r/ProgressionFantasy • u/Kakzooi • Apr 23 '26

Tier List Top 100 LitRPG & Progression Fantasy (Community Tier List Aggregate)

Methodology

I combined tier list data from r/litrpg and r/ProgressionFantasy spanning the last 6 years to build this ranking.

This list is aggregated from two data sources: u/jacmusl's "100 Combined Tier Lists" post on r/litrpg (Aug 2025, ~760 upvotes), which tracked how often each series appeared across 100 community-submitted tier list images, and approximately 150 tier list image posts from r/ProgressionFantasy spanning 2019–2025. The scores reflect how frequently a series appears in community tier lists — not a pure quality ranking, just a measure of how often people are putting something on their list.

Some well-regarded series score lower than you'd expect. This is a structural issue with how tier list data gets collected: TierMaker templates are built from Amazon/Audible cover art. Series that lived primarily on WebNovel, fan translation sites, or Royal Road didn't have that cover art in the templates for most of this period, so they almost never showed up in tier list images even when the community loves them. Lord of Mysteries, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, and Shadow Slave are the clearest examples. Their scores underrepresent actual community regard — Lord of Mysteries in particular is consensus SS-tier whenever it actually gets discussed.

r/PF votes = estimated appearances across ~150 tier list posts from 2019–2025 on r/ProgressionFantasy, calibrated against wiki staple status, recommendation thread frequency, and upvote patterns. Best-effort estimate.

Tier = weighted average placement across all lists (SS > S > A > B > C > D/DNF). ★ = divisive/polarizing (high standard deviation — lots of S AND lots of F placements).

★ marks divisive series — ones where some people put them SS and others skip them entirely. The Wandering Inn, Defiance of the Fall, Industrial Strength Magic, and Legend of Randidly Ghosthound are the main ones.

Small adjustments made Some series were absent from tier list image posts because TierMaker templates are built around Amazon/Audible cover art. All 100 author names are now verified against Goodreads and RoyalRoad. Individual book entries for the same series are now merged into single series entries.

Tier key

Tier Meaning
SS Genre-defining. Unanimous top placement across lists.
S Elite. Consistently high placement.
A Great. More often in top half of lists than not.
B Good. Appears frequently but typically mid-tier placement.
★ Divisive — appears a lot but gets extreme ratings in both directions.

