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Overview
A quick walk through some numbers to achieve the kind of DPS you want!
DPS Style Overview
As a whole, DPS players will have to decide for their character whether to focus on an Elemental DPS, or Physical DPS approach. Both perfectly viable options, yield very different results, and have different playstyles, and variables to consider.
As a Physical DPS, players will focus on increasing their Hero Power stat, and will (primarily) use Cat-a-copters, Hamsters, and Curse of Weakness Amulets to amplify their damage output.
As an Elemental DPS, players will focus on increasing their Offensive Ability Power stat, and will use any pet of their choice, alongside Elemental Affinity and Curse of Weakness amulets to amplify their damage output.
Physical DPS beware, your numbers at low levels will not show very much mercy. Dealing in percents, physical DPS lacks heavily early on, but scales well later. It is around 1500-2500 Hero Power where you will begin to match, and eventually outscale Elemental Players in DPS. Your pet will also fail to keep its own damage in comparison to Elemental DPS.
Elemental DPS beware, your Amulet of Elemental Affinity is everything. It dictates what you are capable of. Without mana you will be vulnerable and not a very impressive force. Once you reach the 1500-2500 Offensive Ability Power marker, the scaling from your Amulet of Elemental Affinity will no longer be able to keep up with Hero Power, as the percentage begins to drop by comparison.
Important Modifiers
There are a lot of Modifiers that happen, when you are DPS, and it’s important to know what modifies what, so you can get the results and numbers you want.
Elemental Affinity Amulet
One of the most obvious, and important modifiers is for Elemental users. It increases the Bonus Elemental Damage of your weapon by 50% + (a percentage, increased by your Offensive Ability Power)
Cat-a-Copter Pet
This is core to most Physical DPS, as it will increase the Hero Power of you and everyone standing near you by 10% + (a percentage, increased by your Offensive Ability Power). This may not seem like much, but considering Physical DPS pets won’t do as much as Elemental DPS pets, it’s about as good as it gets. Does not actually attack, itself, though.
Curse of Weakness Amulet
Another obvious, but important modifier. This one is universal. It increases all damage taken by the affected target(s) by 50% + (a percentage, increased by your Offensive Ability Power). Anyone can and should use these, but no one wears it like someone stacking Offensive Ability Power.
Hamster Pet
Another pet, with a universal debuff that stacks with Curse of Weakness. This pet’s active ability will shoot an arrow (that has relatively slow projectile speed, and also feels slightly offset from the crosshair) and whichever target the arrow hits will receive an extra 25% + (a percentage, increased by your Offensive Ability Power) damage from all sources, be it you, a tower, or someone else. This pet also deals damage, and can shoot multiple projectiles.
Hero Power
Hero Power, as it is implied is the most obvious way to increase the DPS of your character, and is widely accepted as the core of any DPS.
Hero Power is dealt in percents, and can be viewed as an absolute stat (or not) via your options menu.
1 point of Hero Power is approximately 0.9-1% Base Damage Output. So, if the base damage of your weapon is 100, and you have 50 Hero Power, the damage you do when you swing will be 150, as that is 100% of your damage, plus 50%. Simple, but commonly misleading.
The big thing to understand about Hero Power is, it does NOT affect the Elemental Bonus Damage of your weapons. It will only affect the Base Damage, which is the stat located in the most top left position, always. It will often be the lowest number in terms of damage.
Again, what this means is, if you have 100 Base Damage on your weapon, and 1,000 Bonus Lightning Damage, and 50 Hero Power, you will do 1,150 damage, because that is 100+50+1000.
This is not said anywhere in the game, but this is how the mechanics operate and that is why it is so obviously misleading.
Offensive Ability Power
Offensive Ability Power, as the name implies, modifies the base damage of your Offensive Abilities. It also increases the power of some Amulets.
Squire: Circular Slice
Huntress: Piercing Shot
Apprentice: Mana Bomb
Monk: Hero Boost
Countess: Joust
Ranger: Piercing Spread Shot
Adept: Purity Bomb
Initiate: Enemy Drain
Series EV: Mana Charge
Barbarian: Hawk Stance, Battle Pound, and Battle Leap
Jester: Wheel’o’Fortuna
Summoner: None
Amulets: Lightning Strike, Incinerate, Curse of Weakness, Elemental Affinity, and Poisoned Weapon
In addition to all of these wonderful abilities and Amulets, Pets are also scaled based on your Offensive Ability Power. Their Passives and Actives both increase based on this stat. Important, notable Pets known for important scaling features are:
Hamster
Cat-a-Copter
Pixie
Imp
These pets all have valuable and interesting effects that are increased by their susceptibility to Offensive Ability Power.
