Why Is Dps Important?

[SIDESTRE4M]

The problem is not the DPS-chart. It's the people unable to read them properly.

 

Just think how many just look up a weapon, see a number greater than another number and cry to the world: WHAT? It's stronger/weaker than xyz. Nerf/Buff/imbalanced!!!

 

If you just multiply fire rate with damage and calculate it for a second, then you have Damage Per Second.

 

Then reality kicks in and other factors add up to a value, most people certainly fail to interpret.

 

So theoretical DPS is just an indicator for the weapons performance.

 

The real thing is testing them out yourselves and measure how long it takes you to take down certain enemies (maybe not level 1 grineer...) and after some time the perceptive player will develop some sense for the performance of weapons.

 

Kiddies (or older kiddies ;P) who just look up some numbers without knowing the kontext and shout out for nerfs/buffs are sadly a byproduct.

Edited March 29, 2014 by SIDESTRE4M

[Volt_Cruelerz]

DPS is useful because it provides a rough estimation of weapon power.  Generally weapons with higher DPS are better.  There are natural exceptions of course.  Weapons with super high proc chances can still do well.  Weapons with low damage per shot will still do poorly (Afuris).

 

Ultimately, TTK is more relevant per enemy, but TTK doesn't take target re-acquisition into account due to limited use of fire rate, meaning that it's useless when trying to account for the time taken to kill a horde of enemies.

 

That's why DPS is used.  It intrinsically accounts for both damage and rate.  When I say DPS, I mean burst DPS.  Of course, in some cases (like the Bronco family) Sustained DPS is more useful due to frequent reloads.

 

Is there more to balance than numbers?  Absolutely.  Even so, numbers do play an important role, especially in a game like warframe where you either have the numbers to kill the enemy or you don't.  This is why I've lately taken to referring to attempting to balance by numbers as "normalization," rather than balancing.  Balancing would come later and include player perception of combat effectiveness.

 

DPS should never be the solitary reason for a buff or nerf.  The thing is though, many people (myself included) will cite it without referencing anything else because abnormal DPS is correlated strongly with abnormal combat performance.  It's just easier to say and we assume our audience can make the connection.

 

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:

I actually started on this for Damage 1.0 and got about halfway done (Infested and Grineer were complete), but then we got Damage 2.0 and I gave up.

Edited March 29, 2014 by Volt_Cruelerz

[buriburi]

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.

 

On the star chart DPS is not important because the highest level of enemy is 35 (against corpus toxic, against grineer head mult) you can kill them pretty fast with any forma'd gun. 

 

Let's talk about L35+ basically high defense/survival runs:

 

Any weapon which has high ammo usage with highest possible dps will run out of ammo (1) + it will hit just one/a couple of enemies (2) + they scale (3) 

That means:

 

(1) you need an ammo efficient weapon

(2) you need a weapon that can hit multiple enemies

(3) higher level more ammo usage

 

now to (1): You need more ammo. how do you do that? If you have ammo mutation that means that you don't have highest dps (which means dps doesn't matter as much as ammo efficiency). If you have highest possible dps you will run out of ammo or/and killing and enemy killing won't be worth it because you have to waste so many ammo boxes or plates (basically you will lose credits each run, because building ammo plates costs too much). Thats why dps is not important.

 

In the case the weapon doesn't have base punch through you will also not have the highest dps. 

 

to (2): even with punch through you can't hit all the enemies at once. even if you have good dps one penta shot deals 10k-20k damage. times 10+ enemies (possible much more if you have the right tactic). SO why would you bring a high dps gun when you can bring a penta (no problem with (1)).

 

That means AOE > dps

 

to (3): It's not all weapon related. The higher the HP/Armor/Shields the more important is (1) and (2) (and a lot of other things).

 

What does that mean? AOE and ammo efficiency are much more important than dps. Hitting multiple enemies are more important than dps. Hitting multiplier spots are important (that usually means you can hit one enemy which makes (2) almost impossible that's why you need AOE and not a high dps gun without aoe) 

 

The word "Unimportant" maybe doesn't fit so well but DPS is def not one of the most important things in fighting high level enemies. There are so many points which are MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than DPS....

[buriburi]

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

 

The word DPS is a holy word in the forum. But there are soooooooo many things much more important than that... 

