What Exactly Are GOOD Dmg Numbers? Very Confused...

VouxeTheMinotaur

This will be a two-part question to the community.

I've been playing ESO for a quite some time now, funny enough I got the disc version of the game for three dollars thinking it was a DLC for Skyrim. Best three dollars I've spent. In the time I've played ESO, and for a lonnnngggg time, I've only played as a healer. Every MMO I play I always start as a healer, it's pretty easy for me to grow into. Then I started tanking, and that too became fairly easy for me. The role I can't quite pin down though is DPS.

I have two DPS, a High Elf Arcanist / 1 bar lightning staff and a Khajiit Necromancer 1 bar lightning staff (I use one bar because it's difficult for me to do weave techniques) Out of my current 9 characters, 5 are tanks, 2 healers and 2 DPS.

So, here's my first question, what's your definition of good damage numbers , what is the minimum number that I should be seeing in my heavy attacks, or on a trial dummy? I ask due to the same question being asked to me by others I play with, when in all honesty, I have no idea... I excel best at tanking and healing, comes naturally. DPS? I see the numbers when I go through my rotation during dungeon bosses, I've ran them both in veteran dungeons, though veteran trials I hold back on.

Sometimes I see the white numbers say I hit a HA for 64k, sometimes I hit for 32k, once I saw for 71k during a boss's last 15% of health. Sometimes with the orange numbers jumping from 1, 2, 8, 12, 25k. do these different colored numbers add together? I feel admittedly self-conscious about my DPS, as if I'm still not hitting what I should be, due to not knowing what the average number is, because I see people in guilds and in zone chats saying they hit for 110k, 120k, hell I saw a guy say he hits for 167k on a 1 bar. That is why I doubt my ability.

my next question is purely curiosity, did the DPS role fall naturally onto you? If not, which role was a breeze for you? For me, as I said, was healing and tanking, tanking more so than healing lately. Some people argue that they're easy to begin with, but i disagree. I have friends who can't pin down tanking as much I can't with DPS. though most times it's personal preference as well, I'm curious what the general response is

Hapexamendios

I do mostly solo stuff so if I hit it until it dies and I don't, that's good enough damage for me.

TaSheen

As for your second question, the main thing I've played and enjoyed in any game is DPS. [I did tank in WoW because I was rather forced into it - ii was my "family and friends" guild, and my hunter was better at it than anyone else was, though I really REALLY hated it and was absolutely THRILLED when nephew graduated and took over as tank].

I've never had any interest at all in healing or tanking.

notyuu

Ok, so to answer your question I have to explain a couple of things.

1: it's not about damage numbers aka damage per hit, but instead it's about your total damage output per second across all of your outgoing methods (direct, aoe dot, sticky dot)

2: the orange numbers are just DoT (damage over time) ones which are added to your overall DPS but not your damage per hit

3: minium damage on a trail dummy? no idea off the top of my head, but on a regular skeleton if you can hit or exceed 30K DPS without buffs/debuffs then you're sitting mighty fine as vs a trial dummy that translates to a 90-110% increase in DPS, however given you're using a 1 bar build it's quite likely that you're also spinning up oaken soul, meaning you'd see a much, much smaller increase, closer to only 30-40% in your DPS

4: how did the dps role fall natrually onto me? simple, I was a stamplar, ya know, big juicy damage slaps at the cost of everything else, then U35 came and went and suddenly stamplar idenity was deleto, but by that point i'd already put 8k hours on the character so it didn't feel.... right to just abadon them, mix in the fact that tankplar is a joke and I dispise the way staves animate in this game and the only option i've got is DPS

Sluggy

It depends on what you mean by 'damage' and generally what is best depends on the content and sometimes even the fight. I'm assuming you're talking about PvE here so I won't even bother explaing burst damage or combos. For PvE, 20k DPS is plenty for pretty much all of the original dungeons but is 5x too low if you wanted to try for a tri-fecta score on a vet trial.

In PvE you'll typically focus on average damage over time, Aka, Damage Per Second. The way to determine this is really straightforward. Start attacking a practice dummy at full health and do so until it dies. At the end it will give you a report telling you want your average DPS was. Stopping early or only doing a couple of very hard attacks before it dies will skew the numbers significantly so you need to start when the dummy is at full and go until it is dead.

