Why Is Dps Important?

[MechaTails]

@taiiat

 

Has someone made a TTK thread yet?

 

I've only got MindlessWar's "effective DPS" thread on tracker.

 

Man, that would be a gigantic chart, you'd have to measure how fast every weapon kills every single type of enemy right? lol

 

How would you take into account mods? D:

Edited March 28, 2014 by DarkTails

[Cemges]

You don't understand what DPS is.

I perfectly do. But its the simplest way of scaling powers of weapons. Also we have burst and sustained dps calculations which either doesnt or does include reload time respectively. So it is an indicator of how much damage you will do with that weapon in a second, although only against a single enemy. Aoe or punch trough weapons have to be tested at hand with measures instead of calculations

[6KIRA9]

DPS doesn't mean killing faster or more efficiently.

 

you know what DPS mean ??! cuz what you say make no sence !!

 

DPS = Damage per second

 

if an enemy have 100 health, and you cause 50 damage per seconde so you'll kill him in 2 sec, but if you cause 20 damage per second you'll need 5 seconds to kill him !!

it's clear as a blue sky in a sunny day !!

 

Edit: yeah it don't mean more efficiently !!

 

 

High level: not needed because

2) It's extremely ammo unefficient. (If you need 40 bullets to kill an enemy with you and you have to kill 10 of them => 400 bullets)

 

WTF r u saying !! you say that DPS is unefficient and you give an example with DPB o_O !!

r u drunk or something like that ??

Edited March 28, 2014 by 6KIRA9

[Seanjuju]

I perfectly do. But its the simplest way of scaling powers of weapons. Also we have burst and sustained dps calculations which either doesnt or does include reload time respectively. So it is an indicator of how much damage you will do with that weapon in a second, although only against a single enemy. Aoe or punch trough weapons have to be tested at hand with measures instead of calculations

These calculations don't take into account practicality. Factors such as accuracy, spread, reload, limited range, unique damage mechanics, status chance, or alternative firing modes. No, DPS is not that important. Its an over-simplified way of comparing weapons.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Seanjuju

[(PSN)Nilphelan]

So is it logical to say Damage per hit is good until the level of the faction is greater then your damage per second would be more viable way to look at the 'best' suited weapon, then one would factor in the elements.

 

But even factoring in an element, would the damage per hit weapon out shine the one biased off of damage per second?

So one would say the Soma is great until you peak out at this point then the Latron Prime picks up the slack due to damage per hit (Both using the same element combo)

 

Soma being purely mob control, while the Latron being the show stoppers on the 'things' that actually kill you in 1-2-3 shots (Heavy gunners, sometime high level ancients).

 

It only makes sense to use the DPH for pure brute power, while those of the tier 1 DPS would be control weapons (Pray and spray)? Or am I brainwashed and have this all wrong, please let me know. Thanks

[taiiat]

Has someone made a TTK thread yet?

hell naw. the amount of number crunching to make a chart for that would be brain tiring.

 

you could slim it down by only recalculating every 10 levels or something, but it's still different on every single Enemy and with every single Weapon.

 

but atleast it's accurate.

 

 

at the end of the day though, you don't need to number crunch that accurately. you should be able to look at a Weapons' stats and compile that with how practical it is to actually use, and compare to others.

[Phatose]

DPS is used as a metric because simply because it's easy to calculate and has at least some correlation with what you actually want to know - combat effectiveness.  That's useful simply because distilling combat effectiveness down to a single number is impossible.

 

It's not all important, but it can be a useful guide.  All other things being equal, a gun that does 200 DPS is better then one that does 100 DPS.  All other things are typically not even close to equal, but good luck actually calculating all other things.

 

Time to kill is a better metric, but also has issues.  While it avoids over valuing overkill damage, it discounts accuracy, AoE, shoot through and the like.  More importantly, it's impractical as a general metric simply because it's so heavily dependent on enemy type and level.  You'd need a huge table for every weapon, and even then you're still discounting concerns like accuracy, shoot through, AoE.

 

In the end though, DPS is used for the exact same reasons as standardized tests like the SAT are.  It's not a perfect measurement, but it's about as close as you'll ever get to one.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Phatose

[LazyKnight]

 Or am I brainwashed and have this all wrong, please let me know. Thanks

DPH is a good measure of ammo efficiency. If a weapon has high sustained DPS, burst DPS, but Low DPH it will be next to unusable as a DPS weapon (Wraith Twin Viper as an example).

[direcyphre]

DPS generally isn't important, but it is a well-recognized term that describes the damage output of a weapon. Obviously things work differently here and burst DPS (or damage per shot) is far more important in the grand scheme of things, but DPS makes for a nice round number to compare things against.

[RawGritz]

Because it's a general indication of weapon strength.

It also correlates fire rate/reload speed/mag size, "your ability to shoot and kill quickly", with damage your ability to shoot and kill efficiently. A higher dps number will generally mean more balance or more exceptional strength between the two factors.