 

It's ridicilous... the dps talk is just like "whats the best warframe build for rhino" or "whats the best build for weapon X". 

[Axterix13]

Good point, though it seems "damage per trigger pull" would be a better way of talking about those kind of weapons (at least in non-high-level-survivals/defense) after mods and stuff.

 

Thanks for the insight folks, I just use a weapon to see if it works well, don't really pay attention to the number lol

Damage per trigger pull isn't any better than DPS though.

 

For example, my Seer hits hard.  That's a high damage per pull of the trigger.  When I'm playing, running around and shooting things, that usually works fine.  One shot, one kill.  Few more on heavy gunners, but whatever.  However, it has a small magazine (11 with Ice Storm), coupled with a long reload time.  The end result is that its DPS is not the greatest.  Against something like Lephantis (or however you spell the ODA guy's name), it isn't a good weapon.  Against the post-spacewalk hallway on invasion missions (when siding with the Corpus), it also isn't the best... just too many targets.  Same deal with swarms of Infested.  Often too many targets, especially in Survival.

 

The thing with DPS is that it is A thing to look at.  And so is damage per shot, fire rate, accuracy, and so on.  Each has its place.  A weapon can be high dps with low ammo efficiency, and as such, drain you quickly (Vipers, for example).  A weapon can have high damage per shot, but a slow rate of fire, and therefore not be good against packs (Sniper Rifles).  And so on.

 

What it comes down to is that DPS calculations aren't something to be blindly quoted.  They're a tool, and they need to be used wisely.  And the same goes for damage per shot.

Edited March 29, 2014 by Axterix13

[ObviousLee]

On the star chart DPS is not important because the highest level of enemy is 35 (against corpus toxic, against grineer head mult) you can kill them pretty fast with any forma'd gun. 

 

Let's talk about L35+ basically high defense/survival runs:

 

Any weapon which has high ammo usage with highest possible dps will run out of ammo (1) + it will hit just one/a couple of enemies (2) + they scale (3) 

That means:

 

(1) you need an ammo efficient weapon

(2) you need a weapon that can hit multiple enemies

(3) higher level more ammo usage

 

now to (1): You need more ammo. how do you do that? If you have ammo mutation that means that you don't have highest dps (which means dps doesn't matter as much as ammo efficiency). If you have highest possible dps you will run out of ammo or/and killing and enemy killing won't be worth it because you have to waste so many ammo boxes or plates (basically you will lose credits each run, because building ammo plates costs too much). Thats why dps is not important.

 

In the case the weapon doesn't have base punch through you will also not have the highest dps. 

 

to (2): even with punch through you can't hit all the enemies at once. even if you have good dps one penta shot deals 10k-20k damage. times 10+ enemies (possible much more if you have the right tactic). SO why would you bring a high dps gun when you can bring a penta (no problem with (1)).

 

That means AOE > dps

 

to (3): It's not all weapon related. The higher the HP/Armor/Shields the more important is (1) and (2) (and a lot of other things).

 

What does that mean? AOE and ammo efficiency are much more important than dps. Hitting multiple enemies are more important than dps. Hitting multiplier spots are important (that usually means you can hit one enemy which makes (2) almost impossible that's why you need AOE and not a high dps gun without aoe) 

 

The word "Unimportant" maybe doesn't fit so well but DPS is def not one of the most important things in fighting high level enemies. There are so many points which are MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than DPS....

my phage has no issues going beyond wave fifty, against any faction. then again, i also have a S#&$load of rare mods AND i tossed 6 forma into it. i WORKED for my heavy hitting fire power, ya know? and even against penta, i can completely out damage an entire 4 man team (weapons and powers included) all the way up to level 119 mobs. (haven't tested higher as i lack the time for the most part).

 

and i agree with your statement about dps, ttk, and dpshot. all are very important tools to looks at.

[taiiat]

I actually started on this for Damage 1.0 and got about halfway done (Infested and Grineer were complete), but then we got Damage 2.0 and I gave up.

i feel bad for you.

 

i WORKED for my heavy hitting fire power, ya know?

not really, it was one of the 'best' Weapons in the game when you first got it, so there was a lot less 'work' involved.

but that's about as relevant as mentioning Phage was, anyways. it's a Continuous laser, Piercing can help but it still hits a very limited number of targets.

