spells. Divine Power and Righteous Might are both pretty good. Together, they turn you into a fighter+. But, you can't pull off the combo even once until level 9, requiring over a hundred hours of play before they can do one really impressive thing ever. It's a lot longer before they can do it reliably. It also burns two rounds on buffing, which is less than ideal.

I'm not saying that clerics are tier 5. They obviously are useful in more situations than the fighter, who is lucky if they can pull of something really impressive at all. And, yeah, Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell is pretty good, but it's just not Natural Spell or Power Attack. It's a combo that takes three books to pull off, a fourth if you want the nightsticks to do it to more than, like, two spells. DMM:P doesn't make clerics Tier 1. You can make a cleric build, especially at level 17+ that is very powerful. Astral Projection alone could probably make a build Tier 2. Gate or Miracle alone, Tier 1. They just have that level of versatility. But, most of the game, you're stuck with, what, Bestow Curse? Dispel Magic? Like I said, not tier 5, but I wouldn't say those abilities make for a tier 1 class either.

Wizards right out of the gate get Sleep, Color Spray, and Grease just in core. Extend out and you get Power Word:Pain, Sticky Floor, and Blockade. After less than 30 hours you're running Glitterdust, Web, Invisibility, Mirror Image, Command Undead, all in core.

Druids, IMO, get a weaker core spell list, but also get an animal companion. AKA, a fighter that you can (effectively) res for no gold or XP loss. Entangle, Goodberry, and Faerie Fire are all pretty nice. Outside core, you get Winged Watcher and Aspect of the Wolf. And, again, less than 30 hours in you've got Kelpstrand, Blinding Spittle, and Bite of the Wererat. Honestly, all of the Bite of the WereX spells are pretty nice. Oh, and any spell you decide you don't need for the day can be a Summon Nature's Ally, which tends to be good for beatsticks and meat shields. All of that is without even touching Wild Shape, which they should be getting about a 50 hours into the game. A little late for a main gimmick in my opinion, but they get it on top of spells and an animal companion, so it feels hard to complain.

[noob]

The more manuals you have the better the cleric is.
For example there is somewhere a manual which grants clerics ice slick which is essentially grease on a bigger area and better against most monsters and still level 1.
Also clerics gets undead rebuking which means the gm will not use the best undead by fear of them being controlled thus making encounters safer because undead are often really mean monsters (Most of the really dangerous monsters are undead, aberrations, outsiders and monsters with a casting class)
Communion is absurdly op if you have the gods and demigods manual because the divine senses of the gods are very powerful, as long as it is in the interest of the god for you to know the information, you will basically get it, yes there is an xp cost but sometimes knowing where the current bbeg fled in order to stop it is worth it.
while individual cleric buffs are not always strong, keep in mind that you can put a lot of different buffs on one target provided they do not do the same thing.
Finally there is something named domains, they complement your spell lists with their own lists and some domains got loads of good spells directly drawn from the wizard or druid lists.
(ex: trickery domain gets you disguise self and invisibility which are both good spells and if you take the travel domain too, you will basically have one good domain spell per level)

[Anthrowhale]

With regard to low level cleric spells, consider:

Spell level 1: Heartache---a 2 action save or die (brutal!). Comparable to Sleep (which requires a full round and doesn't scale but can take out many) and Color Spray (which scales poorly and has less range).
Ice Slick---as mentioned a larger area alt-grease.
Divine Favor---+3 to attack and damage. Persistable, and provides an attack bonus entirely comparable to a Fighter.
Spell level 2: Obscuring Snow + Snowsight (Winter domain). The party can see but monsters cannot (brutal!). Better than invisibility since it lasts for hours. Better than Mirror Image since it applies to the whole party. Better than Glitterdust since it takes zero in-combat actions to blind.
Guidance of the Avatar + Diivine Insight for +35 to skill checks + Cloistered cleric + Sacred Outlaw + Kobold Domain = outrogue the rogue.
Close Wounds. Immediate action ranged healing --- a lifesaver.
Alter Self (Transformation Domain). Crucian gives natural armor +8. Lots of utility as well.

[TotallyNotEvil]

Mystic Ranger really is silly, and more so in this context. You can even get yourself Sword of the Arcane Order and pretty much be a gestalt character.

