This article combines reactions from the OSRS community with information from openly available DPS tools.

Damage per second (or DPS), is very important in the combat of Old School RuneScape. It is the basis for finding what gear works, how to prepare for bosses, and whether an upgrade truly values the money. There are many DPS calculators and honestly, they do not all work entirely alike.

DPS tools for OSRS and how they help

The OSRS Wiki offers a web-based DPS calculator at dps.osrs.wiki, where you can enter your gear and see how it performs against various monsters. The part about received damage is still being refined, especially at bosses with weird or unexpected attack patterns. Even so, it probably is quite reliable for around 80 percent of the creatures that you will meet.

Also, the wiki calculator now supports links to Combat Achievements, which is truly helpful if you grind that content.

Then there is the Bitterkoekje DPS spreadsheet, that comes from a legendary forum poster in the official RuneScape forums. That poster carefully explains the math behind OSRS combat. The spreadsheet built from those formulas quickly spread and became the standard, which many trusted.

Later other calculators were made directly based on it.

OSRS Gin is one such tool, it builds on the Bitterkoekje sheet, but sometimes gives some doubtful numbers, so the community does not always trust it fully. Some even programmed the Bitterkoekje formulas in separate web apps during a weekend, and the reaction was so positive that folks kept adding new features to it.

Also Gearscape is worth a look. It works both as a DPS calculator and as a search tool for the best item, so you can count not only the damage output, but also the absolute best gear for any situation.

There is also osrs-dps.com, that is updated to include the most recent balance changes, the new Arceuus magic spells and more. Staying up-to-date truly matters; even some tiny changes can entirely overturn witch setups end up the strongest.

Most of those tools let you enter combat stats like Attack, Strength, Ranged and Magic. You can also count boosts from potions or prayers. Some even take your skill levels directly from the hiscores.

The calculators combine hit chance, average hit and attack speed to give you one standard DPS number. Because of that, comparing different setups becomes very fast.

The more fancy tools include graphs, where you can change variables (enemy defence), your stats, how much time passes since you boost… And watch the DPS move in real time. Some even show the rough chance to kill something in a certain number of ticks.

With shareable load URLs and nice OSRS-themed short links, it becomes almost easy to send a setup to a friend.

The practical uses are clear. You can optimize gear by testing how different weapons and armours change your damage. Whether you want to know if switching from Dragon Hunter Crossbow to Bow of Faerdhinen truly matters?

Enter both and see. Planning for bosses becomes much more simple, when you can plan efficient loadouts for certain raids like Theater of Blood or Nightmare. And you save gold, because you skip upgrades that barely improve the numbers.

Melee damage depends on your gear, prayers, skill boosts and on what you fight. There are lots of ways to push your melee power higher, and calculators help you find what truly works best.

Items like the Fang of Osmumten pushed DPS calculations even more forward. Testing various weapons in a calculator before jumping into PvM can show something you would not expect, sometimes it turns out that some weapons hit much harder than they look. Those tools cover melee, ranged and magic combat, and they are regularly updated to stay precise.

Whether you are in PvP or PvM, a DPS calculator is surely one of the mostuseful resources that you can use for OSRS combat.