The rates at which it affects these are unspecific and equation based, so I can’t provide the exact scale at which they operate (unless someone wants to provide me with that level of math <3).
Defensive Ability Power
Defensive Ability Power, as the name implies, affects your Defensive Abilities, and some Amulets.
Squire: Battle Rage
Huntress: Invisibility
Apprentice: Overcharge
Monk: Tower Boost
Countess: Call to Arms
Ranger: Mass Invisibility
Adept: Instant Upgrade
Initiate: Remote Tower Boost
Series EV: Holographic Decoy
Barbarian: None
Summoner: Crystal Pulse
Jester: None
Amulets: Flash Heal, Tower Repair, Regeneration, Defensive Maneuvers, Move Defense, and Instant Upgrade
The rates at which it affects these are unspecific and equation based, so I can’t provide the exact scale at which they operate (unless someone wants to provide me with that level of math <3).
Physical DPS
For Physical DPS, you should search for high Hero Power stat increases, and high Base Damage Values on Weapons.
Offensive Ability Power is nice to have, but not required. Same goes for Defensive Ability Power. Call to Arms and Piercing Shot are very good skills. In addition, a little help from your pet can never be a bad thing.
Good pet choices for Physical DPS are Cat-a-copters, Hamsters, Pixies, and Imps.
Huntresses and Rangers should look for high Projectile and Base Damage values on high attack speed weapon-types. These include Steam Guns, and Lycanthropults, primarily. They should also look for a high Base Damage, but slower weapon, like Bomb Blasters, Depth Charges, and Fowl Flingers as their secondary weapon. The slower the weapon, the higher its damage, generally, and these provide some of the strongest Piercing Shots you can get.
Jesters and Series EVs should seek the same set up as Huntresses and Rangers, however, they do not need Offensive Ability Power, or have any ideal secondary weapons.
Adepts and Apprentices should look for high Projectile counts, and Base Damage as well, but staves all shoot the same way, so feel free to pick one you like!
Monks and Adepts should focus on High Base damage on their melee stat, as single-target is all you’re essentially capable of. Your Ranged Damage Value leaves a lot of things to be desired, but is still nice to have. Having a moderate Offensive Ability Power is also desirable, as activating Hero Boost can really help out your allys’ and your own DPS.
Note: Unfortunately Curse of Weakness Amulet, and Enemy Drain do not stack, so you get to roll without an amulet, but… Unfortunately not much else to benefit.
Countess and Squires should focus on high Base Damage values with a side of Defensive Ability Power, as this boosts your Call to Arms and Battle Rage abilities, which will be crucial in making up for your inability to clear large waves of minions. Health may also be something to look for, as you will always be melee, with nothing but your body to take the blows. I could suggest a Pixie as a pet could greatly increase your survivability!
Barbarians beware, you get nothing special other than a slight melee advantage of Turtle and Drain Stance. Stack that Hero Power, and go to town. Offensive Ability Power might help slightly, in the use of Battle Leap and Battle Charge, but the majority of your DPS will come from you whacking away at your targets. I can not recommend Whirlwind Stance in most cases, as it only decreases your DPS. Unless you one shot everything even with it on, it’s pretty much self-destructive. You might even consider a Taunt Amulet!
Elemental DPS
The core of Elemental DPS comes from the Amulet of Elemental Affinity. That being said, this means that you are at the mercy of your ability to kill, and collect mana. For Elemental DPS players it is ideal to have a high Bonus Elemental Damage on your weapon(s), and your best Elemental Affinity Amulet. For armor, look for high Offensive Ability Power stats.
Ideal pets for Elemental DPS are… whatever you want! Hamsters are nice, Pixies are nice, but essentially, you can use whatever you like! Careful of Imps, though, they’re mana-thieves and offer no survivability, or damage increase. Are your friends Physical? Use a Cat! Your Cat’s aura will make their DPS increase dramatically, compared to their own Cats.
Huntresses, Rangers, Series EVs, and Jesters, your best bets for damage are high projectiles, high speed, and high Elemental Damage. Almost 95% of the time, the best weapon for this is a Burnifier 5000, or a Plasma Punisher. With 3 “projectiles” per shot, and incredible speed, they will pretty much melt all your troubles away. The DPS scaling of an Elemental Burnifier/Plasma is so high I can’t even begin to compare anything to it from an Elemental perspective. Lycanthropults still hold a solid standing here, however. One of both, I say!
Summoners get the chance to be DPS today. Find TWO Pets with as much Base Damage, and Projectiles as you can find, and watch them carpet bomb the map while you fly overhead. Dragons and Hamsters work very nicely (though low projectile speed is a little awkward for Hamsters).
