I mean I'm a level 26 Hunter and I have only 126 DPS max at the moment. When I read in forums, lots of people talks about "I have like 25k DPS" .... 25 000 DPS what!

Is it because I'm playing normal so the weapons are not as good as in Hell or Inferno ?


It's when I'll reach higher levels that the DPS will increase ?

The question is, does DPS change with depending on the difficulty you're playing ?


Why ppl are downvoting this :( I thought that was a nice question to ask no?

  • 25,000 DPS??!! Wouldn't that kill every single monster in one hit no matter what? Wow... – C-dizzle Jun 5 '12 at 12:31
  • @C-dizzle not in inferno, especially with a group. In a group of 4 even act 1 normal creatures have 500,000 health. Elites can easily be upwards of 2 million. – dpatchery Jun 5 '12 at 12:41
  • @dpatchery that is insane, I did not know that. I will have to check my DPS stat when I get home from work, but I couldn't imagine it's very high. I have to continuously blast enemies over and over again. I'm a level 26 (or 27) Demon Hunter and just started Act 3 last night. – C-dizzle Jun 5 '12 at 13:24
  • @C-dizzle 25k dps is not even that high... When I have battle rage active and full fury my dps is ~30k, and I have a relatively tanky build. I saw a youtube video the other day, where athene (a youtube celebrity) was running around with 177k dps. – Alderath Jun 5 '12 at 17:46
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    @C-dizzle 25k is nothing. There are people (albeit very few of them) in game at the moment with 300k dps. – kalina Jun 6 '12 at 14:54

Short answer : "No, your DPS won't change based on the difficulty level of the current game"

Your DPS in directly related to the base damage of your weapon(s). The DPS calculation can indeed be simplified as this :

DPS = Base Damage * Damage Modifier(s)

Damage modifiers are skill and stat dependants, but have the same effect, they will apply a boost coefficient to your base damage. As an exemple, 1 point in your primary stat will give you 1% damage increase.

Thus, increasing the base damage when changing your weapon(s) will result in a huge increase of your DPS.

For example, let's assume you're a Demon Hunter and have 500 dexterity, which gives a +500% base damage increase.

  • With a 100 DPS weapon, you'll get DPS = 100 * (1 + 500/100) = 600 DPS
  • With a 200 DPS weapon, you'll get DPS = 200 * (1 + 500/100) = 1200 DPS

Given that some armageddon weapon give you 1000+ dps and you can reach very high scores in your primary stat (not counting other bonuses as attack speed, damage bonus, ...), you'll see that your DPS can get to really high scores.

See this related question for more information on how DPS is calculated.


It isn't based on game mode, it is based solely on differences in stats and gear. Your power will grow exponentially as you get weapons that do more base damage and also increase damage multipliers, and all your armor also has stronger attributes that increase your damage multipliers as well.

  • So with level 26 I have like a 40 DPS weapons but in level 60 I'll find weapons with 900+ DPS ... that's a huge gap lol. – Warface Jun 5 '12 at 12:27
  • @Warface Also keep in mind your gear has a lot to do with your overall DPS as well. I am at the end of hell and my weapon is only like 325 DPS, but my total DPS is about 9k. However, my weapon is kind of weak. :( – Emerica. Jun 5 '12 at 12:33
  • @Warface Dude... You cannot compare a lvl 26 character with the strongest guys in the game... You cannot even compare a lvl 60 with cheap equipment to the strongest guys in the game. A lvl 60 with cheap equipment (like if all his equipment in total is worth less than 500k gp) will be significantly weaker than someone who is properly geared. – Alderath Jun 5 '12 at 17:56

Gear drops are based on what difficulty, act and monster you kill.

This means that to acquire better gear, you'll need to play the higher difficulty levels which means you need to reach a higher level.

With that said, once you have the gear, your dps will stay the same no matter what difficulty you play in, so no, your dps won't change purely based on difficulty.

  • bwarner Said it's not based on game mode and but say that it is... I'm confused :S – Warface Jun 5 '12 at 12:57
  • @Warface Gear drops are based on difficulty, the higher the difficulty, the better the gear, the actual dps itself is only based on gear, not on the difficulty. – Mr Smooth Jun 5 '12 at 13:12

Depends what you mean by DPS to be honest. The character trait under your character screen, will not change when you switch difficulties. But the actual dps that your character does will be higher, the lower difficulty you go. This is because their level, armor and resistances will all be lower, making you do more damage to the actual mobs in comparison to harder difficulties. As there is no "recount" or combat log that I have been able to find, it's almost impossible to calculate your actual dps.

Wish we had a combat log...

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