This right here. We all care about dmg per shot. We can't afford not to. but ultimately DPS paints a much more vivid picture of a weapon's capabilities. Why?? 

 

LukeAura explains perfectly above...^^

 

Damage per shot or per bullet is just that. Damage per second factors in dmg per bullet as well as fire rate, mag size and reload speed. 

Edited March 28, 2014 by RawGritz

[ObviousLee]

def. wrong.

 

super small DPS FAQ:

 

-When do you need high dps?

never.

 

-Why don't you need dps?

Low level obviously not needed.

High level: not needed because

 

1) Corpus + Grineer scale out no matter how good your DPS is

2) It's extremely ammo unefficient. (If you need 40 bullets to kill an enemy with you and you have to kill 10 of them => 400 bullets)

3) aoe > dps!!!

 

-But if i don't need DPS what should i do?

Concentrate on 2 things: 

 

1) damage per bullet and ammo efficieny

2) long defense/survival always use aoe (bottle neck, or get them in one point)

you must not have used the phage yet. mine drops level 119 heavies(all factions) in a matter of seconds, well after penta becomes weak and unable to one shot kill, seeing as the innate punch through lets me hit dozens of targets at once while delivering a monstrous 22k dps that with my current build commonly outdoes the damage from my whole team (weapons and frame powers included).

 

 

edit: you're little faq here does not at all explain why dps is not important. only that you FEEL it is unimportant.

Edited March 28, 2014 by ObviousLee

[taiiat]

Time to kill is a better metric, but also has issues.  While it avoids over valuing overkill damage, it discounts accuracy, AoE, shoot through and the like.  More importantly, it's impractical as a general metric simply because it's so heavily dependent on enemy type and level.  You'd need a huge table for every weapon, and even then you're still discounting concerns like accuracy, shoot through, AoE.

if i was massochistic enough to make a TTK chart, i would certainly include multiple target hit factors and accuracy. i don't know why you wouldn't.

 

but still, such a spreadsheet would be absurdly large, and you'd need a GPS to navigate it. but atleast it would be even remotely accurate.

[Phatose]

if i was massochistic enough to make a TTK chart, i would certainly include multiple target hit factors and accuracy. i don't know why you wouldn't.

 

but still, such a spreadsheet would be absurdly large, and you'd need a GPS to navigate it. but atleast it would be even remotely accurate.

 

You can include the figures, but would they affect TTK at all?  I know firsthand that an ignis cuts down how long it takes me to kill a swarm of grineer, but it's not exactly something you can factor into that TTK.

[yarash2110]

I'm not sure why DamagePerSecond is talked about as if it's very important. I rarely need to hold down the trigger on a weapon (with exceptions for mob-killers like the Gorgon of course) to kill something. Usually I'm firing in short bursts to aim at weak spots or take down one or two enemies at a time since the enemies tend to scatter, and they die quickly anyway.

 

Wouldn't it be more sensible to talk about weapons in terms of damage per bullet? Am I just misunderstanding the terms used?

what really matters with most weapons is the speed in which you kill the enemy, for example with the lanka you can say it took 2 shots and you can say it took 5 seconds, i think that unless its a weapon that tends to run ou of ammo, like, you cant say something like "twin vipers can take down phorid in 3 seconds! But with 210 bullets" at low levels most weapons, even weak ones oneshots enemies, so dps is really for bosses and high levels which is what people usually want to know

[taiiat]

You can include the figures, but would they affect TTK at all?  I know firsthand that an ignis cuts down how long it takes me to kill a swarm of grineer, but it's not exactly something you can factor into that TTK.

well, each Weapon would have like, 23598623576253867921358967521938712538967 entries on it's row, lol. a million different situations.

[Archistopheles]

Man, that would be a gigantic chart, you'd have to measure how fast every weapon kills every single type of enemy right? lol

 

How would you take into account mods? D:

 

You use perfect builds, and then ideal builds to eliminate mod confusion.

 

All enemies are based on Level 30 Grineer's effective-health, not armor + health. (A second table could show level 60 Grineer)

 

That way, you wouldn't have to bother with types of damage, but rather the raw numbers and %'s.

 

Start small, expand upon it.

[Vector88]

DPS numbers are used for people to justify their cries for weapon nerfs. In addition they are not that useful and ignore many other factors weapons have such as accuracy, magazine size, and reload speed.

 

Example: the Latron Prime has a supposedly higher DPS than the Soma, but people ignore the factors that make the two vastly different like magazine size, reload speed, and fire rate (semi vs full auto)

The DPS numbers assume that you have infinite ammo per magazine and you have perfect accuracy while (in the Latron's case) clicking 4.2 times per second. All three conditions that the DPS number assumes will occur will never happen in an actual game.