There are two main types of dummies: Trial Dummies and Regular dummies. Trial dummies provide most buffs you'd expect in a coordinated 12-person raid. This is a great way to see what your damage would be under ideal conditions and it's also good for comparing builds since you can rule out class or set specific effects that would likely be available in a raid no matter what. On the other hand it's not a very accurate indication of your true damage since you are getting many many buffs that won't always bve available. That's why I recommend learning to play the DD role using a 6million hp regular dummy. Just enough hp to make it so you have to work to sustain but it doesn't take forever to kill it so you get more practice rounds in.

Typically for a beginner I'd say aim for milestones: Start with consitently hitting 10k, then 20k, 25k, 30k etc. There's never going to be that "aha!" moment. You'll have to make changes to your skills, rotations, timing of attacks, stats, sets, and upgrade all of your gear and gain so CP before you really start to see improvements. And it'll usually be 1k gained here and 2k gained there. You won't make one change and suddenly jump from 15k DPS to 35k DPS. Personally, I aim for 35k-40k on a 6million dummy and between 75k-90k for a trial dummy. But I'm not a DPS god and I rarely do PvE. Some folks easily get into the six-digit figures and I'm sure the average cap is probably in the 130k to 140k range these days.

MidniteOwl1913

I have no idea being as I too am in the hit-till-dead camp.

If I want to compare builds I use the stopwatch function on my iPad and just go at a WB that has no ads. I compare the time it takes.

Soarora

I’m seconding 75k-90k DPS on an iron atronach trial dummy (100%-0% health) being good if you’re wanting to do group PvE, though many groups require 100k and a select few even require 110k. If you don’t like weaving, you might want to try velothi’s amulet. It lets you have 2 bars and a skill spammable but decreases your LA damage so your LAs can be more occasional to proc ultimate generation. I think you’ll find velothi’s has a higher damage ceiling than a heavy attack build and also will let you do Cloudrest, which specifically has a problem with oakensoul builds because of Relequen’s mechanic.

Parsing can be frustrating at first because it takes several minutes but it helps you refine your rotation and make progress. I recommend listening to some upbeat music to help you find a rhythm and also keep you entertained.

As for your second question, no. I am absolutely terrible at math and still ask people for build advice even with builds I’ve made myself. People who are support mains tend to be worse at dps and vice versa from what I’ve seen (that being, every support main I personally know that I can think of). I’ve tried being a dps main twice— once as my first role, then as my third. I switched into healing once I got involved in endgame because my DPS wasn’t good enough, then swapped into DPSing again because I didn’t like healing among some other issues, then swapped into tanking because I just like it the best I guess. I get put into DPS sometimes now so people who are only tanks can join the group and have thankfully become competitive after years of practice, but there certainly are people who do more damage than I do.

DreamyLu

For me, it's depending on activity. Based on my experience:
- For PvE explorable, quests and delves, 10k can be sufficient, even a bit less.
- For easy dungeons and soloing easiest bosses in explorable: 15k can be enough, 20k makes our lives more comfortable.

From there, I stopped caring, because I don't touch more difficult content than the above, and parallelly, I got a companion who is sufficient to compensate when I'm too weak for something. I even solo most delves.

Sync01

Assuming there's a difference between acceptable dps, and good dps, I'd say 120k+ dps on a trial dummy is good, assuming you have a build for parsing. If you're using for example a buff set to practice your rotation, the dps would naturally be lower compared to a parse setup.

It's very difficult to say what's good damage in trials, dungeons etc because it depends on the content. Things like how long the fight is, how many enemies there are, if the boss moves etc all matter. If you're using the same gear and skills through a trial, you'll see a difference in dps depending on boss and trash for example. You'd also expect a player wearing buffsets to have lower dps than someone focused on pure damage. Experienced players who talk about dps tend to always refer to dummy parsing unless they specifically mention otherwise.

The game is not very good at telling you how combat works or how you're doing, so the best way to get usable info on what you need to improve is to set up logs ( esologs . com ) and look it over. Many use an addon called Combat Metrics for parsing on a dummy which will give you information such as the dps from each skill, how many light attacks you missed etc. If you just want to improve a bit but not get too much into the details then just the addon is fine.