[Kurald Galain]

I've always wondered why clerics were considered Tier 1 at all.

Because forum discussion tends to assume that (a) all books are available, and (b) most of the game is played at high levels. If either assumption is not true in your campaign, clerics may drop in value.

[ciopo]

I find the "core" utility of cleric to be better at low level.

That is, healing and condition removals.

Like, sure, we all low wands of CLW.... but "usually" you won't actually be UMD'ing them at low levels.

And everything else debuff related? The trifecta of disease/poisons/ability damage is nontrivial to deal with. Sure, you can wealth it away... or your cleric can prepare the relevant removal after the fact.

Then there's the broadly applicable stuff, like conviction for more saves, prayer is a big swingy thing to throw around, elation.

Just because cleric doesnt do much BFC doesn't make it less than a wizard, different class different role, and whole list access is great for reactive solutions rather than 4th dimensional chess wizardly stuff.

Also turn undead and all those fancy smhancy alternate uses.

[Thunder999]

Battlefield Control is better than reactively fixing conditions, it's that simple.
Prevention beats a cure.
Control is spending a slot to make the entire fight easier, most condition removal spells are to remove some nasty debuff after it's already done some harm.

[ciopo]

It sure is, I'm not disagreeing.

But conditions of this or that will still be applied to you or a party member, I don't believe you will 100% no sell any and all encounters, especially so at low levels where slots are precious babies, and also happens to be the times when passing the DC for disease this poison that is harder due to big bonuses to saves not having come online yet... except for the cleric-only (mass) conviction ;)

I'm saying... you encounter a bunch of shadows, let's say they only hit once, and now there is some strength damage on the party, do you wait X days? Do you pop 300gp a pop per potion? Do you travel back to the city and inquiry for service at a temple? Thise are all valid options when you don't have a cleric go hurrdurr on it, but in my experience the kind of downtime for 1# is fairly rare, there is a general aversion to 2# unless you just so happen to have looted the specific potion 5 minutes ago in the module (because if it was more than 5 minutes ago you either sold it for cash for the item you actually care about, or you forgot you had it) and 3# is similar to 1#, in that not all campaigns have such flexible downtime.

There is a lot of mileage for "I got a spell for that" in the cleric list too, that it doesn't overlap with arcane solutions to other kind of obstacles doesn't mean the list is ****

[Ramza00]

Battlefield Control is better than reactively fixing conditions, it's that simple.
Prevention beats a cure.
Control is spending a slot to make the entire fight easier, most condition removal spells are to remove some nasty debuff after it's already done some harm.

At the lower levels ciopo is talking about a cleric uses Tyche Touch as a 24 hour buff to do the prevention, and Resurrgence (in a 750 gp wand) as the cure. Leaving most of the remaining cleric spell slots besides your 2nd level ones to kill things.
Tyche’s Touch is like Cleric Magic Armor for all your allies except it is 2nd level and it is saves instead of ac. [so even better!]

Conviction is the same thing but it does not come on line till the mid levels such as Caster Level 6 where it is now 1 hour (2 with a rod of extend lesser) and +3 moral to saves.

=====

I agree with your philosophy Thunder999 but my point is due to the reactive nature of playing a cleric there were some “gifts” in later books to make clerics more fun to play (yet these gifts are underpriced for what they are, by purposeful design. Making a cleric have awesome abilities for little taxes as a consolation of the healbot role.)

And since these gifts are so underpriced it is easy to put on wands and then give them to your familiars, intelligent items, mounts with UMD, etc to cast these with their reactive actions. Freeing up actual PCs to be proactive when the unicorn mount has a wand chamber of resurgence as part of their horn or hooves (750 gp for 50 charges plus 100 gp, plus the Unicorn investing in some UMD ranks.)

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

The differences become more pronounced as you increase in level and books allowed. Early on (1-5), a lot of the big talk about higher tiers being fundamentally different doesn't really apply. That said, you do still tend to see differences. By level 10, the tiers are apparent, even if it's nowhere near what will be the case at level 20.

There are edge cases that dramatically change tiers over levels, as noted, but those are usually qualified anyway. No one calls Truenamer T1 just because of Conjunctive Gate. They call him T5 or 6 until she gets Conjunctive Gate.