[ObviousLee]

not really, it was one of the 'best' Weapons in the game when you first got it, so there was a lot less 'work' involved.

but that's about as relevant as mentioning Phage was, anyways. it's a Continuous laser, Piercing can help but it still hits a very limited number of targets.

i disagree with the limited targets. as i mentioned before, i both out damage, and out kill an entire team, using only tail wind to maneuver around, turbulance to defend myself, and my phage. the innate punch through is like .3 meters iirc correctly, and when enemies (low, mid and some end game mobs) die upon initial contact with the beams, which is to say instant death, the beams path leads to the next target. i am not kidding at all, when i say level 40 mobs go down on beam contact.

[Jiminez_Burial]

I have honestly not read every comment before me, but I want to make sure something is mentioned.  DPS is important in any game that bases success off of how many enemies you kill, and with what ammo efficiency this is done with.  There are also different types of DPS which include Sustained DPS (the damage per second average when reloading time is considered) and burst DPS (DPS before any reload is factored in).  DPS (at least for me) refers to sustained DPS.  If it has a higher sustained DPS, then it simply means that unless it is a sniper (due to a single hit more times than not over-killing the target) a higher DPS means that it is a better weapon, especially in Warframe where mobs are more prevalent that single enemies that pose a threat.  High damage per shot is not very practical when deciding what weapon to use unless you are building specifically to combat bosses or leaders with boosted health.  Better sustained DPS means that you can carry that damage across more enemies rather than damage being lost by hitting already dead targets.  In a game where there is so much diversity in how you can use weapons, Warframe (and many other games) have  created a standardized ranking system that applies to the majority of the games content.  Think of DPS comparison like the Richter scale.  It's just a way that members of a community can gauge what is otherwise more of a theoretical idea.

[(PSN)Lord_Gremlin]

When all other stats are the same, higher DPS means better weapon. But if other stats differ vastly DPS is irrelevant.

I mean, I love using Tigris. DPS is very low. But it's a 1-hit kill on a crowd for 2 shotgun ammo and zero risk of any kind of self-damage.

[Executor_Aeternus]

True Damage Per Second is the important value.
One finds the damage capable of being produced in a given period. I use a 10second period, personally. You merely calculate in damage per shot (with the damage multiplier on the appropriate percent that would be critical hits), shots fired in given time, reloading time (producing 0 damage during reload) and magazine size; then you calculate in the damage effects of any programmed random occurence effects (say, 49% gas proc) with your ideal number of effects (for any aoe proc, I estimate 2 other opponents are hurt by it). It takes a moment manually, but you could just use an excel document, you know.

[taiiat]

-snip-

i'm not surprised, are you? Phage is another Stat Creep, the Damage Output is extremely high, once focused. 

 

Stug and Brakk are still superior to it though, their Stat Creep hasn't been one-upped yet.

 

 

but you could out damage players with most any Weapon if you're more mobile than they are.

[ObviousLee]

i'm not surprised, are you? Phage is another Stat Creep, the Damage Output is extremely high, once focused. 

 

Stug and Brakk are still superior to it though, their Stat Creep hasn't been one-upped yet.

 

 

but you could out damage players with most any Weapon if you're more mobile than they are.

did NOT truly take that into consideration to be honest. i see your point now.

[nekrojiji]

Would you rather have 100 damage at 5 bullets a second or 50 damage at 15 bullets a second?

 

The same DPS would be 100 *5 / s with 50 *10/ s  ...ofcouse 50*15/s is better anyway you put it.

 

I, for one, prefer weapons that deal the damge in less hits. (Even if the DPS is slightly lower I will chsoe the weapon with bigger damage per hit)

[NikolaiLev]

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?

 

Because DPS is more of a universal.  It's a very simple number to look at to determine just how powerful a weapon is.  A weapon that deals 90,000 damage with a fire rate of .001 would appear very powerful unless you factored in its fire rate.  Thus, DPS.

 

Sustained DPS also factors in uptime; taking its magazine size and reload speed into account further makes for a more precise balance assessment.

 

Basically, DPS is important because weapons are used to kill things.  Killing things is done faster if a high DPS is achieved.  The only thing DPS doesn't show is ammo economy, which can be mentioned elsewhere.

