Damage per second

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

All or part of this article may be confusing or unclear.
Please help clarify the article. Suggestions may be on the talk page.

Damage per second (DPS), a term typically used for certain computer games, describes the average rate of damage inflicted over time. The term is especially common in online role-playing games. Damage is a scalar quantity that is typically applied to an in-game opponent, until that opponent's capacity for absorbing damage is exceeded and the opponent is defeated. Therefore the higher the DPS value, the less time it takes to defeat an opponent. In many games, DPS characters are usually the primary damage dealers in a group (for example in Guild Wars, where the elementalist class is often referred to as the 'nuker'), but are also highly vulnerable to attack.

In the context of a particular game, DPS can apply to any entity capable of inflicting damage on a target, much like the term "damage dealer" is used in other MMORPGs. Typically this might be a certain player, but it could apply more specifically to their current choice of weapon or skill, or more generally to a group of characters working together. Players may have to calculate values themselves based on empirical analysis, since not all the factors are always explicit.

As a measure of capability, it is obviously more accurate than a simple damage value that does not reflect how often the damage can be dealt, and is therefore potentially a useful metric both to game players and game designers.

The term is also used as a command or request in MMORPGs. For example, the group leader may admonish the rest of the group to "DPS" the current target quickly, meaning that everyone should do everything in their power to do damage to the target as fast as possible, utilizing all skills and abilities (even cooldowns, an ability with a recharge time) to do as much damage as possible.