Why Down Two PrC are Down Two Tiers.

[Surreal]

If a druid lost spell casting and his animal companion, he would still be a tier 3. The power and versatility of wild shape is one of his biggest contributing factors to the druid's arsenal. Losing wild shape progression hurts, a lot, which is why this PrC is down 2 tiers.

I kinda figured the elemental shape would bump it back up. Meh, whatever. *shrug*

[Paradox]

On the Evangelist

Logical Entry- 5 levels of bard for preform, though technically a  paladin with a high int and the ACF to get Perform as a class skill for it can qualify.  Also, A rogue or a factotum would be possible. However, only the bard is really effective in this class.

Cons-
The entry does require lots of skills to enter, and a choice between two bad feats (both feats only give +2 to various skills)
It does not progress spellcasting at all.
While the Evangelist stacks for bard music effects, it doesn't allow you learn new songs.

Pros-
If you're playing a bard, chances are that you're the party face, then the social skill reqs are a given, and the only real sacrifice you make is a bad feat that you could use a flaw on.
On a single level dip, you get the INSPIRE DREAD ability, which does not allow a save, to give a massive -4 to all will saves to enemies w/i 30ft, provided they're not mind immune.
The INSPIRE RIGHTEOUS FURY class ability replicates a good tank buffing spell that does only divine damage.
A massively useful spell, which makes me think this class was made to pair with a paladin, is a free atonement spell for a bardic music usage.  Really nifty.
An almost naberious-ly good diplomacy set of abilities

My opinion- Though this is ranked at a -2, I wouldn't hesitate to put this at a +0, if not a really high -1.   A bard5/evangelist5/SC2/LyricTh8 is a triple threat, what with being a diplomonster, 9th level spells, and really good bard singing.  

[Sinfire Titan]

On the Evangelist

Logical Entry- 5 levels of bard for preform, though technically a  paladin with a high int and the ACF to get Perform as a class skill for it can qualify.  Also, A rogue or a factotum would be possible. However, only the bard is really effective in this class.

Cons-
The entry does require lots of skills to enter, and a choice between two bad feats (both feats only give +2 to various skills)
It does not progress spellcasting at all.
While the Evangelist stacks for bard music effects, it doesn't allow you learn new songs.

Pros-
If you're playing a bard, chances are that you're the party face, then the social skill reqs are a given, and the only real sacrifice you make is a bad feat that you could use a flaw on.
On a single level dip, you get the INSPIRE DREAD ability, which does not allow a save, to give a massive -4 to all will saves to enemies w/i 30ft, provided they're not mind immune.
The INSPIRE RIGHTEOUS FURY class ability replicates a good tank buffing spell that does only divine damage.
A massively useful spell, which makes me think this class was made to pair with a paladin, is a free atonement spell for a bardic music usage.  Really nifty.
An almost naberious-ly good diplomacy set of abilities

My opinion- Though this is ranked at a -2, I wouldn't hesitate to put this at a +0, if not a really high +1.   A bard5/evangelist5/SC2/LyricTh8 is a triple threat, what with being a diplomonster, 9th level spells, and really good bard singing.  

+0 if it is only for a level dip. If you take any more than 2 levels in it, you are shooting yourself in the foot due to the lack of spellcasting advancement. Finally, the whole Mind Affecting part of the ability kinda nerfs it.

[Paradox]

The way I see it, the part about being a mind effecting ability for the -4 to will saves doesn't really matter, since the -4 to will saves would still not matter even if it did affect the min immune SOB. Going with sublime cord, you still don't lose anything for entering.  So with a bard, I'd say -1 (but you can still have a valid and strong case for -2), but the diplomacy benefits and the more known uses of bardic music make it not useless.

[ninjarabbit]

My opinion- Though this is ranked at a -2, I wouldn't hesitate to put this at a +0, if not a really high +1.   A bard5/evangelist5/SC2/LyricTh8 is a triple threat, what with being a diplomonster, 9th level spells, and really good bard singing.  

Illegal build since the SC requires being able to cast 3rd level spells.

[Paradox]

bard5/LT2/SC2/LT7/Evangilist4 works And cuts out a sort of unlimited atonements.

[ninjarabbit]

bard5/LT2/SC2/LT7/Evangilist4 works And cuts out a sort of unlimited atonements.

Still illegal since you can't take SC until level 11 due to skill requirements

[Paradox]

Bard 5/ LT2/ Evan 4/ SC2/ LT 7
I'm still away from books, but I think this finally works.

[Gr1lledcheese]

Added Paradox's description of the Evangelist and Sinfire Titan's note on the dips.

When we get a build hammered out that is agreed to be legal, I will add in the last paragraph of your post, Paradox.

