PoE DPS and How to Calculate – PoE Scourge 3.16 League

PoE DPS Calculation – Non League, Hardcore & Softcore Guide.

With Path of Exile growing so quickly, there is a lot to learn. From figuring out “What Is The Best Class in Path of Exile?” through to “What is The Best Starter Build in PoE?” Fortunately for you, we have many helpful guides here at the PlayerAuctions Blog and more being added every week. In this free PoE DPS guide I will teach you how to work out and calculate the DPS (Damage per Second) for all types of weapons in Path of Exile 3.16 Scourge League and even non-league for both Hardcore and Softcore.

While it might not be overly important near the start of the game, when you are looking to purchase / buy a replacement weapon the best way to search the trade section of the Official Path of Exile website is to search by DPS, especially for non-magic Physical builds, including builds that use elemental damage too, regardless of whether you are a Melee or Ranged character build.

It is crucial to understand how to calculate the DPS of a weapon in Path of Exile. Whether your favorite weapon is an Axe, a Bow, Claw, Dagger, Mace, Scepter, Sword, Wand or Staff. Whether or not it is a 1-handed or 2-handed weapon, the calculation for working out the DPS of a weapon in PoE is virtually the same for all of them.

When highlighting a weapon in Path of Exile you will first see Physical Damage. There will be two numbers. For example, 56-106. This is the damage range of the weapon. With 56 being the lowest damage the weapon can deal, and 106 being the highest. When you hit with the weapon, it will roll a random number from 56 to 106 before applying any damage modifiers.

When calculating the DPS of a weapon it will always be an overall average, but it helps a lot when searching for a new weapon to buy, or if you just want a rough idea how good your weapon actually is.

I have also wrote another blog article here titled “How Does PoE Trade Work?” which you can find here; This is worth reading if you are struggling with or just curious as to how to trade on Path of Exile.

How to Calculate POE DPS

Now to start calculating the DPS of a weapon you need to start off by taking both numbers of the Physical Damage and add them together. So let’s say I have a one handed axe with 56-106 Physical Damage. I simply add 56 and 106 together which makes 162. We then divide this number by two to get the average damage per hit which equals 81. On average this weapon would then deal 81 damage per hit (DPH). But we want to calculate the actual Damage per second (DPS) rather than the Damage per Hit.

Now we take 81 and multiply it by the attack speed. For example let’s say my 1 handed axe has an attack speed of 1.2. We would take 81 and multiply it by 1.2 – Don’t forget the decimal point. So 81 multiplied by 1.2 is 97.2. If the weapon has no additional damage then that is it, the DPS of a weapon that has a Phys Damage of 56-106 and an attack speed of 1.2 will have a Physical DPS of 97.2.

The equation / mathematical formula for this is as follows;

(‘Minimum Damage’ + ‘Maximum Damage’ / 2) * ‘Attack Speed’

If the weapon has any modifiers like #% Increased Physical Damage or Adds # to # Physical Damage then this is already calculated in the items Physical Damage stat near the top under Quality. So you do not need to calculate this manually. Bare in mind that when the quality of a weapon is increased, the Physical Damage also increases with it. So your weapon will have even more PoE DPS when the quality is increased using Whetstones. The maximum Quality by default with Whetstones is 20%. Is it possible to have higher quality through crafting and/or stat modifiers.

This is of course just the flat DPS of the weapon itself and does not take into consideration all your damage modifiers from places like your passive skill tree for example.

If the item has any other damage such as added elemental damage like Chaos Damage, Fire Damage, Cold Damage or Lightning Damage then you can use this in your calculation for total weapon DPS. But bare in mind the Physical DPS will still be what you calculated first.

Then you can take the elemental damage, again as above (‘Min Damage’ + ‘Max Damage’ / 2) * Attack Speed. Do this for any and all extra damage types then add the numbers together to get the total DPS of your weapon.

Say our weapon also adds 15-30 Chaos Damage and 20-40 Fire Damage. We would calculate the Physical Damage first as above, and then the Chaos Damage and Fire Damage.

15 + 30 / 2 = 22.5 then multiply that by 1.2 for attack speed making it 27.

Then 20 + 40 / 2 = 30 multiplied by 1.2 is 36.

We will then add these numbers together; 97.2 (Physical DPS) + 22.5 (Chaos DPS) + 36 (Fire DPS) = 155.7 total weapon DPS.

One thing to bare in mind is monster resistances will affect elemental damage, there are also some monsters that resist physical damage as well. There’s also reflect damage especially more end game in Maps via the Map stat modifiers.

You can also add the damages all together first and then divide by two, and multiply by the attack speed. This will also give you the total weapon DPS (Damage per Second) of a weapon.

Now You Know the Basics of How to Calculate DPS in Path of Exile.

There are some other factors if you want more of an indication of the actual damage per second (DPS) you will be dealing. You can see your character screen by pressing the ‘C’ key on your keyboard by default. Under the Offence Tab the Damage per Second here will take into consideration things like your Critical Strike Chance, Critical Strike Multiplier as well as your Main hand Chance to Hit. So that is something to bare in mind.

In this tab you can also click on your skills / spells such as “Ground Slam” for example to see the Damage per Second of that actual spell or skill.

But now you know how to calculate DPS in PoE / Path of Exile 3.16 Scourge and even non league. This is really useful when shopping for a new weapon and being able to work out the DPS of a weapon in PoE has really helped me a lot when I’ve been shopping for (aka looking to buy / trade for) a new weapon in Path of Exile.

I think that covers everything related to How to Calculate DPS (Damage per Second) in Path of Exile 3.16 Scourge. If you have any questions please feel free to drop a comment in the comments box below!

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