On another note, in the early levels, non-Core clerics do just fine. They are the best party buffers at least until you run into higher-level arcane PrCs; Bards come close and probably can get better raw damage numbers with sufficient IC optimization, but Clerics are better all around.

[RandomPeasant]

a fourth if you want the nightsticks to do it to more than, like, two spells.

Sure, but you only need like two spells to do the Fighter's job. Then you can spend the rest of your time casting powerful Cleric spells.

Wizards right out of the gate get Sleep, Color Spray, and Grease just in core. Extend out and you get Power Word:Pain, Sticky Floor, and Blockade.

I really wish people would stop talking up power word pain. That is not a good spell for players to cast. By the time power word pain kills something, the rest of your party would already have killed it just by hitting it, and you don't have resource-efficient options for turtling or tactical retreats. Just cast your AoE save-or-lose spells at 1st level.

Druids, IMO, get a weaker core spell list, but also get an animal companion. AKA, a fighter that you can (effectively) res for no gold or XP loss.

And the Cleric gets animate dead and lesser planar ally at a time when that animal companion (or charm monster from an arcane caster) is the best minionmancy in town. I agree that the Druid is better than the Cleric at low levels, and that they're a better beatstick in a low-splat environment, but the Cleric isn't worthless, and getting those minionmancy spells early is a big part of why.

Okay. But to be fair, the traditional tier list is 1–20.

I didn't say it wasn't. The point is that 1st level is different from the rest of the game in a way the tiers don't really capture. You'll notice that every class in that party ends up in a different tier at 20th level.

Heartache---a 2 action save or die (brutal!). Comparable to Sleep (which requires a full round and doesn't scale but can take out many) and Color Spray (which scales poorly and has less range).

It's "comparable to" those spells in the sense that "this is worse" is a comparison. Taking out a single target for a single round is a lot worse than dropping multiple enemies on an ongoing basis. The reason sleep is so strong is that it lets you drop some of the enemies and clean them up later. heartache does not do that.

Guidance of the Avatar + Diivine Insight for +35 to skill checks + Cloistered cleric + Sacred Outlaw + Kobold Domain = outrogue the rogue.

Again, not really. guidance of the avatar is a one-off. You're not replacing the Rogue's ability to make skill checks at reasonable bonuses as often as he wants with the ability to make them at insane bonuses a few times per day.

Mystic Ranger really is silly, and more so in this context. You can even get yourself Sword of the Arcane Order and pretty much be a gestalt character.

I wouldn't say that. Mystic Ranger is quite strong, but you really are limited by the combination of slow spell progression and limited spells per day, even at the levels where your casting is progressing. Plus you can't get SotAO until 6th (normally), which leaves you with only a fairly limited window where you're playing to your full potential. You're certainly not anywhere near a Gestalt (at least, not a reasonably well-optimized one).

The differences become more pronounced as you increase in level and books allowed. Early on (1-5), a lot of the big talk about higher tiers being fundamentally different doesn't really apply. That said, you do still tend to see differences. By level 10, the tiers are apparent, even if it's nowhere near what will be the case at level 20.

I think you could make a genuine argument that "E6 Tiers" would be meaningfully different from regular tiering to a degree that made it worthwhile. But once you get to 10th or 12th level, you've got something that directionally matches the full game, just with a smaller magnitude. With the exception of the Mystic Ranger (who honestly should probably get separate entries on the full list), I don't think there's classes you could pick so that one's better than the other at 10th level but it reverses at 20th level. Whereas there's plenty of examples you could do that for from 1st to 20th.

[Harrow]

Heartache

An efficient spell that I wasn't aware of. Still, being 3.0 and [Evil], while not hurting its effectiveness for whiteroom theorycrafting, does make it feel... inelegant. To me, at least.

Ice Slick

I always forget that's a cleric spell and not, like, Wu Jen or something. Effective, and more elegant than Heartache, but I do find the stated balance DC of "whatever your DM finds appropriate to the situation" to be troublesome.

Divine Favor

Requires you to spend the first round of every combat buffing yourself. And remember, DMM Persist is a build, not a class.

Obscuring Snow + Snowsight (Winter domain).

