Summoning. Cleric VS Mages.

[Griefmaker]

Another benefit of clerics vs. mages for summons is that clerics can cast heal, healing circle, greater restoration, mass heal, or the cure lines of spells (which if empowered can do some pretty impressive healing).

Being able to bring a summon (or sometimes multiple summons or summons and PCs) back from the brink with 1 spell instead of several rounds of heal kits for the same healing is a pretty big thing. Granted, this is more for non-undead summons, though I suppose harm can work for the undead.

And yes, this can be done via scrolls as well...but then we get back to the argument that was going on in above posts about "scroll cost", which makes it all moot.

Otherwise I think both mages and clerics have their differing strengths and weaknesses in regards to summons and all in all, the field is pretty well even.

[TurningLeaf]

People bring up face mashing clerics- are Tensers builds not viable on Arelith? I haven't played a mage here yet but for some reason I thought you can do a Tensers mage here and it's workable.

[Naghast]

The difference is that tensers mage is a meme.
As in
Tenser's transformation completely blocks your ability to cast spells. Also tensers is like, the only spell mages can cast that boost their ab and lasts more than 9 seconds, whereas clerics have a tad bit more of those.
Honorable mention of ench spec good hope for another +2 ab tho.

Plus, a cleric can combine such spells with zen archery, which lets them add their casting stat modifier to ab. There is no such feat for charisma or intelligence.

This means that the difference between tenser wizard and facesmash cleric in terms of stats they achieve is rather immense.

Furthermore
Cleric's divine power, and other spells they have, boost damage if i remember correctly. None of wiz spells boost their damage, save for beforementioned good hope. Meaning, a tensers wizard will not only be incapable of casting spells for the duration of the effect, but also their damage will be low, even if they do pull off all the shenanigans i pull off to hit around 45-47 ab on a wizard.

Tl;dr:
Tenser mages are much weaker than facesmash clerics.

[Paint]

People bring up face mashing clerics- are Tensers builds not viable on Arelith? I haven't played a mage here yet but for some reason I thought you can do a Tensers mage here and it's workable.

As someone who played a Tenser's focused wizard and did all of the painstaking math about it. Do not do this.
Do not do this.

It 'works' in that you can get a character with functional AB at 30, but it comes with so many asterisks and caveats that it's not worth it. If you fully invest into a tenser's focused build without being a transmutation specialist, you're looking at 44-48 AB in tenser's depending on how tightly you build. This is on top of any CL you lose from dipping things like fighter to make you more martially viable. On top of that, you lose spellcasting while in Tenser's, so you don't get to use any of your fun wizard gimmicks. And since getting in and out of tenser's takes at least half a round(While you're in haste, mind), you're going to be jumping through a lot of hoops if you're planning on weaving spells between tenser's actions which means: dedicating more spell slots to tenser's and having a worse action economy.

Also you're gonna be damage anemic whether you go dex or strength. You just lose too much and get too little. And since Tenser's is a compliment for spellsword right now, it'll likely never be pushed into a workable place for wizard or sorc, because any tweaking to it will affect spellsword, too.

My tenser's focused wizard never once won a PVP match while in Tenser's. She did, however, win a PVP match or three by using the wizard wombo combo and just completely ignoring tenser's. In PVE, she fell off so hard against late content that it wasn't worth playing her as anything other than a hastebot in groups.

There's a whole long forum debate about it I started, too. It's just not worth it.

Battle clerics, however, Warpriest-flavored -or- vanilla are both quite a bit more viable because your tolerances are looser and you don't lose your spellcasting ability when you morb out.

Anyways, this is a really long-winded way of saying, no. It is not workable.

...Which is why spellsword exists the way it does right now. It's the melee wizard fantasy. But spellsword doesn't get summons afaik.

[TurningLeaf]

Well the ability to "wombo" had always been part of Tenser, if the PvE is going south, or if you found some pvp, you have the ability to pop out of it and Mords, Timestop, etc.; Tenser gave sustain but you still have top tier burst and escapability in a pinch.

I mean, despite the kind of moaning about how difficult Tenser is to build just right and so on, I've seen people do well with Tenser builds in Arelith, before they also had access to the best summoning buffs.

[Naghast]

Yes but after you pop out of tensers you kinda go back to being, well, a regular wizard, unless you wasted more of your precious slots on tensers.

[xanrael]

Pre-cantrip changes I ended up using tenser's on my enchanter in a few PvPs where I was low on resources before the fight even started and used it as that little bit extra to finish off the opponents.

Now would that have been a smart move in a duel, no, but then again I'd likely have all my resources for a duel anyway. I tend to see it more as a backup weapon that has some situational use and think it operates decently for that.