Oddly enough, I don't believe this topic has been addressed, and if it has, please let me know.
I've been doing some research about how dps works, and I think I have (sortof) figured it out. Most of this info is based on actual in-game numbers.
I'd like to start this off by saying damage is not DPS. This may seem obvious to most, but it's important to distinguish the two.
According to Jay Wilson, your damage is based on your weapon. Simple enough:
Official Blizzard Quote:
@Bashiok @angryrobotics It looks like each point in Intel increases base damage by 1%, but I can't find base damage
@CherubDown @Bashiok Damage is based on your weapon, so look at it's damage. Although we'll probably add it to detailed stats.
You can figure out your actual weapon DPS by
(W_lower+W_higher)*(W_speed_factor)/2
where W_lower is the lowest dmg your weapon can do, W_higher is the highest, and W_speed_factor is your weapon speed.
Or you can figure it out by simply looking at that giant number the game throws at you :). That settles damage and weapon DPS, but what about overall DPS? According to the game,
Interestingly, Blizzard has decided to include your crit factor and crit chance into your overall DPS. So I decided to try to figure out a formula for the whole thing, and this is what I've come up with:
where W_dps is your weapon's dps, dmg_increase_factor is the factor by which your damage is increased (based on your primary attribute), crit_factor is your crit damage increase, and crit_chance is obviously your chance to crit.
My calculation isn't perfect unfortunately. It's about 0.2 off and I'm not exactly sure why. If anyone can figure it out, I'd love to know what I've got wrong.
As for equipping two weapons (duel wielding), there's a thread here on the matter and the formula is quite simple:
1.15*(W1_dps + W2_dps)/2
The output of this formula can be replaced by the W_dps in the previous formula. (Thanks chippydip and romique for the correction and clarification) The 15% increase is an incentive to use 2-handed weapons.
My calculation isn't perfect unfortunately. It's about 0.2 off and I'm not exactly sure why. If anyone can figure it out, I'd love to know what I've got wrong.
The game's rounding of decimal fractions could be the reason I guess.
My calculation isn't perfect unfortunately. It's about 0.2 off and I'm not exactly sure why. If anyone can figure it out, I'd love to know what I've got wrong.
All the values displayed in-game are rounded to 1 or 2 decimal places. The actual values have more significant figures than that, which will lead to small errors since you are calculating based off the rounded damage numbers.
As for equipping two-handed weapons, there's a thread here on the matter and the formula is quite simple:
1.15*(W1_dps + W2_dps)/2
The 15% increase is an incentive to use 2-handed weapons.
Your explanation does not match your equation and the linked thread. What you mean is that equipping 2 one-handed weapons (dual wielding) will increase your average attack speed by 15%. This is something entirely different from equipping "two-handed" weapons which take both hands to hold a single weapon. ;-)
So isn't it basicly just (your average damage * attack speed) ? ...
That's exactly how it works.
It would definitely be nice if the game displayed average attack damage (and perhaps average attack speed) in addition to dps. As far as I know, spell damage scales based on average damage, no average dps. Attack speed effects how quickly you can use a skill with no cooldown. Overall the skill systems seem fairly balanced to account for this, but there are some builds that would benefit from faster attack speed and others that would benefit from larger average weapon damage.
As for equipping two-handed weapons, there's a thread here on the matter and the formula is quite simple:
1.15*(W1_dps + W2_dps)/2
The 15% increase is an incentive to use 2-handed weapons.
Your explanation does not match your equation and the linked thread. What you mean is that equipping 2 one-handed weapons (dual wielding) will increase your average attack speed by 15%. This is something entirely different from equipping "two-handed" weapons which take both hands to hold a single weapon. ;-)
I didn't think this required explanation but I guess it does.
You can simply replace the result of the DPS from that formula and put it where W_dps is in the first formula.
As for equipping two-handed weapons, there's a thread here on the matter and the formula is quite simple:
1.15*(W1_dps + W2_dps)/2
The 15% increase is an incentive to use 2-handed weapons.
Your explanation does not match your equation and the linked thread. What you mean is that equipping 2 one-handed weapons (dual wielding) will increase your average attack speed by 15%. This is something entirely different from equipping "two-handed" weapons which take both hands to hold a single weapon. ;-)
I didn't think this required explanation but I guess it does.