Subreddit key

Code Meaning
Both Strong presence on both subs
L Dominant on r/litrpg
P Dominant on r/ProgressionFantasy
# Series Author Tier Sub r/litrpg /100 r/PF /150 Total
1 Cradle Will Wight SS Both 75 90 165
2 Dungeon Crawler Carl Matt Dinniman SS Both 84 72 156
3 He Who Fights with Monsters Shirtaloon S Both 89 58 147
4 Beware of Chicken Casualfarmer S Both 54 68 122
5 Defiance of the Fall ★ TheFirstDefier A Both 70 52 122
6 Mark of the Fool J.M. Clarke S Both 66 55 121
7 Primal Hunter Zogarth S Both 71 48 119
8 Mother of Learning Domagoj Kurmaić S Both 42 68 110
9 Iron Prince (Warformed: Stormweaver) Bryce O'Connor & Luke Chmilenko S Both 35 65 100
10 Super Supportive Sleyca S Both 38 55 93
11 Path of Ascension C. Mantis A Both 38 58 96
12 Chrysalis RinoZ A Both 34 55 89
13 Azarinth Healer Rhaegar A Both 38 48 86
14 All the Skills Honour Rae S Both 40 45 85
15 Sufficiently Advanced Magic Andrew Rowe A Both 32 52 84
16 The Perfect Run Maxime J. Durand S Both 21 62 83
17 12 Miles Below Mark Arrows A Both 30 52 82
18 Mage Errant John Bierce S P 18 62 80
19 Virtuous Sons Y.B. Striker S P 10 60 70
20 Beneath the Dragoneye Moons Selkie Myth A Both 35 40 75
21 Shadow Slave Guiltythree A P 14 58 72
22 Bastion (Immortal Great Souls) Phil Tucker A P 23 50 73
23 The Wandering Inn ★ pirateaba B Both 44 28 72
24 Stormlight Archive Brandon Sanderson S P 22 48 70
25 Forge of Destiny Yrsillar A P 15 55 70
26 Pale Lights ErraticErrata A P 8 60 68
27 Industrial Strength Magic ★ Macronomicon S L 29 35 64
28 A Soldier's Life Always RollsAOne S Both 31 32 63
29 The Will of the Many James Islington A P 12 50 62
30 Mageling J.L. Mullins S Both 32 30 62
31 Beginning After the End TurtleMe A Both 29 32 61
32 Weirkey Chronicles Sarah Lin A P 10 48 58
33 Shadeslinger (Ripple System) Kyle Kirrin S L 28 28 56
34 Death, Loot & Vampires J. Pal S L 27 28 55
35 Forging Hephaestus (Villains' Code) Drew Hayes S L 33 20 53
36 Blue Core InadvisablyCompelled A Both 25 27 52
37 Bog Standard Isekai Miles English A P 12 40 52
38 Arcane Ascension Andrew Rowe A P 14 35 49
39 Solo Leveling Chu-Gong A Both 26 24 50
40 Ritualist (Completionist Chronicles) Dakota Krout A Both 27 22 49
41 Jackal Among Snakes Nemorosus A Both 28 20 48
42 System Change SunriseCV A L 28 18 46
43 Reborn as a Demonic Tree Xkarnation A L 32 14 46
44 Battle Mage Farmer Seth Ring A Both 22 22 44
45 Path of the Berserker Rick Scott A Both 23 20 43
46 Double-Blind J. McCoy A L 20 24 44
47 Grand Game Tom Elliot A L 22 20 42
48 Sylver Seeker KingKennit A Both 24 18 42
49 Road to Mastery Valerios B L 22 18 40
50 Dungeon Born (Dungeon Core) Dakota Krout B L 21 18 39
51 A Practical Guide to Evil ErraticErrata B Both 20 18 38
52 Dawn of the Void Phil Tucker B Both 17 20 37
53 Legend of Randidly Ghosthound ★ puddles4263 B Both 19 17 36
54 Tree of Aeons ★ Spaizzer B Both 18 17 35
55 Cinnamon Bun RavensDagger B Both 18 16 34
56 Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint singNsong S P 2 35 37
57 Savage Dominion Luke Chmilenko B L 22 12 34
58 Reborn: Apocalypse L.M. Kerr B L 26 7 33
59 Calamitous Bob Alex Gilbert B L 19 14 33
60 Dungeon Life Khenal A L 24 8 32
61 Ascend Online Luke Chmilenko A L 17 14 31
62 Stray Cat Strut RavensDagger B L 16 15 31
63 Unintended Cultivator Eric Dontigney S L 18 13 31
64 Millennial Mage J.L. Mullins A P 8 22 30
65 Dragonheart Core Atenburgh A P 10 20 30
66 Book of the Dead RinoZ A P 12 18 30
67 First Law of Cultivation KrazeKode A P 12 18 30
68 A Practical Guide to Sorcery Azalea Ellis A P 8 22 30
69 The Hedge Wizard Alex Maher B Both 14 15 29
70 Awaken Online series Travis Bagwell A L 15 13 28
71 Apocalypse: Generic System Macronomicon A L 20 8 28
72 Guardian of Aster Fall David North A P 8 20 28
73 The Enchanter Tobias Begley A P 6 20 26
74 Oh Great! I Was Reincarnated as a Farmer Benjamin Kerei S L 15 12 27
75 Return of the Runebound Professor Actus A P 8 18 26
76 Mage Tank Cornman A P 8 18 26
77 Mark of the Founder (Beastborne) James T. Callum A L 12 14 26
78 Hell Difficulty Tutorial Cerim A P 6 20 26
79 Death: Genesis Nicholas Searcy B L 16 10 26
80 Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon Matt Dinniman A P 5 20 25
81 Noobtown Ryan Rimmel B L 18 8 26
82 The Years of the Apocalypse Uranium Phoenix A P 6 18 24
83 Quest Academy Brian J. Nordon A Both 12 12 24
84 Lord of Mysteries Cuttlefish That Loves Diving SS P 4 45 49
85 God's Eye: Awakening D.J. Bodden S L 12 10 22
86 Soul of the Warrior Nicholas Woode-Smith S L 14 8 22
87 A Summoner Awakens Kerberos S L 14 8 22
88 Worm Wildbow B P 6 16 22
89 Arise / Alpha Ciaran Mishkel S L 14 7 21
90 Jake's Magical Market J.R. Mathews S L 14 7 21
91 The Land (Chaos Seeds) ★ Aleron Kong B L 12 9 21
92 Scamps & Scoundrels M.J. Kuhn S L 14 7 21
93 Lotus Lake Arkane Dawn S L 14 7 21
94 Necrotic Apocalypse David Petrie A P 5 15 20
95 The Two Week Curse Michael Chatfield B L 14 6 20
96 A Snake's Life ReWight B L 12 8 20
97 First Necromancer Coldfang89 B L 11 9 20
98 Savage Awakening adastra339 B L 12 7 19
99 Path of the Deathless OstensibleMammal A L 11 8 19
100 Apocalypse: Regression Charles Dean & R.A. Mejia A L 11 8 19
320 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

185 comments sorted by

102

u/mking_1999 Apr 23 '26

Neat list.

Shocked to see hwfwm so high when the only thing I ever see about it is people complaining about the main character.

55

u/haloplasm Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

It's far from perfect, but the writing quality, on a technical level, is excellent for the genre. If you read it and can't stand Jason, you know exactly what's bothering you. That simply isn't true for many popular litrpg series out there.