IsharaMeradin

I struggle with tanking in this game. I get the concept of taunting, its just difficult. The only other MMO that I really played had longer duration buffs and an AOE taunt. I was a good tank there once someone took the time to explain it and worked with me as I practiced. I can do healing, I just find it lackluster because I like to dish out damage.

I guess damage is "natural" in that its pretty much the first thing you learn to do in the game. It still takes practice. While I have a couple guildmates that think I am a "beast" and can dish out the damage, I feel like I have a lot more room for improvement. I'm in that 20k-ish range on the dummy and it depends on the group as to whether I dish out more or less damage than the others. I'm at that point where I won't be letting the group down in normal dungeons but sometimes feel like (especially with DLC dungeons) that I am being partially carried.

sleepy_worm

VouxeTheMinotaur wrote: »

hell I saw a guy say he hits for 167k on a 1 bar.

This could technically be true if this person is talking about momentary AOE dps on a build specifically designed for AOE and hitting a whole ton of monsters at once. Situations like this are exactly why people prefer to use a specific dummy to test single target damage and compare that. While it's a little artificial, it is as level a testing field as the game offers. It takes support quality and cleave out of the equation. You can't compare someone's 167k AOE dps with, say, a stamblade's 60k skeleton dummy DPS. They're completely different scenarios. (Nobody is hitting the trial dummy for 167k, by the way.)

Anyway, don't feel bad about your damage numbers. A properly set up 1-bar heavy attack build can hit like a truck in almost all content in the game. You could probably put out good damage today (assuming you're not already doing so).

BXR_Lonestar

I'm assuming this is in PVE and not PVP, and if this is the case, the damage numbers don't matter at all. What matters most is your aggregate average DPS, not your burst DPS. It doesn't matter if you have 6 digit numbers popping up every so often, if there is a long delay between when those numbers pop up, your aggregate/average DPS is not going to reflect those big hits. This is where people get really confused about DPS because they sometimes see occasional big numbers popping up and they think they are doing alright, but if/when they parse, they test much lower than they think. And it is all because they don't have that damage output sustained over the course of a fight. Instead, they're basically seeing an instance of burst damage when they see those big numbers pop up.

This is why stacking lots of dots/aoe dots is the way to go for DPS in PVE. You layer on several dot effects (single target or AoE) and then you mix in a spammable ability as filler. Light attacks in between every time you cast a dot.

I don't even play DPS that often - I main a healer or a tank. But my "completed" DPS characters can all hit over 70-80k average DPS using this formula. I'm sure I could hit better by tweaking my builds and practicing to really tune them up, but because I don't main DPS, I just don't put that much effort into my DPS characters.

barney2525

good damage numbers are the ones that make the target fall over dead.

Malkosha

I use the Combat Metrics addon and get some really weird numbers. I solo a lot of dungeons, mostly normal but occasionally Vet. I've seen numbers from 9k after an area clear to 126k. If the enemies are scattered then it takes more time which decreases the DPS numbers. On the other end, if I can get a lot of MOB's in a small area ... looking at you Fungal Grotto ... I can erase them from the game for ridiculous numbers. I've also noticed that in Vet dungeons solo, my DPS numbers are much higher even though it takes me longer to clear the area. I'm not sure why this is and it calls to question the value of judging DPS numbers.

I used to judge how well a class/build/race does by looking at the DPS but I see now the numbers are so flighty it's just not accurate. These days, I judge by how well the char does by the ease of killing things, how long it takes them to die and if I have to play the piano to stay alive doing it. I question the numbers and how accurate they are as well as whether you will get the same damage on a dummy vs in the game world. As far as DPS numbers go, my confidence in them are low.

Warhawke_80

I just hit things with my two short swords that the game calls daggers

Sluggy

Malkosha wrote: »

I use the Combat Metrics addon and get some really weird numbers. I solo a lot of dungeons, mostly normal but occasionally Vet. I've seen numbers from 9k after an area clear to 126k. If the enemies are scattered then it takes more time which decreases the DPS numbers. On the other end, if I can get a lot of MOB's in a small area ... looking at you Fungal Grotto ... I can erase them from the game for ridiculous numbers. I've also noticed that in Vet dungeons solo, my DPS numbers are much higher even though it takes me longer to clear the area. I'm not sure why this is and it calls to question the value of judging DPS numbers.

