You get identify, but not locate object. You do get gate, though, which in some cases makes up for the lack of locate object. You're hard to kill. You get word of recall, teleport, flight and detect invis "for free". You're valuable to groups, so as long as you're moderately competant, you get pulled along on trips to exotic exploration areas. If you can stay on top of your communes "reasonably" well, then you make an excellent group mate, so ranking should be easy.
Transmuter is also good for the same reasons, and doesn't require empowerment, but you pretty much have to resign yourself to being super-fragile and dying alot. Less so once you get duo-dimension. Fortunately, though, you're useful to both ranking and exploration parties even when buck naked.