Damage Per Second

DPS or Damage Per Second is generally considered an MMO term, which describes how much damage a character, spell, skill, ability or item can produce on average per second.

On Items

Damage Per Second Display on Mouseover in Diablo 3

The DPS is part of the display of item stats in Diablo III. There are also pop up damage displays over the heads of other players in Arena combat, and sometimes over the heads of monsters when big damage hits are landed. These are slightly controversial, with some players arguing that they are distracting, or unfitting to the mythological mood.

Blizzard's counter-argument[1] is that they are optional, since the display can be turned on or off. Note that they show the damage taken not the damage delivered, which is always at least partially mitigated by resistances and/or defense.

There will not, however, be an on-screen DPS display, listing the actual damage a character is performing during combat. Many players use such a feature in World of Warcraft, but it comes from user-made addons, not from the game itself.[2]

There are no DPS charts in World of Warcraft.

People have though created add-ons which attempt to compare the DPS of each player, as well as healing output, absorption, etc. These aren’t included in the game, nor are they supported. Personally I think they can be useful to a point, but are abused by people who don’t know how to use and read them properly, and are too commonly relied on as a means to judge the performance of others.

In any case, Diablo III doesn’t provide customizable UI through add-ons, and we have no intent to provide DPS charts.

DPS Calculation Complications

Fist blade.

In terms of dealing damage, DPS refers to the average damage a character will do with a weapon or a specific attack, averaged out between the base damage and the attack speed. Games rarely will have an accessible way to inform the player of what, precisely, the DPS would be for any weapon or attack due to the complex nature of how numbers work in games.

As an example, a fist weapon that does 2-5 damage, and hits 1.4 times per second, will have a base dps of 4.9, as displayed in the graphic. However, numerous other factors must be considered to arrive at an accurate DPS. The weapon may have a gem or enchantment that increases damage. A skill likely modifies the damage, as may that skill's rune. There might be a critical hit landed. And then monster's defense or resistances must also be factored in.

Hence, the DPS display is just a general indicator of the type of damage a player can expect.

DPS Class

In other games, a class role refers to a class or character build that achieves a specific goal during group combat. There are generally four types of these classes: a tank, a healer, crowd control, and DPS. The role of the DPS player is to inflict as much damage as possible to the enemy or enemies in the area. The tank keeps the enemy's attention, keeping the enemies from damaging other party members, and the healer keeps everyone alive during the entire process.

All classes in the Diablo games are designed as DPS classes[3], capable of dealing out big damage and clearing any difficulty playing solo.

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer primary

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer secondary

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer corpses

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer bloodandbone

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer reanimation

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer curses