I used to judge how well a class/build/race does by looking at the DPS but I see now the numbers are so flighty it's just not accurate. These days, I judge by how well the char does by the ease of killing things, how long it takes them to die and if I have to play the piano to stay alive doing it. I question the numbers and how accurate they are as well as whether you will get the same damage on a dummy vs in the game world. As far as DPS numbers go, my confidence in them are low.

This is all contextual and requires you to understand what is happening and how your skills and sets are interacting with the fight. This is why there is no one-size-fits all. That being said, most people judge DPS based on how well you can damage a single-target Boss with at least 6 million HP and 18k armor. But for very coordinated groups they will often swap gear and skills to match specific fights based on what types of enemies will be present and how much defense they'll need to survive.

For packs of enemies it certainly makes sense that you'd see higher numbers. If you are using AoE you'll be hitting multiple targets at once which multiplies the total damage output. In vet content, your damage is probably higher because you're probably playing with a more experienced and well-equipped group that has a proper tank and healer running strong support equipment. This can significantly increase your damage output but is countered by the fact that in vet, the enemies have higher defenses. Imagine how long it would take to clear if you were in there with the average group that rarely touches anything outside outside of overland questing!

Rkindaleft

VouxeTheMinotaur wrote: »

So, here's my first question, what's your definition of good damage numbers , what is the minimum number that I should be seeing in my heavy attacks, or on a trial dummy? I ask due to the same question being asked to me by others I play with, when in all honesty, I have no idea... I excel best at tanking and healing, comes naturally. DPS? I see the numbers when I go through my rotation during dungeon bosses, I've ran them both in veteran dungeons, though veteran trials I hold back on.

Sometimes I see the white numbers say I hit a HA for 64k, sometimes I hit for 32k, once I saw for 71k during a boss's last 15% of health. Sometimes with the orange numbers jumping from 1, 2, 8, 12, 25k. do these different colored numbers add together? I feel admittedly self-conscious about my DPS, as if I'm still not hitting what I should be, due to not knowing what the average number is, because I see people in guilds and in zone chats saying they hit for 110k, 120k, hell I saw a guy say he hits for 167k on a 1 bar. That is why I doubt my ability.

my next question is purely curiosity, did the DPS role fall naturally onto you? If not, which role was a breeze for you? For me, as I said, was healing and tanking, tanking more so than healing lately. Some people argue that they're easy to begin with, but i disagree. I have friends who can't pin down tanking as much I can't with DPS. though most times it's personal preference as well, I'm curious what the general response is

When you're testing your damage on the dummy, do you finish the parse in it's entirety in order to see what your overall DPS number is? I am kinda confused with the wording of your post as you seem to be talking about specific hits that stood out to you that were high (like sometimes you hit for 32k, 71k, etc.) A single hit is generally not a good measure of what your average DPS is, as a Templar your beam can do 150k+ ticks in execute phases, that doesn't mean your DPS is at 150k as it's damage per second, the average damage you do throughout the whole fight or parse.

Those people who say they're doing 110k+ are generally the higher level trials players going for trifectas or in order to give some leeway in case of deaths for the HMs that have high DPS checks like Xalvakka HM or Ansuul HM. People at the 120k range are generally doing the hardest trifectas, such as Planesbreaker or Swashbuckler Supreme, at least console wise. (I don't know if the requirements are different on PC considering you have logs and addons to change gear quickly and stuff.)

A top DPS parse caps out at about 130ish for most of the classes, excluding something like Stamina Sorcerer that can hit a bit higher if you're a DPS god. Generally if you're doing parsing at 120k you've spent potentially hundreds of hours of practice weaving, doing research on builds and gear farming to get to that point.