You can simply replace the result of the DPS from that formula and put it where W_dps is in the first formula.
This is clear I guess, though it won't hurt to add it to the opening post. But what chippydip was saying is that you are refering to a 2-handed weapon (one weapon held with both hands), while providing the dual-wielding dps formula (for two one-handed weapons, mh and oh), and that's confusing. The formula is fine, it's the description that needs a little correction.
Yeah if I'm honest, the impact that items have on caster dps is really poorly defined.
If my wizard finds a 12.2 dps short sword, and I'm using an 11.2 dps wand, do I switch to the short sword, only to find that my physical damage is increased, but not my spell damage? How does +weapon speed on a javelin affect +casting speed on a witch doctor?
The tooltips for skills are so incredibly brief, they don't even begin to mention quantity of +damage, +speed, etc.
I find the current incarnation of how items impact damage output to be un-necessarily obtuse and confusing, and this is coming from a gaming veteran. In trying to make the system simpler, they've made it extremely complex.
Edit: I tried to explain damage modifications to my girlfriend yesterday, who has never gone beyond king's quest in the gaming department, and I realized in completely failing to explain it clearly, that I did not understand it well myself.
(I made her a char, and she proceeded to play 4 hours straight. I'm so proud of her.)
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"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
Does all of this relate to casters also? Say a wizard or witch doctor's spell damages are reflected on their DPS number in their character attribues.
Also, does increased attack speed help a witch doc or wizard cast their spells faster? Or is there something else for that?
In older beta patches there was a separate "Increased Attack Speed" for barb/monk/dh and"Faster Cast Rate" from WD and Wizard. Currently, IAS applies to all five classes. Not hugely game changing but a reasonable simplification all the same.
I'm happy I found this thread. I was one of the 100k that ended up getting an invite in the last wave and from what I've played so far I've had this exact question. It feels like there's a lot of factors they are putting into the DPS number, and the mere presence of the DPS number makes me feel like we'll eventually actually care about DPS vs Damage in the later difficulty numbers. I think anyone who ends up playing D3 in a serious manner (such as PVP) will end up wanting to crunch out numbers, and the way the tooltips and other things that contribute to DPS and Damage are currently done it seems like it's going to be a very tiresome process to arrive at a consensus about formulas/numbers. I like the idea they've put in place but I just wish they'd put a little more clarity on it. I actually started trying to crunch out some numbers for the Demon Hunter (the only char I've really made so far) using knowledge from other games but it feels like it's an uphill battle right now.
Yeah if I'm honest, the impact that items have on caster dps is really poorly defined.
If my wizard finds a 12.2 dps short sword, and I'm using an 11.2 dps wand, do I switch to the short sword, only to find that my physical damage is increased, but not my spell damage? How does +weapon speed on a javelin affect +casting speed on a witch doctor?
The tooltips for skills are so incredibly brief, they don't even begin to mention quantity of +damage, +speed, etc.
I agree with you on this. D2 they listed on the spell the damage range. This might be a good idea for Blizzard to do, maybe even if it is just the more complex explanation of the spell (I know there is a word for this but can't think of it).
In older beta patches there was a separate "Increased Attack Speed" for barb/monk/dh and"Faster Cast Rate" from WD and Wizard. Currently, IAS applies to all five classes. Not hugely game changing but a reasonable simplification all the same.
Thanks for clearing this up. I like the idea of IAS is also the same faster cast rate. It gives it a much simpler approach.
The best, and clearest way would be if they listed the damage now on the spell itself (magic or physical) and every time you changed out your weapon or gear, you could hover over it to see exactly what it shows.
whats the highest DPS anyone here was able to achieve in the beta?
The highest numbers can only come from patch 5 with wounding amulet + rings and all crafted attack gear. In that patch I had 130~ dps on my 3 hours played Barb. I wouldn't doubt DH's should be pulling higher numbers with 2x rare req lvl 13 xbows though.
edit: patch 5 and subsequent patches*
talking now though.... i was easily able to get in the 60-70s without even trying for it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
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I've been doing some research about how dps works, and I think I have (sortof) figured it out. Most of this info is based on actual in-game numbers.
I'd like to start this off by saying damage is not DPS. This may seem obvious to most, but it's important to distinguish the two.