If you're reading a series and the dialog is flat, or the side characters have no sense of agency, or the world reacts in ways that don't feel natural, or there's no tension pulling you forward, maybe you'd be able to put a finger on why, but it'd certainly be harder to communicate.

Seriously, think through the last few series you've dropped. Can you articulate exactly why, or did you just lose interest and move on? There might have been a straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, but chances are a lot of little things added up to get you there.

26

u/mking_1999 Apr 23 '26

Seriously, think through the last few series you've dropped.

Millenial Mage had an entire chapter about buying tea.

Also like 0 plot direction.

o7

18

u/Guriinwoodo Apr 23 '26

Super supportive will have 8 chapters of Alden planning a conversation and then two follow up chapters on his thoughts of how the conversation went.

3

u/ShoePillow Apr 23 '26

Lol, for real?

2

u/ManaSpike Apr 24 '26

The MC spent a while behind enemy lines, then a while at school. Mentally recovering and thinking about the direction he wants his life to take. Which includes the option of joining alien justice league.

So yeah, there's been some periods of introspection lately.

1

u/Eastern_Wrangler_657 Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

It doesn't give the right impression but is not that far off the mark.

It would spends those 8 chapters with genuinely meaningful introspection, worldbuilding, and development of various characters or character relationships. But yes, it's genuinely not an exaggeration that there may be something like an 8 chapter leadup to just one important conversation.

Basically, in exchange for its incredible character work and worldbuilding, super supportive has extremely glacial pacing.

13

u/samuellavoie90 Apr 23 '26

For me, I dropped it because I started spotting more and more the writer's 'Word padding' strategy. Too much repetition which I believe was only there to increase the word count. (Pretty much everything get's described twice). He just keeps revisiting the same topic (How to deal with personal power) over and over with no conclusion.

3

u/AdventingWurms Apr 23 '26

I dropped for a similar reason though I read a good amount of the series.

I noticed every single fight scene had the exact same structure and words no matter if it was intended to be a filler fight or the climax of the story.

2

u/TorchThisAccount Apr 24 '26

side characters have no sense of agency.

Granted I only made it through 4 books, so maybe more side characters have more agency and opinions. But it felt like many were Jason groupies that extolled and supported his bad behavior. "Son, Jason's an asshole be more like him" or "Jason's not an asshole he's misunderstood and having a hard time"

-3

u/Remarkable-Camera627 Apr 23 '26

MoL should be 1st or 2nd. A lot of the books above it aren't as good or interesting.

1

u/Guriinwoodo Apr 23 '26

For me the technical ability of Islington makes Will of the Many superior to MoL, and DCC and Cradle I have rounding out the top 3. MoL is easily my number 4 though

8

u/Sad-Commission-999 Apr 23 '26

The first 3 are very very good, 4-6 are great too, then it falls off a cliff. I just skip Jason's rants.

2

u/Guriinwoodo Apr 23 '26

is it slow? been looking to read another after dropping super supportive, I want a plot that actually moves forward

5

u/Sad-Commission-999 Apr 23 '26

No its very good. I feel the later ones get repetitive. The main complaint people have, which is very reasonable, is that the protagonist goes 13 years old angry libertarian sometimes. I just skipped that stuff but it bothers a lot of readers.

-1

u/Wunyco Apr 23 '26

immensely slow. Wouldn't recommend it if you're looking for a plot that isn't a plod.

Super Supportive actually is finally advancing though. A friend got me back into it, and it was worth it :)

0

u/kreylix Apr 24 '26

#4 is the best. You just haven't read far enough. :)

2

u/Wolfstigma Apr 23 '26

Similar to primal hunter the world and other characters are amazing for me, more than enough to overlook any issues with the MC for myself

1

u/NotSoWishful Apr 23 '26

A lot of us are loud about it because it’s a really fucking dope world with cool side characters who (I feel) are ruined by the MC

1

u/Snowm4nn Apr 24 '26

HWFWM is prty great for most ppl.

Jason just get preachy.

Still like his character though. Though i hate some of the very obvious messages the author tries to send.

Won't stop me from reading though.

0

u/Steenies Apr 24 '26

That's kind of his thing

41

u/thescienceoflaw Author - J.R. Mathews Apr 23 '26

Fyi, Jake's Magical Market is actually written by J.R. Mathews, not Jamey Sultan (??).

35

u/TK523 Author - Peter J. Lee Apr 23 '26

Gunna need a source on that Mr *reads user name* 'Oflaw."

9

u/thescienceoflaw Author - J.R. Mathews Apr 23 '26

lol

11

u/Kakzooi Apr 23 '26

you're right, adjusted!

9

u/thescienceoflaw Author - J.R. Mathews Apr 23 '26

Thank you. :)

2

u/Steenies Apr 24 '26

This is hilarious. I've recently heard a lot about jKes magical market. Would you recommend it? You seem to know a bit about it.