 

As others have said above, a better way to measure weapon performance is either Time to Kill, Burst DPS, or damage per shot

 

Actually in hindsight, numbers in general are a terrible way to measure weapon performance

Edited March 28, 2014 by Vector88

[Phatose]

well, each Weapon would have like, 23598623576253867921358967521938712538967 entries on it's row, lol. a million different situations.

 

Exactly.  Once you try to account for everything, it become more or less impossible to get useful numbers out of it.  You end up being better off just trying it out in game.

 

Doesn't make for interesting theorycrafting though.

[(NSW)Omgwtfl9lbbl]

@taiiat

 

Has someone made a TTK thread yet?

 

I've only got MindlessWar's "effective DPS" thread on tracker.

I am currently making a DPS + TTK calculator that will allow you to input any enemy and weapon with whatever mods. You won't be able to compare every weapon at the same time, but if you really want to do that someone can crunch in their own builds and make their own spreadsheet out of it. You will be able to compare two weapons (or the same weapon with different builds) together on the same target and such. I'm just doing it in my free time, though, and I've come to discover that there are still tons of mechanics that are not very well documented, so I'm not in any rush and right now I spend a lot of my time testing mechanics rather than programming at the moment.

 

Effective health vs. raw DPS is a slightly better metric, but still not very good overall IMO. There's no reason to NOT include individual resistances/strengths. It's really absurdly easy. In fact, what is giving me by far the most difficulty in my calculator at the moment has to do with Leader bonuses and finding base levels of enemies for accurate level/mob simulation, because the documentation on that stuff is very poor. If I really cared to and you gave me a list of builds to use, I could probably whip up a huge list of all the weapons and their actual DPS against Grineers of different armor types/values in a couple of hours aside from burst fire weapons in a few hours, but I'm looking for something more robust. Implementing an average damage via procs would be a little more difficult (partly due to the fact that, again, very poor documentation on how status proc spread really works).

 

I'm probably one of the biggest DPS crunchers on these forums, and I'll tell you any day to go ahead and use whatever the hell you like for whatever you're doing as long as you enjoy it. I'm not saying that DPS numbers are useless, they're simply situational and they're one part of the big picture. Just like basing everything off of DPS is stupid, completely ignoring DPS is also stupid. And in the end, this is a game, so if you aren't having fun with superhaxor1337420smokealldayMLGproshotXD, then there's no reason to use it.

[taiiat]

Exactly.  Once you try to account for everything, it become more or less impossible to get useful numbers out of it.

it's not impossible, it's just very detailed, and actually gives you accurate information that's truly relevant.

it's more of a pain to program than it is impossible. it's very possible. mathematics much more complicated than that runs our world anyways.

 

Doesn't make for interesting theorycrafting though.

but Chatframe™ is so fun! so much theorycrafting :D

lol.

[mcKentucky]

So is it logical to say Damage per hit is good until the level of the faction is greater then your damage per second would be more viable way to look at the 'best' suited weapon, then one would factor in the elements.

 

But even factoring in an element, would the damage per hit weapon out shine the one biased off of damage per second?

So one would say the Soma is great until you peak out at this point then the Latron Prime picks up the slack due to damage per hit (Both using the same element combo)

 

Soma being purely mob control, while the Latron being the show stoppers on the 'things' that actually kill you in 1-2-3 shots (Heavy gunners, sometime high level ancients).

 

It only makes sense to use the DPH for pure brute power, while those of the tier 1 DPS would be control weapons (Pray and spray)? Or am I brainwashed and have this all wrong, please let me know. Thanks

 

Yes. A good example of this is in Prime Time #22.

[HAYABU5A]

its just a way to measure damage output is all

 

even if it is inaccurate compared to actual gameplay mechanics

 

weapons in warframe are fun because even if one has lower "dps" on paper it can actually be far more effective in the actual game than a superior dps counterpart 

[(PSN)vivan000]

DPS numbers are used for people to justify their cries for weapon nerfs. In addition they are not that useful and ignore many other factors weapons have such as accuracy, magazine size, and reload speed.

Most DPS calculators do include mag. size and reload time into calculation. Without them - "Burst DPS", with them - just "DPS".

 

numbers ... are a terrible way to measure ... performance

lolwat? Please explain how are you going to measure and compare anything without using numbers.

[ObviousLee]

Most DPS calculators do include mag. size and reload time into calculation. Without them - "Burst DPS", with them - just "DPS".

 

lolwat? Please explain how are you going to measure and compare anything without using numbers.

kinda cannot argue with this point right here

[Guest Shibboleet]

you must not have used the phage yet. mine drops level 119 heavies(all factions) in a matter of seconds, well after penta becomes weak and unable to one shot kill, seeing as the innate punch through lets me hit dozens of targets at once while delivering a monstrous 22k dps that with my current build commonly outdoes the damage from my whole team (weapons and frame powers included).

 

 

edit: you're little faq here does not at all explain why dps is not important. only that you FEEL it is unimportant.

Actually, he is attempting to explain through experience, not feeling.