Tier List
Orb of Creation Upgrade Tier List
Prioritize the highest-impact Orb of Creation upgrades across Workshop, Magic, research books, and capacity trees. Avoid research traps that stall progression.
Upgrades in Orb of Creation span Workshop machines, Magic research, scholar trees, thaumaturgy books, and hidden capacity sources scattered across menus. Unlike spells, upgrades rarely show up on a single screen, which is why players hit mysterious walls with full mana bars and no obvious next step. This tier list identifies upgrades that consistently deliver the highest progression value per resource spent, using the same S-through-D framework as our spell and aspect rankings.
How Upgrade Tiers Work
S-tier upgrades remove hard gates: they raise a capacity cap, unlock alchemy, unlock rituals, or multiply production you are already running. A-tier upgrades accelerate an system you unlocked but have not optimized. B-tier upgrades are correct purchases eventually, wrong purchases right now. C-tier upgrades are luxury bonuses. D-tier upgrades are traps—pretty numbers on resources you do not use or bonuses superseded two menus deep in the same tree.
Always cross-reference upgrade purchases with your spell bar. Buying a conjure cooldown upgrade is S-tier if you duplicate that conjure four times. It is D-tier if you pivoted to transmutation yesterday and never cast conjures anymore.
S-Tier Capacity and Unlock Upgrades
Capacity upgrades for whichever resource displays red in your inventory panel are automatic S-tier. Orb of Creation intentionally hides total capacity math; clicking the resource icon reveals every source. Buy the cheapest new source first, even if it is not the flashiest node in the tree. Unlock upgrades that open alchemy, brewing, herbalism, or ritual combat also belong in S-tier because they expose entire new resource economies.
Scholar and mental resource upgrades rank S-tier when they gate research book generation or memory capacity holding back Magic purchases. Players who ignore mental resources wonder why research books stopped appearing—that is a capacity problem, not bad luck.
- Any upgrade clearing your current red capacity resource: S-tier
- System unlocks for alchemy, rituals, or brewing: S-tier
- Research book generation or storage capacity when starved: S-tier
- Five-percent bonuses to unused resources: D-tier
A-Tier Multipliers and Efficiency Upgrades
Once caps allow spending, production multipliers on your active conjure or transmutation chain become A-tier. Efficiency upgrades that reduce consumption of expensive reagents also land here during mid-game alchemy. These upgrades feel amazing because numbers go up quickly, but buying them before fixing caps yields inflated stats you cannot leverage.
Cooldown reduction upgrades for spells currently occupying four or more bar slots are A-tier bordering S-tier. The same upgrade for a spell you cast once per hour is C-tier. Context determines tier, not the tooltip adjective.
B-Tier and Research Book Discipline
Research books are a currency you cannot farm infinitely without capacity infrastructure. B-tier upgrades are correct long-term investments you defer until S-tier walls fall. Thaumaturgy nodes that unlock spell level caps, new augment slots, or ritual rewards often start at B-tier and become S-tier the moment a ritual gate appears on your checklist.
Avoid the research book sunk cost fallacy: finishing a mediocre branch because you already spent three books hurts less than spending three more books to finish it before buying mana regeneration. Cut losses, buy caps, return later.
Upgrades That Change Between v0.5 and v0.6
Beta branch upgrades rebalanced several capacity formulas and Flow unlock requirements. An upgrade that was mandatory in v0.5 may now compete with a new Flow node. Consult the v0.6 beta walkthrough before following outdated Steam comments. Tier lists on wikis update slower than Discord patch notes—when in doubt, ask in the community server linked from our codes page.
Related in Tier List
Explore more tier list pages that connect to this topic:
- Spell Tier List & Priority Rankings
Community-ranked Orb of Creation spell tiers for conjuration, augmentation, and combat. Learn which spells to unlock first and which to skip until late game.
- Aspect Tier List for Workshop & Magic
Ranked Orb of Creation aspects for Workshop, Magic, World, and v0.6 Flow paths. See which aspect choices accelerate progression and which to delay.
- Alchemy Recipe Tier List
Best Orb of Creation transmutation, herbalism, and brewing recipes ranked by throughput, reagent cost, and progression value through endgame.