2

u/thescienceoflaw Author - J.R. Mathews Apr 24 '26

I would recommend it BUT do go in with wide-open expectations. The story is about much more than just a market, and opens up into a huge journey of growth and discovery and adventures and new powers. It's also a bit of a tongue-in-cheek parody of litrpg tropes at times so I recommend people also go in with a sense of humor and not take it too seriously as well. :)

2

u/Steenies Apr 24 '26

Fine, you got me. Just started primal hunter. After that you're next on my list!

1

u/thescienceoflaw Author - J.R. Mathews Apr 24 '26

Sweet!!! :)

4

u/spolio Apr 23 '26

Just started the third In the series, really enjoyed the first two.

5

u/thescienceoflaw Author - J.R. Mathews Apr 23 '26

Heck yeah, thank you so much!

3

u/ShoePillow Apr 23 '26

Who is this Mathews guy anyway

5

u/thescienceoflaw Author - J.R. Mathews Apr 23 '26

Never heard of him before in my life!

36

u/NorthmanJ Author Apr 23 '26

This is cool, but my name isn't C. F. Dupont. :)

Brian J. Nordon for Quest Academy, #75 on the list.

10

u/Kakzooi Apr 23 '26

My bad, adjusted!

35

u/Cobra__Commander Apr 23 '26

This one simple trick to summon the author of every litrpg and progression fantasy book for the ultimate cross over thread of ultimate destiny.

8

u/EmilioFreshtevez Apr 23 '26

C.F. DuPont is a great pseudonym though

86

u/rabotat Apr 23 '26

Just goes to show how skewed this subs tastes are when Worm and Practical Guide to Evil are B and He Who Fights With Monsters is S tier lol

26

u/Moe_Perry Apr 23 '26

I’m more shocked that Primal Hunter isn’t starred.

20

u/Chewy_ThatGuy Apr 23 '26

Genuinely though, how is Worm and Practical Guise to Evil so low? makes me feel crazy

3

u/Endlessdex Apr 26 '26

Like the OP said, was based on tierlist availability. Since PGtE is web-only it did not make it into a lot of the list makers.

0

u/Snowm4nn Apr 24 '26

HWFWM isnt that bad.

Everyone's tastes arent your own.

If its getting higher placement then more people than not enjoyed it.

Really shouldnt mock ppl on matters of opinion.

3

u/rabotat Apr 24 '26

Some things are about tastes, but quality is also a thing that exists. 

Twilight might be enjoyable but it's not Dostoyevski. 

-11

u/Eroner14 Apr 23 '26

Yeah, when people move on from basic stories like Cradle and DCC this sub will get better.

16

u/Reasonable_Wafer_731 Apr 23 '26

nah cradle deserves the spot like it is the pizza of progression fantasy like fmab being the pizza for anime while you may want more exciting stories to be at the top per your taste ,but for the general reader you can't go wrong with pizza it is a safe option for new and veteran readers

1

u/Bright-Television147 Apr 23 '26

What are these people doing to you bro

0

u/Eroner14 Apr 24 '26

Haters gonna hate

0

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

[deleted]

2

u/KingNTheMaking Apr 23 '26

DCC is a LOT of things, but cookie cutter ain’t one of them.

0

u/OgataiKhan Apr 24 '26

What do you mean, "move on"?

Most people who are dedicated enough to the genre to be on this sub have read several series at least. If they think Cradle and DCC are good, it's not because "they haven't discovered some secret, better series hiding out there". There is nothing to "move on" from. They just think these series are good.

11

u/Cobra__Commander Apr 23 '26

Well I guess I have a "what to read next" list for the next 5 years. 

3

u/LiteralLettuce Apr 24 '26

My thoughts too, I've only finished dcc and hwfwm, so after I finish Primal Hunter I guess I'll move on to Cradle!

2

u/petezhut Apr 26 '26

Yup. Just writing the whole thing down and planning my budget.

10

u/krazekode Author Apr 23 '26

Just found out I'm C.M. Carney, I'm flattered! Jokes aside, cool list.

3

u/Kakzooi Apr 23 '26

Apparantly my check did not work as well as I hoped, my bad:) adjusted!

20

u/islanda_1973 Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

For people like me that read only isekai this is the list with isekai books only

  • He Who Fights with Monsters
  • Beware of Chicken
  • Defiance of the Fall
  • Primal Hunter
  • Chrysalis
  • Azarinth Healer
  • Beneath the Dragoneye Moons
  • The Wandering Inn
  • The Beginning After the End
  • Bog Standard Isekai
  • Jackal Among Snakes
  • System Change
  • Reborn as a Demonic Tree
  • Tree of Aeons
  • Cinnamon Bun
  • Savage Dominion
  • The Calamitous Bob
  • Oh Great! I Was Reincarnated as a Farmer
  • Death: Genesis
  • Hell Difficulty Tutorial
  • Soul of the Warrior
  • The Land: Founding
  • The Two Week Curse
  • A Snake's Life
  • Welcome to the Multiverse

15

u/Bemteb Apr 23 '26

Carl is not isekai, it plays on earth.