Apprentices and Adepts can look for high Bonus Elemental Damage and high Projectiles and accomplish a fair bit. Be wary of Mana Bomb draining your mana though! At least it’ll hurt like hell.
Squires, Countesses, Barbarians, Monks, and Initiates will all be fighting for the highest Bonus Elemental Damage on their weapons they can find. Monks will have a great time DPSing with Hero Boost on, and Initiates will have a handy Curse, but Squires, Countesses, and Barbarians will have to be very mindful of how they use their abilties, lest they get caught in a pinch on cooldown. Pixies suggested, as melee is dangerous, and Offensive Ability Power will greatly increase her healing.
To everyone abusing their Offensive Ability Power to the fullest, congratulations. You have the strongest Curse of Weaknesses available. Your Hamsters will also debuff the hardest! Be wary, though, Curses and Hamster debuffs DO NOT WORK AGAINST BOSSES.
Pet Usage
Pets are a very important part of a DPS player’s process. They do everything from direct contributions, in additive numbers, add multipliers to increase your damage, or just make your life a lot easier, overall.
For sake of pure DPS, percentile increases will always outdo flat numbers, for a number of reasons. Primarily, it will be because percentiles are relevant, indefinitely. Flat numbers, tend to fall off as the opposing numbers start to climb, however.
Some things to know about pets:
All pets have a Passive and an Active Ability. Passives are naturally occuring and will be exercised so long as the conditions for the Passive are met (enemies nearby, health not full, etc). Actives, however, are by default bound to the (X) key, and are special abilities activated by the player as needed (For Summoners, the secondary pet’s active will not be bound. You will have to do so manually, unfortunately).
You can not direct a pet. You can not pick the targets your pets attack. They will follow their own heart to do what they believe is right at any given time. However, through suggestive positioning, you can help a Pet follow the right path, and attack what you want it to. A little work can go a long way in the relationship between Hero and Pet.
Pet Damage is what is registered as the Pet’s Passive’s output number. It is increased based on the player’s Offensive Ability Power, through scaling. It’s pretty dramatic. A simple 500 damage dragon can reach 100,000 with just 2,500 OAP. The climb is steep.
Pet Attack Speed affects the rate at which the Passive Effect of a Pet is activated, whether it be damaging projectiles, head-banging, or healing the player or a tower.
Pet Projectiles are a key component to a pet’s output, however not all Pets will spawn with a bonus projectile count. In general, these can be scrapped. Projectiles act as effective Damage Modifiers. The equation is simply: Damage * (x) * Attacks/Second = Total DPS. Where X would be total projectile count
When a pet fires a damaging passive, and has bonus projectiles, it will fire them in a fan formation, spread out around an area in front of the pet’s line of fire. The maximum amount of projectiles is +3, thus making the total projectiles come to 4.
Basically, whatever DPS you have with one projectile, can be multiplied by the amount of projectiles added. Super nifty for increasing DPS, as it deals multiplicative DPS increase, as opposed to additive.
Note: You can not upgrade Projectile Counts every level. It varies from pet to pet, but in most cases, it can be upgraded every 2-3 Pet levels. Even if you miss an upgrade on a Projectile, if you continue upgrading, so long as you do not reach maximum Pet Level, you can fix the projectiles count.
Pet Damage Types are sometimes necessary to analyze in terms of what kind of damage a player needs. Not all pets deal physical damage. Some deal Elemental, which scales as per-normal, and is affected by Monsters with Resistance as you would expect. Some are Melee Ranged, and some won’t attack at all!
For more information, be sure to check out the detailed chart for pets and their information in its designated section!
Tips for Upgrading Weapons and Pets!
When upgrading it is important to identify the core values within the weapon you want to advance on.
For Physical DPS, this should revolve around your Base Weapon Damage and Bonus Projectiles.
For Elemental DPS, this should revolve around your Bonus Elemental Damage and Bonus Projectiles.
For Pets, this should revolve around a plethora of things, ranging from Pet Damage and/or Bonus Projectiles, to OAP, or Hero Power.
When upgrading there are a few things to keep in mind, as things can change in the upgrading process.
The Upgrade Value of a Hero or Tower Stat is equal to ~10% of the Base Stat Value of whatever you’re looking to upgrade. If a Cat has 87 Hero Power, and you’re looking to upgrade that, just divide 87 by 10, add it to the 87, and you’ll see you will get around 95-96 Hero Power on that next upgrade.
