Damage Per Second (DPS) is the single most important combat metric in almost every game genre — from ARPGs like Path of Exile and Diablo to MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, from shooters to tabletop RPGs. A high DPS means fights end faster, bosses die before enrage timers, and your character contributes maximum value to a group. This calculator gives you the exact effective DPS for any weapon build or ability rotation, showing the full breakdown so you can optimise every variable.
How it works
The calculator is built around three layers of computation that together produce a single effective DPS figure.
Layer 1 — Average hit damage. Every attack has a base damage value, a bonus from passive skills or buffs, and a probability of landing a critical hit for amplified damage. The formula combines all three:
AvgHit = BaseDmg × (1 + Bonus) × (1 + CritChance × (CritMult − 1))
where CritChance and CritMult are expressed as decimals. For example, a 5% crit chance with 200% multiplier adds 0.05 × (2 − 1) = 0.05, a 5% uplift. Raising crit chance to 50% adds 50% average damage — dramatically more leverage than it first appears.
Layer 2 — Auto-attack DPS. Multiply average hit by your attacks per second:
AutoDPS = AvgHit × APS
Layer 3 — Skill rotation. Each active skill deals a burst of damage on a cooldown. Its contribution in sustained DPS is:
SkillDPS = SkillDamage / (Cooldown + CastTime)
The cast time matters: while you are in a cast animation you cannot auto-attack. The tool calculates the fraction of each cooldown window occupied by casting and suppresses auto-attack DPS proportionally, then sums everything:
EffectiveDPS = AutoDPS × (1 − castFraction) + SkillDPS
This models real gameplay far more accurately than simply adding auto DPS and skill DPS naively.
Worked example
Suppose you are playing a fast-cast mage with these stats:
- Base damage: 75, Attacks per second: 1.5, Crit chance: 8%, Crit multiplier: 150%, Bonus damage: 25%
- Skill 1 — Fireball: 300 damage, 4 s cooldown, 0.8 s cast
- Skill 2 — Lightning Bolt: 200 damage, 6 s cooldown, 0.5 s cast
Step 1 — Average hit:
75 × 1.25 × (1 + 0.08 × (1.5 − 1)) = 93.75 × 1.04 = 97.5
Step 2 — Auto DPS:
97.5 × 1.5 = 146.25 DPS
Step 3 — Skill DPS:
Fireball: 300 / (4 + 0.8) = 62.5 DPS
Lightning Bolt: 200 / (6 + 0.5) = 30.77 DPS
Total skill DPS = 93.27 DPS
Step 4 — Cast fraction:
(0.8/4) + (0.5/6) = 0.20 + 0.083 = 28.3% of time spent casting
Step 5 — Effective DPS:
146.25 × (1 − 0.283) + 93.27 = 104.9 + 93.27 = 198.17 DPS
Without accounting for cast time suppression you would overcount by roughly 40 DPS — a meaningful difference when comparing two builds.
Formula reference
| Variable | Meaning |
|---|---|
| BaseDmg | Raw weapon or spell damage before any modifiers |
| Bonus (%) | Flat percentage boost from gear, buffs, passives |
| CritChance (%) | Probability of a critical hit each swing |
| CritMult (%) | Total damage on a crit as % of a normal hit (200% = double) |
| APS | Attacks per second — swings, shots or spell casts |
| SkillDmg | Total damage dealt by one skill activation |
| Cooldown | Time in seconds before the skill can be used again |
| CastTime | Seconds the character is locked in animation per use |
All calculations run entirely in your browser. No data is sent to any server.