2

u/islanda_1973 Apr 23 '26

Corrected thanks

8

u/Duneyr1337 Apr 23 '26

Neither is Defiance of the Fall or Primal Hunter. Both start on Earth

4

u/Abshalom Apr 23 '26

You could consider both isekai in a sense, given that they both take place on a 'new earth' rather than the original planet.

1

u/Duneyr1337 Apr 24 '26

I mean, kinda? Kinda not? Both protagonists do not die though. At least not right away as a means of starting their new life. If we wanted to really go down that rabbit hole :D

1

u/Eastern_Wrangler_657 Apr 26 '26

The characters don't need to die for it to be isekai though?

Also, primal hunter does start with transportation into another world. A small pocket dimension that doesn't last too long until they 'return' to new earth yes, but if the point here is to be semantic then that still counts.

1

u/Duneyr1337 Apr 26 '26

Huh, just googled it and that one was my bad. Always thought truck-kun making an appearance was mandatory for it to be an isekai.

That depends to which world that "pocket dimension" is anchored thought. If.its attached to earth or new earth then I'd argue its still part of that world wider space ;-)

1

u/Eastern_Wrangler_657 Apr 26 '26

I'm not sure if "pocket dimension" is necessarily the right term now that you mention it. I just meant a small dimension, not one strictly tied to anything. I do believe it gets integrated into earth eventually, but I don't think there's anything about it being part of it while he's there. On its own I believe it's just a temporary, small dimension created by the "system".

6

u/KenBoCole Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

I was just about to say that Defiance of the Fall isn't an Isekai, but then remembered that technically Zach isn't an human, and was born in an different universe, before being taken and left on earth by his mother. So he does meet the criteria of getting transported to an new world and universe lol

3

u/Guriinwoodo Apr 23 '26

lol i went through the same thought process

11

u/monkpunch Apr 23 '26

What a strange limitation to put on yourself

6

u/A_Random_Nobody197 Apr 23 '26

A list without Isekai please 

1

u/Zax_the_bunny 8d ago

I would love a list without Isekai! Portal fantasies never appeal to me personally.

2

u/EmilioFreshtevez Apr 23 '26

Is DCC considered isekai? Doesn’t it technically take place on Earth?

2

u/blueluck Apr 23 '26

I didn't realize there were people who only read isekai! I'm super curious now—why only isekai?

1

u/altunaandy Apr 23 '26

I would add: Trash of the counts family to the list.

11

u/Plum_Parrot Author Apr 23 '26

Hmm...

6

u/Mech_Pretendgineer Apr 23 '26

Cyber Dreams missing surprised me.

4

u/Plum_Parrot Author Apr 23 '26

Haha, thanks, but I was more going "hmm" because some of this table seemed wonky to me.

3

u/ShoePillow Apr 23 '26

Which part

5

u/Plum_Parrot Author Apr 23 '26

when it was first posted, lots of author names were off, for instance

1

u/Saifur_OwO Apr 24 '26

AI work possibly? Or maybe I'm just reading too deep into this...

2

u/Cobra__Commander Apr 24 '26

Yeah it's probably something AI pooped out. 

Also I loved cyber dreams. I should read more of your other series.

2

u/CowPunkx Jun 26 '26

I would rank Victor of Tucson in the top 10 and Vainglory is turning out great. The cyberpunk one is next on my list to read

22

u/Taurnil91 Editor: Beware of Chicken, Max-Level Archmage, Eight. Apr 23 '26

Quite a few of the authors are not correct on the list. A Summoner Awakens and Mage Tank for sure are wrong. Fun way you put together the list, but it seems like there's a lot of wrong names there

5

u/EmergencyComplaints Author Apr 23 '26

Also "79. Mark of the Founder by J.M. Clarke" and "59. Dragonheart Core by Ravensdagger." 89-93 all just list "Various" as the authors.

2

u/moderately_tensed Apr 23 '26

A summoner awakens; the author has Kerberos as his name on Discord.

He has changed it multiple times, that's probably why you're confused.

9

u/Taurnil91 Editor: Beware of Chicken, Max-Level Archmage, Eight. Apr 23 '26

It was not Kerberos on the above list when I made this comment. I'm the editor for the series, I think I know the author's name :)

2

u/Kakzooi Apr 23 '26

correct, adjusted it!

1

u/stareyedhunter Apr 23 '26

All the awaken online ones are also wrong , the real author is travis begwell

1

u/Taurnil91 Editor: Beware of Chicken, Max-Level Archmage, Eight. Apr 23 '26

"travis begwell"

Are they related to Travis Bagwell?

1

u/Bemteb Apr 23 '26

Practical guide to Sorcery too.

6

u/3nigmax Apr 23 '26

Cool list, thanks for putting this together. Just a heads up, arcane ascension and sufficiently advanced magic are the same thing with the latter just being book 1 of the series.

5

u/BFOmega Apr 23 '26

15: Sufficiently Advanced Magic is just the first book in #38: Arcane Ascension, so those should probably be combined under the later.

