Why is it called "DPS Character"?

General Discussion
1

I mean, doesn’t DPS stands for damage per second? I don’t get the point in calling it damage per second character.
In the old WoW days we called it DD. For Damage Dealer.
Wondered that since i started reading in the forum.

1 Like
2

I dunno. I play FFXIV and damage dealers are called DPS there, too, so I just carried it over. :woman_shrugging:t2:

1 Like
3

I never got into WoW myself, but every WoW (or any MMO) player I’ve ever met called them DPS.

4 Likes
4

I have to agree with this, mainly because the so-called DPS heroes are not all heroes with high DPS (i.e., sustained damage heroes).

Some of the damage dealers are burst damage: Moira likely has a way higher DPS than Doomfist.

3 Likes
5

DPS is an acronym for “Damage per Second” from games like WoW, and has since evolved into a broad term that covers characters who’s main function is damage dealer. So basically the entire Offense and Defense roster gets lumped into the “DPS” category, since the vast majority of them are built around dealing damage.

If you want some more in-depth, feel free to ask.

10 Likes
6

Good explanation, thank you!
I still don’t get why the group of characters is called dps then. Wouldn’t damage dealer (DD) make more sense?
It feels as weird for me as if we’d call a healing character “HPS”.
For me, DPS and HPS are just values, that’s why they might feel weird as a character’s role description.

But as you said, when it’s evolved into a broad term, that’s fine too. I got used to the term dps while reading a while here by now, but i still wondered a little now an then.

7

I didn’t know why everyone was calling them Damage Per Second when I was new either, but it’s just convinient and make sense.
Supports support, tanks tank and DPS do damage.

3 Likes
8

We just separated into DD, Heal and Tank back then :smiley: At least the people i played with. That’s how i learned it when i started WoW. Might be right, might be wrong. But that’s why i wondered why it’s called DPS when i started reading here.

9

I also played WoW back in BC/WotLK days, and I’ve never heard anyone say DD instead of DPS…

6 Likes
10

Because a lot of us come from MMOs like World of Warcraft and that’s just what we have called damage dealing roles in any game.

I am not what server you played on or how long you played, but in the 10 years I played wow we always called damage dealers DPS.

I mean its honestly just arguing semantics at this point since we know what people mean and its just a preference but it’s just easier to say. You might say DD is shorter but you’d be surprised how often I am talking about FFXV and I accidentally say FFXIV because I played it for 2 years and never talk about FFXI, FFXII or FFXIII so it’s just built into muscle memory.

ALSO LOL CANT QUOTE OP BECAUSE CENSOR haha i literally had to CTRL+F to find out where I wrote “sh*t”

Edit: i also want to apologize to mods in advance for breaking the CoC. I did not do this to circumvent the filter, I did it with the intention of making community managers aware of the issue. :slight_smile:

1 Like
11

I used to play WoW also and never heard DPS get called DD, not even in trade chat looking for groups would people call DPS… DD… and Xellpal/Sivil/Me could fill a group for heroics in minutes most of the time.

1 Like
12

not the first time someone had that problem :sweat_smile: japanese words written in latin letters wasn’t the best idea for a username i guess.

BTW, i did some research, looked up for WoW DD on Google because that’s really the only thing i heard when i played it. Seems like it’s only a thing in Germany, the only results i got were discussions in german Forums. (Where the word DD appeared.) I played on a german server, so that makes sense.

13

DPS can stand for damage per shot as well, and we don’t lack of heroes who have high damage per shot. Junkrat, Pharah, Widow, Trashanzo, Mei (alt fire does massive damage per headshot you hit), Mccree (I think his fire rate is 1 shot per sec but not quite sure), and that’s pretty much it.

1 Like
14

Ohhh well there are a lot of cultural differences from country to country. I mean, just look at what Fissure thinks of boosters joining OWL and the guy MYKL interviewed about OGE’s involvement with boosting company “Friendsi” saying they basically want him permanently banned from and kicked out of the league because they view boosting in the same light as match fixing and cheating.

But yeah, I’m an American player and I’ve always played on US servers. I started playing at the tail end of TBC and ever since I started raiding Karazhan that’s what they have always been called in my game :slight_smile:

1 Like
15

Still call them DD in final fantasy XI Online.

2 Likes
16

FFXI is the only place I’ve seen DD used.

17

It’s mainly tradition. Like I said, the term evolved from referring to a statistic to a general playstyle. MMO games were really the first to use the statistic, going all the way back to EverQuest and even earlier. The name just stuck.

1 Like
18

“In the old WoW days we called it DD. For Damage Dealer.” (sorry I can’t actually quote you since your name contains a bad word that the forum won’t allow in posts)

I played WoW for the first 10 years it was out and I never saw anyone call it that. It was always DPS

19

DPS has been around longer than WoW. I remember it being used back in the older EQ days.

1 Like
20

Just to support everyone else in this thread. I also played WoW a lot (first time on Vanilla and a few months on pretty much every expansion) and almost never heard DD instead of DPS besides a few wanabes that also write (: instead of :slight_smile:

1 Like