Someone in a group chat says "we need more DPS". A loot screen shows a sword with a DPS number in big gold text. A guide tells you to "DPS the boss down". These all use the same three letters, and they do not all mean the same thing.
The short answer: **DPS stands for damage per second**, the average damage dealt over time. It is also the name of a role, meaning the player whose main job is doing that damage. The number is useful, but it leaves out a lot, and those gaps explain most bad gear decisions.
The Two Meanings of DPS
DPS the stat. A measurement. It tells you how much damage a character, weapon or ability deals on average each second. This is the meaning on tooltips and in build guides.
DPS the role. A job. Group RPGs and MMOs such as World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV are built around three roles, often called the holy trinity:
- Tank: keeps the enemy's attention and absorbs hits
- Healer: keeps the group alive
- DPS: kills things
So "I play DPS" means "I am a damage dealer", and "we need a DPS" means the group is looking for one. Not every game uses the word: Overwatch, for example, calls the role Damage. You will also see it used as a verb, as in "DPS the adds", which means "kill the smaller enemies".
How to Calculate DPS
The basic formula is short:
DPS = average damage per hit x attacks per second
A sword that hits for 50 and swings twice a second has 100 DPS.
Watch how your game shows speed. Some list attacks per second, where higher is faster. Others, including World of Warcraft, list the seconds between attacks, where higher is slower. In that case, you divide:
DPS = average damage per hit / seconds between attacks
Crits fit into the average. If you hit for 80, attack 1.5 times a second, have a 25% crit rate and crits deal +100% damage, your average multiplier is 1.25:
80 x 1.25 x 1.5 = 150 DPS
Getting that multiplier right is the fiddly part, and we walk through it in crit rate vs crit damage, including how bonuses stack.
There is also a useful shortcut. Because attack rate is a plain multiplier, +20% attack speed gives +20% DPS, as long as nothing caps it.
Same DPS, Very Different Weapons
Here is why you cannot choose gear from the DPS number alone. Take two weapons that both show 100 DPS:
| Weapon A | Weapon B | |
|---|---|---|
| Damage per hit | 100 | 400 |
| Time between hits | 1 second | 4 seconds |
| DPS on the tooltip | 100 | 100 |
Now put them to work.
Against a swarm. Five enemies with 100 health each. Weapon A kills one per hit and finishes in 4 seconds, counting the first hit as landing straight away. Weapon B also kills one per hit, but it needs 16 seconds. Each of its hits spends 300 damage on an enemy that is already dead. That waste is called overkill, and tooltips ignore it.
Against armour. Say the enemy subtracts a flat 30 from every hit. Weapon A drops to 70 per second. Weapon B deals 370 every 4 seconds, or 92.5 per second. The slow weapon is now about 32% stronger, because it pays that flat cost a quarter as often. Not every game handles defence this way, so check how yours does it.
Against an enemy with 300 health. Weapon B kills it in one hit, instantly. Weapon A needs three hits, so 2 seconds. Front-loaded damage like this is called burst.
Neither weapon is simply better. Each suits a different fight.
Burst vs Sustained Damage
Burst damage is a lot of damage in a short window. It is good for finishing a target quickly, or for hitting hard during a short vulnerable phase.
Sustained damage is what you can keep up over a long fight. It matters most against bosses, because a big opener fades as a share of the total the longer the fight runs.
Damage over time, usually shortened to DoT, is a separate case. A poison that deals 20 a second for 10 seconds is worth 200 damage on paper. If the enemy dies after 3 seconds, it delivered 60. DoTs look great on long fights and poor on enemies that die fast.
What the Tooltip Number Leaves Out
A tooltip assumes a perfect world. A real fight has gaps:
- Downtime. Time spent moving, dodging or waiting for an enemy to arrive. At 80% uptime, 100 DPS becomes 80.
- Misses. A 90% hit chance takes another 10% off.
- Overkill. As shown above, damage past zero health is wasted.
- Enemy defence. Armour, resistance and shields all come off the top.
- Death. A dead hero deals nothing, which is why a slightly weaker build that survives can win more fights than a glass cannon.
So the tooltip tells you what is possible, while the fight tells you what you actually dealt. In practice, the second figure is the only one that counts.
How to Measure Your Real DPS
You do not need a damage meter to get a decent estimate:
real DPS = total damage dealt / fight length in seconds
If you take a boss with 12,000 health down in 40 seconds, you averaged 300 DPS. The same sum gives you time to kill: health divided by DPS. A build that reaches 400 DPS would finish that boss in 30 seconds.
To compare two builds, use the same target and run each one three times, because crits and other random elements can swing a single attempt. Then compare time to kill, not the tooltip.
What Is a DPS Check?
A DPS check is a fight designed to test your damage output. The boss might enrage after a set time, or the danger might grow until you are overwhelmed. Either way, you have to do enough damage before that happens.
Here is how to tell which problem you have:
- The enemy is nearly dead when you lose. You are close, so small damage gains should get you there.
- You survive for a long time but cannot finish it. This is a damage problem. More defence will not help.
- You die quickly with the enemy nearly full. That is a survival problem, and more damage will not save you.
DPS in Idle RPGs
In an idle RPG your hero fights on their own, so you cannot make up for a weak build with good play. Your choices of gear and upgrades do all the work, and the ideas above show up directly.
Swarm floors reward fast hits and area damage, while bosses reward single-target damage and survival. That is a big part of which RPG class you should pick. When you stop progressing altogether, the diagnosis above is your first step, and our guide to breaking through a progression wall covers what to do next.
Pixel Heroes is the retro idle RPG we build for iPhone, and it is an easy place to try this out. Your Sword Master, Archer or Mage battles automatically through endless floors across 10 biomes, with a mega boss every 25 floors. Those bosses are where a build made for clearing swarms tends to get found out. Between gear in 6 rarity tiers and more than 30 level up cards, you can test a different damage plan each run. It is a light mobile game, so do not expect the depth of an MMO raid. It is free with no ads, and diamond packs are optional.
The Bottom Line
DPS means damage per second, and it also names the damage role beside tank and healer. The formula is average damage per hit times attacks per second.
Use it as a starting point. Two weapons with the same DPS can behave very differently, so ask what you are fighting. Fast hits suit swarms, big hits suit armour and low-health targets, and sustained damage wins long boss fights. Then trust time to kill over the tooltip.