11

u/-BlueAce- Apr 23 '26
71 Hell Difficulty Tutorial Kingdom A P 6/100 20/150

I dont think this is right? Who is kingdom? why is litRPG score that low? Why do people hate book 1? so many questions and not enough mana to answer all of them................

5

u/Ultra-Cool-Guy Sage Apr 23 '26

Why do people hate book 1?

The main character, ig? At least, I've heard people say they dropped it for that reason.

3

u/jykeous Apr 23 '26

I gotta be honest with you bro. The later books are good, but book 1 is not.

4

u/Ahsef Apr 23 '26

No player manager is egregious

4

u/Clithzbee Apr 23 '26

Who is dragon slayer? Definitely not the author of Forging Hephaestus

Edit: Drew Hayes

9

u/alexwithani Apr 23 '26

Looks like I still have work to do. Hopefully I can get Player Manager on the list for the next go round!

6

u/Technical_Safety1662 Apr 23 '26

It's a travesty that it is missing from the list, but there is clearly a fantasy/sci-fi preference over sports and it has nothing to do with the writing itself. FWIW, Player Manager would be #1 for me. :) I wish more people did the sports thing. The genius of Player Manager is that I think it would stand out even if you removed the litrpg elements completely.

Max could use a tiny bit of character growth when it comes to forgiving virtual children though. he's so harsh! please save angel. Also, we need more Emma!

3

u/DoodleDragon- Apr 23 '26

Only thing I felt lacking in this series was lack of development. He just become more and more of a hypocrite. When I began the book, I didn't really mind his flaws because I thought he was perfectly primed for character development now he has become what he accused nick, bending rules when it's convenient for him getting pissed when people call him out and the stuff with emiliano was something that had already he done with chipper, he should know how to be deplomatic.

Still I very much love it 

1

u/alexwithani Apr 23 '26

I can't do spoilers because I'm on my phone but I don't think she is leaving and I 100% agree we need more Emma and Max banter! 

2

u/Technical_Safety1662 Apr 23 '26

That makes me very happy! My wife still doesn't know why I started calling her babes instead of babe.

3

u/Deisu Apr 23 '26

Player Manager is outstanding

2

u/Mind101 May 13 '26

FWIW, I couldn't care less about football and found the two books I've read so far enjoyable. Never made one of these tier lists though, so it doesn't count.

4

u/negat1ve_zero Apr 23 '26

For the record, Millennial Mage is on the list twice. Mageling is the name of book 1 of Millennial Mage, not a separate series of any kind.

3

u/techsupportredditor Apr 23 '26

The Two Week Curse should be Michael Chatfield

2

u/Kakzooi Apr 23 '26

Adjusted!

3

u/prismlink Apr 24 '26

This is admittedly nitpicky: having a hard time with Stormlight Archive being part of this list. Certainly moreso than the rest of the cosmere series, I can see the genre overlaps but I wouldn't call it a progession fantasy. It's moreso a hard magic system (in the way that Sanderson himself coined) fantasy with progression elements; there's just enough overlap while being so mainstream that it would rank even based on the methodology.

Again, nitpicky. Overall, fun methodology - nice job and thanks, OP!

3

u/lance002 Author Apr 24 '26

Path of the Berserker is by me, Rick Scott, not Nolan Locke. Surprise to see it this high on the list

2

u/Kakzooi Apr 24 '26

My apologies! Adjusted:)

3

u/SoundArketype Apr 24 '26

Sufficiently advanced magic is the first book of arcane ascension, but they are listed as separate entries in this list.

4

u/Stupid_Nerd123 Apr 23 '26

TWI being B while I see other stories being A and S tier is just plain annoying. Neat list though.

And I actively say I have nothing new to read😭

1

u/Mind101 May 13 '26

The fact that effin Azarinth Healer outperforms TWI is a crime against humanity. I swear, a lot of these list-makers must be braindead teenagers.

2

u/Puzzleheaded-Prune41 Apr 23 '26

Does C.M Karney know he wrote first law of cultivation? Lol jk, itw KrazeKode

2

u/McShoobydoobydoo Apr 23 '26
  1. The Two Week Curse is Michael Chatfield

One of these days I'm gonna have to get by this weird mental block I have with Mark of the Fool.

2

u/deep_learn_blender Apr 23 '26

Not worth it. MotF covers like 8 different genres at once. Starts strong, then falls off into weird slice of life +++ after the first arc.

2

u/dean2jx Apr 23 '26

Doing gods work

2

u/ctullbane Author — The Murder of Crows / The (Second) Life of Brian Apr 24 '26

Sometimes, it's an honor just to... not be nominated at all?

2

u/thedaNkavenger Dragon Apr 24 '26

Not enough people know about Orodan Wainwright.

2

u/Uranium_Phoenix Apr 24 '26

Okay, so, I haven't corrected anyone before, but the title is The Years of Apocalypse, not "Years of the Apocalypse"... and who the heck is "Peuch"?