I don't know I would say this is strictly better than invisibility, because enemies can still see an extremely localized snowstorm moving toward them and react appropriately. Still good, just not strictly better. Snowsight, however, is a domain spell, which you only get one of a day. So, YOU can see in your snowstorm, but the rest of your party can't. Probably a job better left to the druid (or archivist, possibly something like chameleon...)

Guidance of the Avatar + Diivine Insight for +35 to skill checks + Cloistered cleric + Sacred Outlaw + Kobold Domain = outrogue the rogue.

Using that many different sources just to outdo a Tier 4 class does not make cleric Tier 1. Again, I'm not contesting that clerics are effective, I just never considered them true Tier 1 material.

Close Wounds.

I tend to prefer more proactive solutions. In my experience, coming within 9 points of death from hit point damage is too rare to justify the opportunity cost of constantly preparing Close Wounds on a regular basis.

Alter Self (Transformation Domain).

That is, again, a domain spell that you get one of a day. It's not bad to have, but I'm just not convinced that having Alter Self once a day is Tier 1.

I find the "core" utility of cleric to be better at low level.

That is, healing and condition removals.

Like, sure, we all low wands of CLW.... but "usually" you won't actually be UMD'ing them at low levels.

And everything else debuff related? The trifecta of disease/poisons/ability damage is nontrivial to deal with. Sure, you can wealth it away... or your cleric can prepare the relevant removal after the fact.

Then there's the broadly applicable stuff, like conviction for more saves, prayer is a big swingy thing to throw around, elation.

Just because cleric doesnt do much BFC doesn't make it less than a wizard, different class different role, and whole list access is great for reactive solutions rather than 4th dimensional chess wizardly stuff.

Also turn undead and all those fancy smhancy alternate uses.

A wand of Cure Light Wounds should be the first thing a party buys after the adventure starts. A paladin, ranger, druid, or bard doesn't need a UMD check at all to activate it, and the DC to do so is only 20. There's no penalty for failing unless you roll a natural 1, and even then, you're just locked out of it for a day. Disease in the decade+ I've been playing has only ever come up once (a single case of mummy rot) and generally seems like something best handled by an NPC caster back in town between adventures or from a scroll. Poisons either come from traps, which can usually be dealt with better by a rogue (or beguiler/artificer/scout/whatever) or disposable summoned/charmed/animated minions if you're facing any serious amount of them, or poisonous monsters, which are generally better dealt with by killing them rather than trying to heal the poison magically. Ability damage I think mostly comes from undead, and, yeah, having a cleric around for that can be nice. Both for turning low HD incorporeal undead which tend to be nasty, and recovering from failing to deal with them properly.

I don't know, I just tend to not like solutions that only return things to the status quo after bad things happen. I much prefer stopping the bad things from happening in the first place. I can see a place for clerics, especially in games without wide access to healing items (scrolls of spells, CLW wands, healing belts, that rod and orb from MIC that restore physical and mental stats). I don't expect battlefield control from clerics (usually). I feel that their role should be preventative care. Things like Death Ward and Freedom of Movement are good examples. They just are so high level that you really need to conserve the uses of them until so late in the game that it's impractical to consider it their main role.

[pabelfly]

There are edge cases that dramatically change tiers over levels, as noted, but those are usually qualified anyway. No one calls Truenamer T1 just because of Conjunctive Gate. They call him T5 or 6 until she gets Conjunctive Gate.

Here's the actual level 1-20 detailed tier list for Truenamer.

Truenamer at level 1 is only slightly better than Commoner since you have roughly a 25% to 40% chance of not being able to cast your one utterance the first time that day.

Maths: presume an 18 or 20 INT for a +4 to +5 INT bonus, +3 from Skill Focus, and 4 ranks to get a +11 or +12 check versus a check of either 17 or 19, depending on whether the target is yourself or an ally. It only gets worse with the Law of Resistance or if you want to use it on something higher than level 1. Call it maybe T5.5.

