Fortnite: What DPS Is & Why It’s Important

What the DPS Stat Is on Weapons & Why It’s Important in Fortnite

Fortnite has a ton of different weapons, all excelling in particular combat scenarios and struggling in others. The shotguns are brutal up close, but are as good as useless if you’re enemy is any further than about 20 meters away. If you check out wikis of all the different weapons in Fortnite, you’ll notice there are a number of stats that can make it easier to figure out which weapons you should use in certain scenarios. DPS is one of those stats, and there seems to be a little confusion surrounding exactly what it means. So let’s explain this to you.

DPS stands for “Damage Per Second,” and this isn’t just limited to Fortnite. So if you’re playing another online shooter and notice DPS as a stat, you can rest assured that it means the same thing as what we’re about to explain. The DPS stat is essentially a calculation of how much damage that weapon can do per second.

The Damage Per Second of a weapon often takes a few things into account, namely:

• Clip Size
• Damage per round
• Fire Rate

With a small clip size, it’s not possible to have a high Damage Per Second, unless the damage per round is incredibly high. For example, Fortnite’s bolt-action snipers sit at around the mid-30s for DPS, because you have to reload after every shot. Meanwhile, the Semi-Auto sniper rifles have a higher DPS around the low-90s because they have magazine sizes of 10 and a faster fire rate.

This explains why the Damage Per Second of the new submachine gun seems so high. Thanks to a fairly respectable damage per round of 19-21 (depending on rarity), but an insane fire rate and hefty 30 rounds per magazine, the DPS’ range from 247-273. That’s the highest Damage Per Second in Fortnite by a considerable margin.

A high DPS is always useful, though it’s important to note that this tends to come with some caveats such as a lot of recoil, or lack of range. High Damage Per Second weapons will absolutely tear through an opponent when they’re in-range, however, so be sure to keep one of those new submachine guns in your inventory at all times.

That’s all you need to know about what DPS is and why it’s important in Fortnite. For more tips, tricks, and information, be sure to check out our Season 5 wiki.