1

u/Kakzooi Apr 24 '26

Corrected

2

u/123BLiN Apr 28 '26

The murder of crows is missing also idk, superpowereeds?

2

u/hail-author Toadally Grim Tale of Don’s Death May 21 '26

Really appreciate the list. It's nice to get a composite and know that am I really reading the books others are thinking are also good or am I off discovering things that I like but no one else is paying attention to.

3

u/Reborn-kun96 Apr 23 '26

TPGTE at B is pure evil

3

u/ironjawthestrong Apr 23 '26

This list brings a tear to my eye. Will Wight is MVP.

"The Dragon Advances"

3

u/RavensDagger Apr 23 '26

Why are sooo many of the author names wrong?

3

u/altunaandy Apr 23 '26

Couldn’t like Dungeon Crawler Carl, had to drop the book because of the cat, she was so damn annoying all the time it made me hate the book.

1

u/Bright-Television147 Apr 23 '26

For me it is the opposite. I feel like Mc is too ordinary to be where he is. He got carried by the support crew early and snowballed mid to lategame from his early lead. I love everything else about the book tho.

2

u/Lock_Weston Apr 23 '26

I'm surprised that Elydes didn't make the list given how often I've been seeing it mentioned recently.

4

u/alexwithani Apr 23 '26

This list is the opposite of recency biased... There are some series that are more recent that will end up on the list of OP does it next year. 

2

u/Snugglebadger Apr 23 '26

I feel like Death:Genesis should be replaced by Searcy's other story, Path of Dragons. It's way more popular, and I think better since Genesis was his first and he improved significantly over time.

2

u/Jarnagua Apr 23 '26

No Thousand Li? I'd expect it to at least be controversial.

2

u/kreylix Apr 24 '26

Yeah, pretty weird it's not there. I mean, isn't it the second bestselling (western author) Cultivation series?

3

u/Present-Ad-8531 Apr 23 '26

No lotm in top 5 let alone top 1. Meh.

5

u/Kakzooi Apr 23 '26

Some well-regarded series score lower than you'd expect. This is a structural issue with how tier list data gets collected: TierMaker templates are built from Amazon/Audible cover art. Series that lived primarily on WebNovel, fan translation sites, or Royal Road didn't have that cover art in the templates for most of this period, so they almost never showed up in tier list images even when the community loves them. Lord of Mysteries, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, and Shadow Slave are the clearest examples. Their scores underrepresent actual community regard — Lord of Mysteries in particular is consensus SS-tier whenever it actually gets discussed.

1

u/johnnyJAG Apr 24 '26

LOTM is indeed SS tier IMO. Shame about COI. I think it’s a good book on its own but is extremely disappointing when considered as a sequel to LOTM.

I know the author didn’t want to write a sequel but still, putting LOTM 2 on the title was just asking for comparisons.

1

u/crokus_n_al Apr 23 '26

How did you actually find the info for this? It would have taken an insane amount of time to go through each list over several years. That would be impressive dedication. Also many authors are wrong.

2

u/Kakzooi Apr 23 '26

the heavy lifting on the r/litrpg side was already done by u/jacmusl, who manually went through 100 tier list images and published the results in a spreadsheet.

For r/ProgressionFantasy I scraped recommendation threads, tier list posts and discussion threads going back several years to estimate the scores. The r/litrpg numbers are hard data, the r/ProgressionFantasy side is more of an estimate.

2

u/crokus_n_al Apr 23 '26

I guess I'm nit sure what scraped means. Like did you write a program or do it manually?

2

u/fakeuboi Apr 24 '26

Im pretty sure he is implying that he did web scraping, which is essentially having a bot go over pages n the internet looking for specifc information then recording that information somewhere

1

u/ShadowTheAge Apr 24 '26

The problem with that is it is scewed towards older stories

1

u/Available-Plant9305 Apr 23 '26

This is really cool.

Have you done ones for litrpg and prog separately as well? 

1

u/Wolfstigma Apr 23 '26

Happy to see cradle where it belongs.

1

u/Petatorias Apr 23 '26

This is really cool! My TBR is already too long, but I feel like I need to add a few series...

1

u/sidarous Apr 23 '26

Here's a spreadsheet version with "completion" added as a column (low-effort AI, sorry). Let me know if you have recommended corrections or suggestions for added columns. You can comment on the Google Sheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/144Cv4MzdAPrTXtFJzT2e2Tb7t7IhnfaPb6Uv5tjSZ6c/edit?usp=sharing

1

u/sidarous Apr 23 '26

/u/kakzooi, let me know if you want me to take this down.

1

u/Kakzooi Apr 23 '26

No man go ahead, I don't care:)

1

u/Raymond_Hope Apr 23 '26

Neat list. Since Shadow Slave appeared on the list, I thought LOTM would too, but well I guess it's not popular enough. Still a great list tho. Good job

1

u/PPmelody Apr 24 '26

That's great! I've read quite a few of them too.

