How do you calculate DPS?

How do you calculate DPS?????????

Simple:
Damage / Recharge

Fiddly (and more precise):
Damage / (Recharge + ActivationTime)

And to be super fiddly:

Damage/(Recharge+(activation by server ticks)

But basically, just divide damage by recharge, and you'll get close enough.

That's all correct for an individual power. To calculate overall DPS, it's more complicated.

First, you have to figure out an attack chain. This is a series of attacks that can be launched one after another without any pauses to wait for a power to recharge. An example attack chain for Broadsword might be:

Hack Parry Headsplitter Parry Disembowel Parry

With a decent amount of recharge, it's possible to repeat this chain indefinitely without pauses. This isn't really an optimal attack chain, but it's a valid one.

Once you have a chain, add together the damage for all powers used, then do the same for the activation times. Since we've created a chain that allows each power to recharge while others are firing, recharge doesn't need to be factored in.

Optional: If you are using a Brute, Scrapper or Stalker, you can add a multipler to simulate the frequency of crits, or an average Fury value. This should be added on a per value basis for Crits at least, since their chance of happening can vary in some powers, like Headsplitter.

Take your total Damage from the attack chain, and divide it by the total Activation Time for the Attack chain.

Optional: Multiply this value by 0.95 to simulate the 5% miss rate that you cannot avoid. Many people would say that this step is not optional.

This is your base DPS. Slows will create breaks in your chain. Hastes will possibly allow you to drop low damage fillers and chain bigger hitters. Using Aim or Build Up will cause breaks in your attack chain, lowering DPS, but will then buff you, raising DPS. Calculating DPS including these powers is tricky. Powers like Blinding Feint and Follow Up boost damage without causing breaks. Adding in their boost is likewise tricky, because you have to factor in their duration vs recharge time, and whether or not they're stacked. Utility powers like Dull Pain, Healing Flames, Active Defense, godmodes and so on keep you alive, but create breaks in your chain. Like Aim and Build Up, they interrupt your attack chain, but without the commensurate boost. Since you can't tell when you'll need them, they're nearly impossible to factor in, and I don't think most people do.

There's other little things to take into effect, like server ticks, but they further complicate an already complicated formula, so you can usually stick with the base DPS calculation.

Soooo... Now I actually have to make the character to find out the DPS of him. Sucks that you can't use mids hero designer for that.

Um... yes you can. You have all the information necessary that Roderick and the others note you need available to you in Mids. You just need to use math. (God forbid!)

damage of powers: mids? check
activation time of powers: mids? check
recharge time of powers: mids? check

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Thanks all, now I know how to calculate DPS but I will be keepignt his page bookmarked until I remember how to do it. In my build my DPS is 175

Hmm, wouldn't HeroStats also give this as one of the many details it reports on?

At least I thought it may have, but I could be wrong.

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I'm a little confused... Do you calculate dps for individual powers and add then up to get an approximate overall dps? On my SA/fire brute, I'm getting a dps calc of 235.04... Seems about right, but if that's the case, my Fire/Earth dominator with Musculature Core is getting 299.47 dps (which doesn't include the two attack powers I don't use... Otherwise it's 372.09 dps). That's more dps than any of my brutes... =P

On the other hand, if I calculate dps with all attack/recharge+cast... Well, let's just say I'm sure my ss/fire does more than 35 dps. =P

Before this thread gets locked for necro-posting...

You CAN do it by calculating the DPS of individual powers and then adding them up but in order for that to be valid you have to use each power as soon as it recharges (which is generally not the case).

A more accurate value is achieved by figuring out your attack chain calculating how long it takes to run and then using the total damage form that. Calculating attack chain length is a little tricky since you need to convert cast times to Arcanatime and unless you have a perfectly smooth attack chain you may also need to factor in the time for any holes that it may have.

quoth the Mod, nevermore... I mean

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moderator 13 Hi everyone, Please try to avoid Thread Necromancy. Instead of posting in a thread that has not seen activity in some time, and risking confusion among readers who are unaware of the dated nature of the thread, please consider creating a new thread instead, and, if necessary, linking to the old thread. Thanks! ~Mod13

and in before the lock

(my new forum minigame, can I quote the mods on necroposting before they come in and lock it )

The name tells you how to calculate it, kindof like miles per hour or miles per gallon.
Damage per second.
Total damage dealt divided by time in seconds needed to deal it.

Typically if it's a single activation of a power it's DPA (damage per second of activation) and you make chains with your best DPA attacks and calculate the DPS for the entire chain as a whole, but if you include the recharge time for the entire cycle that will give you the DPS of that one power on its own.





There, I was on-topic with my +1 necrothread post!

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