i am having a problem assigning energy types into tiers. the reason i am doing this is that i am making custom monsters for a homebrew game. there are 5 ranks of monsters and monster summons, each of which is tied to an energy. i want to create a ranking system for the energy types even if that means i have to add ranks to it

so the question is what are the ranks of each energy type?

I don't understand the question.  What does a rank represent?  Are you trying to make some energy types more powerful than others?  There are 10 energy types in the game, which 5 are you using?

okay let me try and rephrase this. the basic elements irl in my belief structure are air, earth, fire, spirit, void, and water. spirit and void are on the same level as they are much like yin and yang.

rank represents it's power level. for example, tier 1 would be the least powerful, as where tier 5 would be the most powerful.

i know that according to some people methods poison is considered the weakest. the problem i have is that there really is no energy types for air, earth and water (though cold could work).

so i am wondering how people would rank the damage types based on power rather than resistance immunity, and vulnerability?

Fire is easy, water can be either bludgeoning or cold. Air could include lightning or thunder. Earth can use bludgeoning or acid? Spirit and void seem like either force or radiant and necrotic respectively. Ranks are hard to establish. Cold, fire, and poison are probably the most commonly resisted damage types, next to the physical types. Force and psychic barely have any resistances.

well at this rate i am going a different route as this is too much work for my brain.

is there a tier system for damage types in general anywhere?

There's no tier ranks of damage types in D&D... the only real difference is how common resistance and immunities are with enemy types. There also aren't clear analogues between element types and damage types... there's no "water" damage, and it depends on intent and use to decide what water-type attacks hit with. Like it could be force, or it could use a form of cold damage, and some water-based skillsets also deal lightning damage.

Unfortunately, I think what you're asking for is a completely new game system, so there's going to be a lot of reworks you're going to have to put into place to accomplish your goal. 

If you want to have tiers of some kind more for just... flavor. I would rank them in order of how common the element type is. So Air would probably be weak but common, Water would be stronger than that, Eartha bit stronger, and fire stronger than that, with Spirit and Void as equal-but-opposite top energy types.

Still, I'm not in favor of ranking these types of things. I think it's more interesting to treat them as equal energies that just have different strengths and weaknesses.

i have seen it somewhere recently, i just don't know where i thought it was on here for a homebrew class but i can' seem to find it again. sorry for causing problems

This can probably answer your question:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?379165-MM-Resistances-Immunities-Vulnerabilities-and-Damage

And this has a little more info about where those resistances come from:
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/103213/what-are-the-most-and-least-resisted-damage-types

In rough order of most resisted to least resisted

• Poison
• Fire
• Cold
• Lightning
• Acid
• Necrotic
• Thunder
• Psychic
• Radiant
• Force