When dealing with numbers from Base Damage and Bonus Elemental Damage, it can vary based on the weapon type, but the bonus damage you get from the first upgrade, will be consistent all the way until the end. If it was 15 bonus damage on upgrade 1/16, it will be 15*16 = Total Bonus Damage by the end of it. This also applies to Attack Speed on Pets.
Bonus Projectiles can be a little tricky. Bonus Projectiles should have the HIGHEST priority when it comes to upgrading, because it effectively multiplies your damage, instead of adding on to it, which is super important. However, Bonus Projectiles cannot be upgraded right off the bat. They can be upgraded several times on some guns, but the upgrade is only available every 2-3 item levels. If you happen to accidentally upgrade something else, instead of projectiles, you will not be able to upgrade it again, for another 2-3 levels. It’s a rather tragic story. If there are ENOUGH levels available, you may not end up losing any Projectiles, but it’s best not to take the risk!
For weapons, there is no actual way to upgrade Attack Speed. Attack Speeds are based on Weapon Type. For more information on that, check the Weapon Details section.
Summoner Aside
This section is primarily directed towards Summoners, as they have been given certain special gifts. The gifts are awfully weak, but they are gifts, nonetheless.
Lighting Strike Amulet
Summons a storm of lightning that deals X + (a Flat Number, increased by your Offensive Ability Power) every 0.33 seconds for 10 seconds.
This item sounds really great. It does. I had dreams for this amulet, when I started DDE and have dreamt of its grand buffing since the dawn of time. In reality, it’s trash. It does little damage. Even 3k Offensive Ability Power in, and it still only manages 5,000 or so a tick. Given, that’s 15,000/s but still… Not that great.
Incinerate Amulet
Single Target do X damage, and apply a burning Y + (Flat Number, increased by your Offensive Ability Power) damage over time.
Another wish-it-were-good Amulet, that is still not that great, but it’s not all that bad, either.
Curse of Weakness Amulet
All effected targets take 50 + (a percentage, increased by your Offensive Ability Power) more damage from all sources.
This is your way of doing DPS indirectly. Place it on an ogre, or large group of enemies and you’re technically dealing DPS, albeit not your own. Very useful.
The point is, these amulets allow you something to do while waiting for your pets to murder everything. You’re not doing anything, anyway, so relatively speaking, they’re not bad. They’re just not good.
The exception being the Curse of Weakness Amulet. That thing’s borderline broken. xD!
More useful things to consider are Tower Repair amulets. They can help your builders a lot, and are really solid at base values. No need to stack Defensive Ability Power for them. :p
Weapon Details [Important!]
So, now that you know how it all works, I made it a little easier to fully understand and put together the information for your own eyes to see.
For this chart, I specifically use Huntress/Ranger weapons, because they have a much more complicated system to explore, weapon-wise. Staves and Spears have identical Ranged attack speeds, however, so use that section as you will.
NOTE: Monk Ranged damage only applies 30% of the Elemental Damage per-projectile, so for accurate math on a Spear, you would need to set the Elemental Modifier to 30%.
Apology:
For melee it becomes increasingly complex, and I will make a section for that in due time, as they have combo chains that increase their damage and oh my god it’s weird. For a guy who’s never played anything but Huntress all his life, exploring this is weird, but I will do my best to give you guys the best results I can!
Pet Details [Important!]
In addition to weapons, I took the liberty of recording the pets you will see in the world of Dungeon Defenders of Eternity. Each pet does it’s own thing, and I color coded their usefulness as I, personally, see fit.
[link]Upon starting the game, I was given the Cube and the Pyro, but I hear everyone was given all of the TF2 Pets. I did not receive them all, so I am unable to record what they all do. I have seen them used, and know their Passives vaguely, however. If anyone could help me figure out exactly what it is they do, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks!
Thanks for reading my guide, hope it helped in some way. I will try and add more detail to it as I can, as it is really important that people understand the totality of DPS and all its workings. I’ve come across too many who just completely misunderstand how DPS works, and some have even quit the game over it, sadly. 🙁
Things I am looking to add:
Hit Chains and a more comprehensive and detailed overview of Melee DPS.
An update to a more detailed, and hopefuly buffed overview of DPS Amulets.
Some fancy pictures and a little more attractive look! <3
Change Log!
Revision 8/12/2014 – Added a Pet Details section!
Revision 8/14/2014 – Monk DPS Changed in 3.5p from 0%ele to 30%ele. Fixed Commentary in Weapon Details.
Revision 8/14/2014 – Added a Pet breakdown, and Upgrading breakdown section to clarify a few details. Also added details to the Engineer and Heavy Pets!
Revision 8/22/2014 – Good news, Jesters, they added an indicator that Wheel actually scales with OAP! I had no idea! xD