[taiiat]

-snip-

what of all the Weapons that deal a lot of Alpha Damage? their DPS is generally low... but are used anyways, as they favorably eliminate targets quickly despite having low 'Deeps'.

 

random example, Penta is used widely, but it's 'Deeps' isn't that great. why is that? because despite that one stat being not that great, it still does an effective and efficient job of removing your Enemies.

Ogris falls into that category as well, though it's not as popular, but still the same idea. it's DPS is really not particularly good, but it still keeps up just fine.

 

not even thinking in Enemies by the dozen, thinking in scenarios where just a few Enemies are appearing at a time, such as the average mission that isn't a Mobile Defense, Defense, or Survival. just the trickle of Enemies you find between A and B.

[Freelancer27]

Ek.

 

This title is sipping with conflict. I don't know who side with. :l

[SoulEchelon]

Why use anything but the most efficient?

 

Because this is a game and some people's definition of fun is to use many different varieties of weapons regardless of their "DPS" instead of just running around with Soma.

[Vernoc]

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?

u are right, dps rly don´t care cause u don´t look at proc chance and high dps weapons are ammo killer

dmg per bullet + proc chance is the onlyst thing that cares for endgame, dps is only cares if u want rusher weapons like grakata/braton prime , ignis etc.

 

DPS becomes far more important at higher levels due to the amount of things you kill, how quickly you have to deal damage to them (because there are always more mobs), and so on.

u never played higher levels if u say something like that

higher levels only needs status chance and dmg per bullet, for that best endgame weapons are weapons like vectis, ogris, penta, grinlok and not weapons like twinvipers and grakata, u don´t have the ammo to play them

[Paradox52525]

As several people have pointed out, DPS is the best most generally applicable single-number metric for a gun.  It's not a perfect measurement, but it's the best we've got without trying to account for tons of variables. 

 

Damage-per-shot is useful to know, but it does not account for fire rate or reload speed of a weapon, so it doesn't tell you much about a gun's true performance except for "can I one-shot this guy or not?"  IE, a gun could do 5,000 damage per shot, but have a clip size of 1 and 30-second reload.  Obviously this gun would be pretty bad, but it's damage-per-shot is fantastic - if that's the only thing you're looking it, this would look like a very nice gun.

 

Damage per-second isn't a perfect metric, but it does account for damage per-shot, fire rate, clip size, and reload speed, so it's a better point of comparison than just damage-per shot.  DPS plus a weapons classificiation (IE "shotgun", "automatic rifle", "sniper-rifle") give you a pretty good overall idea of how a weapon will play.

[Kitzun]

Dps is like EHP, the stat is reliable if damage happens often enough to be fluid.

 

If a weapon has big base damage and low firerate then its dps will not matter because it won't apply its damage often enough for dps to be relevant.

Basically, dps is a stat that matters mainly for high firerate weapons.

[Inez]

The only thing DPS doesn't show is ammo economy, which can be mentioned elsewhere.

It also doesn't show recoil, range, size of area effect damage or accuracy. All of which are pretty important.

 

 

random example, Penta is used widely, but it's 'Deeps' isn't that great. why is that? because despite that one stat being not that great, it still does an effective and efficient job of removing your Enemies.

Penta's 'Deeps' is actually really good. If you're hitting two targets, multiply its dps by two, and you're outdpsing Boltor Prime and Phage.

[taiiat]

Penta's 'Deeps' is actually really good. If you're hitting two targets, multiply its dps by two, and you're outdpsing Boltor Prime and Phage.

paper calculations don't calculate that way though, they calculate based on pretending if you were shooting a wall. the math is fundamentally flawed and biased towards spray cannons.

 

a Sniper Rifle(Bows are also applicable here) is in the same category as those two Weapons. a lot of Alpha Damage, but they shoot slow. DPS says they suck, but obviously that isn't the case.

[(NSW)Omgwtfl9lbbl]

Dear lord, if I do release a calculator/sim for public use, I'm going to have to put a big ol' disclaimer on it to warn people to use their heads and interpret numbers realistically for different situations. I can't believe this is being argued so much.

[ItalianPlumber]

I don't understand.

 

Why do people think that talking about DPS and weapon balance seriously is stupid, or that it's unhealthy for the game?

 

Imbalance that chokes out styles of play because something else is miles ahead in terms of performance is far more unhealthy than crunching numbers.