How To Calculate DPS In Video Games

Fortnite S8 Sideways Minigun Legendary
Fortnite DPS

DPS (damage per second) is a useful metric for determining just how powerful a weapon is in a video game.

While most games tend to include the DPS details in-game alongside the weapon itself, some, such as Fortnite, do not. Instead, players get various other values, such as fire rate, reload time, and so on. Luckily, figuring out DPS is a very simple calculation.

To calculate DPS, all you need to do is take the damage values and multiply them by fire rate per second.

So, for instance: if your assault rifle does 20 base damage and has a fire rate of 10 per second, its DPS would be 200 as 20 x 10 = 200.

However, while this is a good baseline, it’s not an accurate calculation for every single game as there are many variables to consider.

Some games include bloom, which means that your bullets have a random chance of missing despite you aiming accurately, and there’s also the reload time and general accuracy to consider. On top of that, bear in mind that weapons have damage multipliers depending on where you hit an opponent and some also have damage drop-off.

While DPS is a very helpful metric to have, it’s not the only one to help you gauge just how effective your weapons are.

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