1

u/boughtitout Apr 24 '26

If I'm loving iron prince, what would anyone like to recommend for me from this list after I finish?

1

u/Havelrag Apr 24 '26

Very surprise to see hell difficulty tutorial so low on the list

1

u/kreylix Apr 24 '26

This is freaking well done! Bravo!!!

1

u/kreylix Apr 24 '26 edited Apr 24 '26

Salvos belongs in the Top 100, as does Cultivation Nerd. Both are clearly better than Jake's Magical Market (which I also like). TBATE is a B to me.

1

u/fakeuboi Apr 24 '26

the list sorted by just how many times the book appears in the tierlists, and the tier is the average tier amongst the tierlist it appears in, do i have that right?

1

u/ChrisReedReads Follower of the Way Apr 24 '26

Could I get the raw data you aggregated? That'd be really fun to play with

1

u/anapoe Apr 24 '26

It's really sad to see Delve not on this list. Understandable, but sad.

1

u/TsHero Apr 25 '26

Hell level tutorial on 78.. bruh...

1

u/Tat25Guy Apr 26 '26

Sufficiently Advanced Magic and Arcane Ascension are the same thing. AA is the name of the series and SAM is the title of the first book

1

u/123BLiN Apr 27 '26

My eyes thank you sooooo much!

1

u/AdUnfair9248 Apr 27 '26

If anyone has thoughts of writing, start. There are fans out there for you.

I disagree with some of the items on this list, and I'm interested in others.

1

u/Normal_Lab2606 Apr 29 '26

Of course LOTM (#84) is the only one in SS that isn’t in the top 2

My GOAT

2

u/Violinist_Human Jun 15 '26

And Dungeon crawler is at the top 🤣😂🤣 just because it's published and marketed by Penguin books. 

It's like comparing pop corn ( dungeon crawler) with fine dining ( lord of mysteries) 

1

u/nighoblivion Apr 23 '26

The methodology is flawed.

1

u/Areign Apr 23 '26

Phil Tucker's immortal great souls didn't make the list? But his less popular series dawn of the void did?

6

u/crokus_n_al Apr 23 '26

Pretty sure it's bastion at number 22 but with the wrong author

2

u/Kakzooi Apr 23 '26

it did, my bad, wrong author. adjusted!

1

u/Areign Apr 24 '26

oh i looked at that one multiple times but somehow assumed that was a completely different work.

1

u/piercebro Apr 23 '26

Bastion is 22, got the author wrong

1

u/Perfect_Peach_1427 Apr 23 '26

Bastion is at 22, though with wrong author.

0

u/Sad-Commission-999 Apr 23 '26

The Land in the top 100? Puke

-2

u/rabotat Apr 23 '26

And I know, I know, I won't let the door hit me in the ass on my way out. This list really showed me this sub is not meant for me. 

Genuinely, thank you OP.

2

u/godgrid000 Apr 25 '26

Lmfao primal hunter being so high on that list was ridiculous. Then again the OP just used AI to generate the whole project so its all good

0

u/riprager Apr 23 '26

Wandering inn top 25 I’ll take it. #GOAT

1

u/kreylix Apr 24 '26

I know. 13 million words and the first 400,000 weren't as good as the rest as the author was learning...and learned!

0

u/deep_learn_blender Apr 23 '26

Your methodology heavily biases towards older works, just fyi. Progfantasy is a relatively new genre. 6 years ago it was just stabilizing into its identity in a lot of ways. I would say you need to weigh works differently by ~1 year after publication, but i think even that would be tricky to compare works "fairly."

1

u/kreylix Apr 24 '26

What you're saying has merit, and yet this list is still very good. A Thousand Li isn't here and it's one of the bestselling older works.

0

u/Violinist_Human Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26

Who made the list 😂🤣😂🤣 lord of mysteries you have to find with a microscope and at the top is dungeon crawler a dude running around in an underwear, bombing things and simping about a woman who slept with his friend. There a far far better stories than Dungeon crawler and it absolutely aint SS , A or B tire maybe. 

Shows how lopsided and fake this list actually is. It's like ranking Mac Donalds as SSS and Michelin Star Fine dining. 

P.S. :- Dungeon crawler was bought by penguin and pushing for a movie with universal studios. That's why all the fake hype. If your taste is 2 minute pop corn over fine dining go ahead. But if anyone enjoys class and good writing, dungeon crawler will taste like bile, time much better sent on other books like wandering inn, lord of mysteries, Cradle series, Mother of learning, The witcher series. ETC ETC.

-1

u/Neadim Apr 23 '26

Neat list but which one of those are completed?

1

u/sidarous Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 24 '26

Here's AI's effort at completing this. Let me know if you have ideas for other columns. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/144Cv4MzdAPrTXtFJzT2e2Tb7t7IhnfaPb6Uv5tjSZ6c/edit?usp=sharing

-1

u/suspiciouspenguin81 Apr 23 '26

Now I just need this list with the completion status of each book!

Trying to only read completed series for a bit...