[Suzerain]

Note that it's totally neither the Bard nor the Evangelist making this good, but Sublime Chord. Sublime Chord is a serious upgrade to the Bard by giving access to 9th level sor/wiz spells. It is ranked a +2 PrC right now, and I think that is justified.

The first-level ability of the Evangelist is actually the most decent, I think. Naberius is a better idea for Diplomancers (2nd and 4th level abilities). The 3rd and 5th level abilities are pretty unique as far as I know (though Santified One 1 can make flame shield use divine energy), but not really worth giving up progression of anything as far as I'm concerned.

Something I found when checking the build: Lyric Traumaturge only advances Bard spellcasting.

[Aliment]

So when are we going to get a +2 Tiers thread or the -1 Tier thread?  I also have to ask that if Planar Shepherd is a +2 tier wouldn't that put Druid 10/PS10 at Tier -1? 

IMO the +1 and +0 Tier threads should be done last.

[Suzerain]

It's called "Up" a tier, shortened for ease of use to +2. "Up" a tier would be smaller numbers if smaller numbers are better. But this system work on the premiss that these rankings don't literally mean that classes move up that many tiers. It just means they are so much better than their base classes/logical entry classes. Hulking Hurlers or Warhulks can at most make melee classes better at doing melee. I wouldn't ever call that tier1, though. When we do the UpTwo thread we might notice those classes aren't even +2, I could imagine. They're listed on faith, but the object here is practical optimization, and frankly I don't know whether hulking hurler is useful in any "real" builds (Planar Shepherd is +2 tiers even without free wish or time-trait abuse, I think). We'll see, though.

As to which threads/tiers to prioritize, you're probably right. -2 and +2 will be the most obvious (and extreme) cases and the ones people will most care about. They're also the 'thinnest' tiers. But let's wait for Gr1lledcheese to comment on this.

[sonofzeal]

It's called "Up" a tier, shortened for ease of use to +2. "Up" a tier would be smaller numbers if smaller numbers are better. But this system work on the premiss that these rankings don't literally mean that classes move up that many tiers. It just means they are so much better than their base classes/logical entry classes. Hulking Hurlers or Warhulks can at most make melee classes better at doing melee. I wouldn't ever call that tier1, though. When we do the UpTwo thread we might notice those classes aren't even +2, I could imagine. They're listed on faith, but the object here is practical optimization, and frankly I don't know whether hulking hurler is useful in any "real" builds (Planar Shepherd is +2 tiers even without free wish or time-trait abuse, I think). We'll see, though.

Bingo!  The whole reason for the "Up/Down" terminology was because previous incarnations used a +/- thing that got horribly confusing.  I'll occasionally use + instead of Up (as we generally associate + with getting better), but you get the idea. You also hit the nail on the head about the resulting tiers being decidedly non-literal.  "Down Two" doesn't put a Tier 1 on par with a Tier 3, it only means the PrC is unjustifiably horrid.  Similarly, no PrC is going to turn a Factotum, Warblade, or Psychic Warrior into a Wizard, but some of the options out there are crazy-good and deserve a special category, which we call "Up Two".  It might be more accurate to divide everything by two (so "Up One", "Up Half", "Equal", "Down Half", "Down One"), but that's just splitting hairs.

[Anklebite]

no PrC is going to turn a Factotum, Warblade, or Psychic Warrior into a Wizard,

not even sublime chord or ur-priest?   

[Paradox]

BEHOLDER mage.

[KarlM]

Can someone explain why Dungeon Delver is -1? I always liked it!  My Rogue 4/Warlock 4/Shadowdancer 2/Dungeon Delver 6 was very fun to play, amazing UMD and such.

[Glutton]

On Green Star Adept: This can be a decent PrC for Duskblades and the like

[Empirate]

Decent, I'll give you that. GSA is a gish light. But why not go straight Duskblade instead? Would be better imho.

The only builds I use GSA for are builds which do not aim to create a 9/16 gish. For example, I've used GSA to top off a Suel Arcanamach build after achieving most of its spell progression. Believe it or not: Dragon Disciple was still way better.
The only way in which half casting progression classes can be used is in builds whose spellcasting derives from PrCs with their own casting (like Suel Arcanamach). In these cases, GSA and its ilk at least allow you to complete the 10-level progression of that PrC spellcasting, if you entered the PrC early enough. So no, you can't even use it in conjunction with Sublime Chord. But it can be a nice finisher on Suel builds, or Knight of the Weave, Bladesinger (RoF incarnation), and so on.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

green star is only good if you then get incarnate construct cast at the end.

[ninjarabbit]

On Green Star Adept: This can be a decent PrC for Duskblades and the like

You're much better off taking duskblade levels than GSA levels and that's the bottom line.