Truenamer at level 2 to level 4 or 5 slowly transitions to T4 once you start getting money and can throw it at boosting your Truespeak skill check. You join the Paragnostic Assembly, and you can do this regardless of campaign wealth. If you’re doing regular WBL, you save up for an Amulet of Silver Tongue and a custom Ring of Truespeak, both of which you progressively upgrade. Although RAW, the custom ring is slightly contentious, I would argue that it’s not unreasonable or unreasonably-priced since the Amulet of Silver tongue exists for a pricing comparison. You go from not being sure you can cast your utterances to being able to be able to cast each of your utterances multiple times a day, and you get new utterances each level giving you some versatility.

Providing you have regular wealth and access to a custom Ring of Truespeak, I'd argue that Truenamer between levels 4 and 10 is a T4 class, which is defined to mean "good at solving a few problems". So what problems can a Truenamer solve to a “good” standard?
- You're the party Knowledge bank, and you can do this to an excellent standard. You have high INT, lots of skill points, all Knowledge skills available, and you can easily get a +15 to your Knowledge checks, and the class even gives extra bonuses to Knowledge.
- Battlefield control is also excellent. You have stuff like Inertia Surge and Temporal Twist will help control enemy movement. You can even extend this with little issue so that you can control enemies over multiple turns. Oh, and no saves are allowed.
- You can debuff. You're actually pretty decent at this. Compared to something like Wizard, you have limited range and can't have two of the same debuff on the field at once, but your debuffs often have no save and you can use them much more often.
- Buffing. You can only buff one ally at a time, but otherwise the same comments and comparisons that I made as for debuffing.
I think that’s a decent range and level of ability to earn a T4 rating, but I will note that none of this includes direct damage.

At around level 10 or 11, you can reach maybe T3.5. Here are some of the tricks/cheese you have under your belt:
- You get to quicken each of your utterances several times a day, greatly improving utility. While you get the feat at level 9, you’ll probably be able to make use of it around level 10 thanks to Paragnostic Assembly bonuses, upgrading your check with a custom Ring of Truespeak and so forth.
- Solid Fog, quickened. You’ll likely run out of day before you run out of Quickened Solid Fog uses.
- Dispel, no saves. The list of things that can be dispelled is ridiculous.
- Rebuild Item. You can build all sorts of items, but the best item is a Skull Talisman, which can technically hold up to 9th-level spells, if you want to cause your DM endless pain. More likely, you could ask your DM for access to lower-level skull talisman items, which still greatly improves versatility.

At level 20 Truenamer jumps to T2 because of near-free gate spam. It’s a really powerful ability, but it’s very one-note, and I think you need more than that to reach T1.

[Anthrowhale]

It's "comparable to" those spells in the sense that "this is worse" is a comparison. Taking out a single target for a single round is a lot worse than dropping multiple enemies on an ongoing basis. The reason sleep is so strong is that it lets you drop some of the enemies and clean them up later. heartache does not do that.

Proper use of heartache involves the cleric casting heartache from back row and the fighter executing CdG from the front row with an x4 multiplier weapon (=2 action save-or-die, as stated). Thus, you are dropping an enemy that fails a save on the first round permanently. In contrast, Sleep does nothing at all in the first round, since the wizard is still casting it. The second round of sleep is great, but often a significant part of the combat is decided after the first round given the few hit points running around.

The other interesting aspect of a Heartache vs. Sleep comparison is that Sleep is soon useless, while Heartache remains situationally useful even into high levels.

Again, not really. guidance of the avatar is a one-off. You're not replacing the Rogue's ability to make skill checks at reasonable bonuses as often as he wants with the ability to make them at insane bonuses a few times per day.

With cloistered cleric, there are almost as many skills as a rogue and the available list is actually quite good. Via the appropriate choice of domains the cleric skill list is:
Appraise, Autohypnosis, Bluff, Concentraion, Craft (All), Diplomacy, Disable Device, Disguise, Heal, Hide, Intimidate, Gather Information, Knowledge (All), Profession (All), Psicraft, Search, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Spot, Survival

A rogue has to commit to a subset of skills to learn, just like a cleric committing to a set of domains which give skill access.

Overall, on the raw skill front they have near-parity with rogues in terms of skill points and the ability to spike occasional skill checks can be amazing.

Requires you to spend the first round of every combat buffing yourself. And remember, DMM Persist is a build, not a class.

If you want to ignore DMM persist when evaluating Clerics, I can see how that will dim your view of them.

