Pistoleer Archive
Thread: DPS is misleading. Your best DPS pistol might not be your overall best pistol.
Mafaza wrote:Accuracy affects damage as well. This shouldn't affect weapons from the same class unless the weapons have different accuracy mods, though.
This isn't a very good test but here is what I did, I put a Speed powerup that had a -38 accuracy modifyer on it. I hit the same level mob for the exact same damage with and without the powerup on. I would have to try out a scoped gun same dmg vs non-scoped to double check and make sure, but I'm not sure how the accuracy is affecting the damage right now.
with the cooldowns, unless a weapon isn't horribly slow, it's speed is mostly meaningless compared to max damage
and then once you get to a certain point of no action, speed completely meaningless
Ihear ya Kevi . Although, I keep seeing a difference. Fights with 1- 1.5 sec speed weapons vs fights with 2.3+ sec speed weapons(talking ranged)always has me losing less health. Sure Max Dmg will win the day but, I would rather win with enough health to continue the fighting than win and have to sit or use up meds/buffs etc.. The way it feels to me is I cannot win if I can't get my rounds on target and he who gets more rounds on target, quicker wins. Unless we're talking weapons that do massive amounts of damage in one shot, in which case speed won't matter.
Understand my post was an attempt to add factors into testing...so please don't think I'm trying to write a rule book. Jeez, SOE should have done that..LOL
Kevie wrote:
something else i'd like to point out.....
with the cooldowns, unless a weapon isn't horribly slow, it's speed is mostly meaningless compared to max damage
and then once you get to a certain point of no action, speed completely meaningless
Nifty wrote:
Here are the 4 guns I used, ranked by the modified DPS (gun min-max base spd/mod spd base dps/mod dps) at the time I was MP/MBH/SL 0/0/0/0
DL 44 XT 385-849 1.97/1.21 313.90/511.13
Rep Blstr 383-831 2.24/1.38 292.24/475.86
Fth FWG 296-864 2.03/1.24 286.23/466.08
DX-2 400-868 2.32/1.43 272.76/444.14
Now, if you go off the DPS, that DL-44 XT is definitely where it's at. Unfortunately, that's not the case since the weapons don't hit for a random amount of damage each time. They hit for a specific amount... which for my skill level seems to be about 95.4 - 95.6% of the max damage value on a basic ranged shot or
DX-2 830 (95.62% of the max)
FWG 824 (95.37% of the max)
DL44 811 (95.52% of the max)
Rep 795 (95.66% of the max)
DL44: 811/1.21 sec = 670.2 DPS
FWG5: 824/1.24 sec = 664.5 DPS
Rep: 795/1.38 sec = 576.1 DPS
DX-2: 830/1.43 sec = 580.4 DPS
That's the math I did based on Nifty's actual numbers. Am I wrong, or is the best gun still the DL44, followed by the FWG5?
Ren, when the speeds are that close, in actuality, it takes a quite a few shots for the lower damage/faster gun to outdamage the higher damage/slower gun.
Take 10 shots. The DL-44 should get 10 shots off in 12.1 seconds, while the the FWG has taken 12.4 seconds to get 10 shots off. That's not much of a difference at all. Damage wise, in the 10 shots, the difference is 8110 to 8240. Again, that's not that much of a difference. So in practice, you're really not going to be "better" in either case over 10 shots. For the DL-44 to start to outdamage the FWG we'd have to fire an awful lot of shots, which is not this particular DL-44's strong case given the 115 SAC vs the 84 SAC of the FWG.
The numbers you generated do show that the DL-44/FWG is a better option than the Rep or DX-2, as there is a significant decrease in the DPS.
The issues I was really pointing outare that 1) the shown DPS has the DL-44 being significantly better than the FWG, and practice shows they are about the same and 2) the shown DPS has the Rep being just a bit better than the FWG, and practice shows the FWG is better than the Rep.
(not counting resists, etc.)
since elemental dmg is one number, and not a range, maybe it has a higher impact on the dps calculation (the stat on the gun, and true dps calculation)
Kevie, that's completely possible.
I have no idea how elemental damage works, because it's not shown at all in the verbose combat spam. At least with the rep blaster, all it shows is xxx energy damage and MOB's armor absorbed yyy points of zzz potential energy damage. Or something like that.
Elemental damage should be shown in verbose combat spam.
Nifty wrote:Kevie, that's completely possible.
I have no idea how elemental damage works, because it's not shown at all in the verbose combat spam. At least with the rep blaster, all it shows is xxx energy damage and MOB's armor absorbed yyy points of zzz potential energy damage. Or something like that.
Elemental damage should be shown in verbose combat spam.
well it would also be VERY hard to test lol
the devs usually don't give out formulae, so i guess we should just go by feel, and figure out what our best weapons are
Nifty wrote:
The reason is that DPS is calculated roughly as average damageover time. Average damage is meaningless in SWG right now, as we hit for the same amount of damage with a given pistol (or any weapon) against a given target each and every time.
Now, if you go off the DPS, that DL-44 XT is definitely where it's at. Unfortunately, that's not the case since the weapons don't hit for a random amount of damage each time. They hit for a specific amount... which for my skill level seems to be about 95.4 - 95.6% of the max damage value on a basic ranged shot or
DX-2 830 (95.62% of the max)
FWG 824 (95.37% of the max)
DL44 811 (95.52% of the max)
Rep 795 (95.66% of the max)
Point is, as long as we hit for a set percentage of the max damage value, DPS is a misleading statistic.
JANGO69 wrote:
How does acc Bonus fall into this?
if you got more accuracy than your target has defense, your almost garanteed to hit, and will do more damage than normal.
Maybe I'm going batty, but I thought I read somewhere that the discrepency within the low to high damage range becomes less as you gain more levels. As a level 80, we are experienced enough to land consistent damage on a target, which is why when you use the same special over and over, you basically hit for the same damage again and again. At lower levels, do you seems to hit with less consistent damage? I can't remember this from testing the CURB. If this is the case, then we would have a more consistent DPS.
If you really want to find out your personal DPS, just find a pack of the same mob or duel a friend. Add up the total damage you do during an encounter and devide it by the number of seconds it took to finish the encounter.
However, there are too many variables to get an accurate DPS. All NPCs and critters are not alike, even those of asimilar level. They have buffs and debuffs, too. They have different resists. They have different armors. On and on. The current damage stats on your weapons are just guidelinesfor trying to make a decent guess at which one during certain encounters.