The person that said that they were doing 167k on a 1 bar is either lying or they happened to get 1 tick of damage from their HA and used that 1 single tick of damage for their basis, which is misleading. As others have said, if you were doing somewhere between 70-90k on the trial dummy (a full parse) with your heavy attack build and doing the trials on Veteran and I suppose some of the older trials on HM you're at a level where you're providing relatively good damage to the rest of the group and not holding the group back in DPS. DPS requirements vary largely on the content, there's no one size fits all, with 30k DPS on a 3 million dummy I could take you through most of the DLC dungeons on Veteran and some of the HMs, but you'd fail at something like vSShm portals because you wouldn't be able to kill it before the mini pinned all 3 people and led to a wipe.

Alienoutlaw

good DMG is simply finishing what you start, if you struggle then DMG may not be so good its really that simple

Pelanora

My problem with DPS is the time taken, matters. The faster you do it, the higher the DPS. But who cares about the speed of it?

what matters to me is the horsepower and the torque, not the speed you may get out of them. I don't care enough to button mash like some daemon.

In the end, if you can kill without dying, and you can increasing do harder and harder content as you get better at the game/ points/ gear, you are being effective at damage.

ghastley

Pelanora wrote: »

My problem with DPS is the time taken, matters. The faster you do it, the higher the DPS. But who cares about the speed of it?

Unfortunately, the game does. There are a lot of situations where a boss mechanism is time-triggered, so you need to complete your kill before it can happen.

Soarora

ghastley wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

My problem with DPS is the time taken, matters. The faster you do it, the higher the DPS. But who cares about the speed of it?

Unfortunately, the game does. There are a lot of situations where a boss mechanism is time-triggered, so you need to complete your kill before it can happen.

Your tank will also care if this is group PvE. It’s hard to accurately describe how much harder it is to tank when DPS is low. When trash takes a long time to die, my immobilize runs out and I have to pull enemies back in as they run away. Bosses take longer, so I lose more resources, bringing me closer to dying. Groups with low dps also tend to not know mechanics so then, while holding the boss, I have to do as many mechanics as possible and also res the group… repeatedly. A low DPS group is genuinely more difficult to tank for than many dungeon and even some trial HMs.

Dagoth_Rac

Pelanora wrote: »

My problem with DPS is the time taken, matters. The faster you do it, the higher the DPS. But who cares about the speed of it?

what matters to me is the horsepower and the torque, not the speed you may get out of them. I don't care enough to button mash like some daemon.

In the end, if you can kill without dying, and you can increasing do harder and harder content as you get better at the game/ points/ gear, you are being effective at damage.

That is simply not how the game works in harder content. If you don't kill stuff fast enough, you wipe. There is no way around it. The boss will enrage. Or you will get overrun with adds. Or a mechanic that requires extremely precise group coordination is more likely to have something go wrong if you have to do that mechanic 10 times over course of fight because you are slow, instead of 2 times because boss was dead before they could do it a third time. And so on.

Even if you can eventually defeat the enemies, it will be problematic if you are slow. If you can get 12 people together for 2 hours on a Saturday night, you don't want to be in a trash wave before the final boss when the 2 hours are up. You want to be able to kill stuff fast enough to reliably clear content in what are often limited time frames that the group is together.

Warhawke_80

Okay here is a less flip answer than my previous one...

Our community is strange and varied

On one hand, you have highly skilled players who rely solely on cosmetic gear and a green weapon effortlessly completing tasks. On the other hand, some players equipped with monster gear and copy paste builds struggle with Overland in the game world. Amidst this, the toxicity levels are alarmingly high, with both factions screaming at each other.

Neither faction is particularly large, but they compensate with sheer volume and a strong desire to silence the other side. Despite their opposing views, they share the unfortunate commonality of toxicity, showing little concern for the well-being of the gaming community.

Attempts to ban these individuals prove futile, as they will just spend five bucks to buy a new account and they are right back on the forums and will continue to spread toxicity across forums and in-game environments without remorse.

While I don't have a definitive solution to offer, but it doesn't mean I didn't think one exist

madman65

First, a lead will choose Xp players over a non-Xp player anyday. This is what I look for when I take new players through content and they need at least 50K DPS, vet content 65K to give them a good burn but also that they can learn the mechanics. I take my time with them, teach and burn as for the new we will go slow. I don`t like carrying gamers but I have in the past to get them interested in the game and they keep coming back if they have a good experience with the content.