Destiny 2 DPS chart: The Highest DPS weapons

Short for Damage per Second, DPS dictates how much damage you can deal to Bosses or Majors. Combining burst damage, rate of fire, and reload speeds, DPS is the best indicator of a weapon’s lethality in PVE.

For the sake of clarity, DPS in Destiny 2 is calculated per archetype and not per weapon (excluding some Exotics). For example, all adaptive Sniper Rifles deal the same damage per bullet at the same rate of fire and therefore do the same DPS.

In this post, we will keep things simple and focus on the base DPS values of every weapon archetype in the game, therefore excluding Damage perks. The table below will also include examples of the best weapons per archetype.

The tables below use the excellent data from the Damage Chart Madness spreadsheet. A big thank you to Reddit user IAMADragonAMAA for a great job done.

Destiny 2 DPS values as of Season 15

List updated as of Bungie’s 30th Anniversary event.  

Damage numbers: In this section, DPS refers to the average damage per second a weapon can inflict. You can read more about the methodology used here.

Just as the Destiny 2 Meta and TTK values, DPS values can also dramatically change from season to season. The tables below are up to date with Season of the Lost:

Heavy Weapons

Special Weapons

Primary Weapons

These are important things to understand when reading these tables:

1. Damage perks will significantly change maximum DPS values
2. Times-to-kills are listed with optimal damage (maximum damage at close range) and damage falloff will dramatically affect the listed numbers (SMGs and sidearms in particular).

Destiny 2 Power Weapons: What is the Meta?

Keep in mind that the top Power weapons are not only defined by their raw DPS or Total Damage. Many other things come into play. Some of them, almost as important as raw damage.

For example, just as damage numbers and ease of use are extremely important, a weapon’s role is critical too. This is especially true for Heavy weapons:

Role	Explanation	Target Weapon types
Add Clear	Clearing weaker enemies faster than you could with a primary ammo weapon. For most content, primaries do the add clear job perfectly well, so this is most useful in high difficulty PvE.	Main: Machine Guns, Grenade Launchers, Swords Secondary: Rocket Launchers
Single Target Damage	Burning down a boss.	Main: Linear Fusion Rifles, Exotic Snipers, Swords Secondary: Grenade Launchers, Machine Guns
Burst Damage	Burning down a champion quickly, or for bosses with multiple damage phases, clearing a phase quickly.	Main: Rocket Launchers Secondary: Linear Fusion Rifles

Based on that, when choosing a Power weapon, always keep in mind the type of damage you need.

 Methodology

About the DPS numbers: As mentioned before, the DPS figures used for this Tier list come from the excellent Damage Chart Madness database.

As explained in that document:

Average DPS represents a weapons performance when emptying all of its reserves, with only full magazines. This factors in that the first magazine is already loaded, and you keep firing until the last mag is empty. Effectively, a combination of Burst DPS and Sustain DPS. The most accurate representation of a gun’s performance in most circumstances.

Bear in mind this number is done with luna/rally/fieldprep reload buffs

That document also includes Sustained DPS in case you want to get into the nitty-gritty.

The Last Word

Seasoned PVE players have a good understanding of the current PVE meta, and by extension, DPS values. However, if all of this is new to you, the chart above will help you better decide what weapons to bring to your next PVE challenge.

And by the way, even if you’re a veteran, it’s always good to have these figures at hand!

Latest changes

Things change fast in Destiny 2, especially the Meta. The weapons we call the best one day can completely change the next. All it takes are a few minor changes on Bungie’s end. For that reason, this ranking will be updated at least once per season.

Changes introduced this season:

The following items were added to the ranking:

• Gjallarhorn exotic
• Legacy PR-55 archetype

The following weapons types received noticeable buffs:

• Linear Fusion Rifles
• Pellet Shotguns
• Several Exotics

And finally, a weapons type did receive a PVE nerf:

• Slug Shotguns