Snowsight, however, is a domain spell, which you only get one of a day.

There's a trick---you take the spontaneous domain casting ACF. Then, you can cast as many per day as you have slots.

That is, again, a domain spell that you get one of a day. It's not bad to have, but I'm just not convinced that having Alter Self once a day is Tier 1.

Persist it or use the spontaneous domain ACF.

[RandomPeasant]

Requires you to spend the first round of every combat buffing yourself. And remember, DMM Persist is a build, not a class.

And people play builds, not classes. This thing where we're supposed to arbitrarily pretend that certain tricks that people will 100% use when playing classes don't exist when evaluating classes has always been a bizarre fixation of tiering discourse that makes it less useful rather than more.

Here's the actual level 1-20 detailed tier list for Truenamer.

The Truenamer falls into this weird space where the way to optimize your class is to do a bunch of stuff that also optimizes things that are class-agnostic, but much more powerful than anything you get until gate. Imagine that instead of playing a Truenamer that made their Truespeak check very large, you played an Expert who made their Diplomacy check very large. For a DC lower than the one it takes to use an Utterance against a CR 20 enemy, you can make a Hostile creature Helpful, or a Helpful creature Fanatic. If you invest in UMD instead, you can pop off holy word from a staff at CLs that just kill people. Any amount of mucking about with boosting your Truespeak check sort of falls flat in the face of your utterances mostly being worse than things skills just do.

- Battlefield control is also excellent. You have stuff like Inertia Surge and Temporal Twist will help control enemy movement. You can even extend this with little issue so that you can control enemies over multiple turns. Oh, and no saves are allowed.

These are not "battlefield control". They are single-target debuffs, which while useful, are a different and generally less powerful thing. Also people totally get a save when you hit them with the version of temporal twist that you want to use on enemies.

- Buffing. You can only buff one ally at a time, but otherwise the same comments and comparisons that I made as for debuffing.

What are the specific buffs you'd identify as compelling here? Because at a glance it looks like things along the lines of "bad snake's swiftness" or "bad heroics".

- Rebuild Item. You can build all sorts of items, but the best item is a Skull Talisman, which can technically hold up to 9th-level spells, if you want to cause your DM endless pain. More likely, you could ask your DM for access to lower-level skull talisman items, which still greatly improves versatility.

I think the number of games where your DM will allow you to do rebuild item Skull Talisman loops (which are only arguably RAW), but will not allow you to do WBL cheese (that is inarguably RAW) is very close to zero.

At level 20 Truenamer jumps to T2 because of near-free gate spam. It’s a really powerful ability, but it’s very one-note, and I think you need more than that to reach T1.

No, "at-will gate" is absolutely T1.

Proper use of heartache involves the cleric casting heartache from back row and the fighter executing CdG from the front row with an x4 multiplier weapon (=2 action save-or-die, as stated). Thus, you are dropping an enemy that fails a save on the first round permanently.

Yes, and I'm sure you will always be able to arrange that state of affairs exactly as described.

In contrast, Sleep does nothing at all in the first round, since the wizard is still casting it. The second round of sleep is great, but often a significant part of the combat is decided after the first round given the few hit points running around.

If you're worried about the casting time, cast color spray instead.

The other interesting aspect of a Heartache vs. Sleep comparison is that Sleep is soon useless, while Heartache remains situationally useful even into high levels.

So what? The guy casting sleep is a Wizard, he can just prepare spells that aren't useless at high levels. Like silent image or fengut, both of which are going to be better for that use-case that heartache is.

A rogue has to commit to a subset of skills to learn, just like a cleric committing to a set of domains which give skill access.

Yeah, but unlike the Rogue with their skill points, the Cleric wants to use those domain selections for stuff that isn't just "having skills". A Cloistered Cleric would 1000% rather have the Spell and Magic domains (so they can become a Dweomerkeeper and do awaken loops) than the Kobold and whatever the other one you think they should have domains (so they can be a mediocre skillmonkey). If you need a fullcaster to do the Rogue's job, bring a Beguiler or an Artificer. Don't waste a perfectly good Cleric just because you dumpster-dived and want to look clever.