According to Jay Wilson, your damage is based on your weapon. Simple enough:
Official Blizzard Quote:
@Bashiok @angryrobotics It looks like each point in Intel increases base damage by 1%, but I can't find base damage
@CherubDown @Bashiok Damage is based on your weapon, so look at it's damage. Although we'll probably add it to detailed stats.
You can figure out your actual weapon DPS by
where W_lower is the lowest dmg your weapon can do, W_higher is the highest, and W_speed_factor is your weapon speed.
Or you can figure it out by simply looking at that giant number the game throws at you :). That settles damage and weapon DPS, but what about overall DPS? According to the game,
Interestingly, Blizzard has decided to include your crit factor and crit chance into your overall DPS. So I decided to try to figure out a formula for the whole thing, and this is what I've come up with:
where W_dps is your weapon's dps, dmg_increase_factor is the factor by which your damage is increased (based on your primary attribute), crit_factor is your crit damage increase, and crit_chance is obviously your chance to crit.
My calculation isn't perfect unfortunately. It's about 0.2 off and I'm not exactly sure why. If anyone can figure it out, I'd love to know what I've got wrong.
As for equipping two weapons (duel wielding), there's a thread here on the matter and the formula is quite simple:
The output of this formula can be replaced by the W_dps in the previous formula. (Thanks chippydip and romique for the correction and clarification) The 15% increase is an incentive to use 2-handed weapons.
All the values displayed in-game are rounded to 1 or 2 decimal places. The actual values have more significant figures than that, which will lead to small errors since you are calculating based off the rounded damage numbers.
Your explanation does not match your equation and the linked thread. What you mean is that equipping 2 one-handed weapons (dual wielding) will increase your average attack speed by 15%. This is something entirely different from equipping "two-handed" weapons which take both hands to hold a single weapon. ;-)
That's exactly how it works.
It would definitely be nice if the game displayed average attack damage (and perhaps average attack speed) in addition to dps. As far as I know, spell damage scales based on average damage, no average dps. Attack speed effects how quickly you can use a skill with no cooldown. Overall the skill systems seem fairly balanced to account for this, but there are some builds that would benefit from faster attack speed and others that would benefit from larger average weapon damage.
i didnt notice that. you sure?
I didn't think this required explanation but I guess it does.
You can simply replace the result of the DPS from that formula and put it where W_dps is in the first formula.
This is clear I guess, though it won't hurt to add it to the opening post. But what chippydip was saying is that you are refering to a 2-handed weapon (one weapon held with both hands), while providing the dual-wielding dps formula (for two one-handed weapons, mh and oh), and that's confusing. The formula is fine, it's the description that needs a little correction.
Also, does increased attack speed help a witch doc or wizard cast their spells faster? Or is there something else for that?
If my wizard finds a 12.2 dps short sword, and I'm using an 11.2 dps wand, do I switch to the short sword, only to find that my physical damage is increased, but not my spell damage? How does +weapon speed on a javelin affect +casting speed on a witch doctor?
The tooltips for skills are so incredibly brief, they don't even begin to mention quantity of +damage, +speed, etc.
I find the current incarnation of how items impact damage output to be un-necessarily obtuse and confusing, and this is coming from a gaming veteran. In trying to make the system simpler, they've made it extremely complex.
Edit: I tried to explain damage modifications to my girlfriend yesterday, who has never gone beyond king's quest in the gaming department, and I realized in completely failing to explain it clearly, that I did not understand it well myself.
(I made her a char, and she proceeded to play 4 hours straight. I'm so proud of her.)
-Thomas Jefferson
In older beta patches there was a separate "Increased Attack Speed" for barb/monk/dh and"Faster Cast Rate" from WD and Wizard. Currently, IAS applies to all five classes. Not hugely game changing but a reasonable simplification all the same.
http://huntersc.tv
I agree with you on this. D2 they listed on the spell the damage range. This might be a good idea for Blizzard to do, maybe even if it is just the more complex explanation of the spell (I know there is a word for this but can't think of it).
Thanks for clearing this up. I like the idea of IAS is also the same faster cast rate. It gives it a much simpler approach.
The best, and clearest way would be if they listed the damage now on the spell itself (magic or physical) and every time you changed out your weapon or gear, you could hover over it to see exactly what it shows.
Edit: Aha! Two threads of about the same topic, mah bad.
talking now though.... i was easily able to get in the 60-70s without even trying for it.