Overall, on the raw skill front they have near-parity with rogues in terms of skill points and the ability to spike occasional skill checks can be amazing.

guidance of the avatar isn't even a Personal spell. You can spike all the skill checks you want by virtue of simply casting it on the skill monkey while still getting good domains. The only reason to take the Kobold domain is if you are running a solo campaign with a DM who loves traps (and even then, you might be better off going it from the other end with Beguiler or Artificer depending on specifics).

[Harrow]

This thing where we're supposed to arbitrarily pretend that certain tricks that people will 100% use when playing classes don't exist when evaluating classes has always been a bizarre fixation of tiering discourse that makes it less useful rather than more.

Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell is not Power Attack or Natural Spell. Will there 100% be some tables where it sees play? Absolutely. Will it see play at 100% of tables that use cleric? No, not even close. Should the potential access to that option be weighed when tiering the class? Yes. Should the tier of the cleric automatically assume DMM Persist, as though that were only way to play them? No.

You can do some neat things with charging, or mounts, or even just WBLmancy. These do not make Paladins higher than tier 5, even though you can make a build for any 3 of those I mentioned that hits above that. Just because you can make a build using a class that's a certain tier, does not mean that the class you used is the same tier as the build. What matters is how it fares compared to similar levels of optimization. This is always going to be subjective, in several respects, but I consider DMM Persist to be roughly on-par with something like Aptitude Lightning Maces or Boomerang Daze for lower tier options or extensive use of scry-and-die or using lesser planar binding to get Astral Projection off of a Nightmare to adventure without fear of death for higher tier options. Compared to those options, is Persist really that good?

[pabelfly]

The Truenamer falls into this weird space where the way to optimize your class is to do a bunch of stuff that also optimizes things that are class-agnostic, but much more powerful than anything you get until gate. Imagine that instead of playing a Truenamer that made their Truespeak check very large, you played an Expert who made their Diplomacy check very large. For a DC lower than the one it takes to use an Utterance against a CR 20 enemy, you can make a Hostile creature Helpful, or a Helpful creature Fanatic. If you invest in UMD instead, you can pop off holy word from a staff at CLs that just kill people. Any amount of mucking about with boosting your Truespeak check sort of falls flat in the face of your utterances mostly being worse than things skills just do.

There's different levels of optimization you can do for different builds. You can't do too much optimization to, say, a Wizard before you have a character you can't really use outside of theory. And no-one's going to let you play the Diplomancer you bought up. Meanwhile, you can do some heavy optimization of a Truenamer and you'll still have a character you can reasonably play at a table.

These are not "battlefield control". They are single-target debuffs, which while useful, are a different and generally less powerful thing. Also people totally get a save when you hit them with the version of temporal twist that you want to use on enemies.

Thanks for the correction on Temporal Twist and Temporal Spiral. Anyway, if you're keeping an enemy in place, they can't move where they want, and you're stopping them from, say, joining everyone else in whaling on the melee people in the group, I'd call that battlefield control. Getting Solid Fog at level 8, and being able to reliably Quicken it at level 9, is also pretty damn good and a pretty solid way to start a combat.

What are the specific buffs you'd identify as compelling here? Because at a glance it looks like things along the lines of "bad snake's swiftness" or "bad heroics".

Speed of the Zephyr, Greater is a single-target haste. It has less range than Haste, only working on one person, but as I said, you get to use it more often, and you don't have to worry about not having third-level spell slots for other spells you need, especially at lower levels when you might only have two or three slots to use for the entire day.
Temporal Spiral is better than Snake's Swiftness because you can combo this with Extend Utterance. Whether that actually works or not is more a question for a DM but I'd say it does, and means you get to trade one turn of yours for an ally getting two move actions over two turns.
Seek the Sky is Flight, but only lasts 5 rounds. But, again, you don't have to worry about managing your third-level spell slots.

Out-of-combat, Universal Aptitude is really good when you absolutely have to pass that skill check, and also goes with Hidden Truth when you want to really completely ace a Knowledge check.

I think the number of games where your DM will allow you to do rebuild item Skull Talisman loops (which are only arguably RAW), but will not allow you to do WBL cheese (that is inarguably RAW) is very close to zero.

That's why I said it wasn't going to happen and made an alternative suggestion that was more reasonable.