Do DPS numbers actually represent anything?

[Capron Denim]

I've been trying to figure out how to actually evaluate weapon usefulness at a glance, since I came back and tons of weapons have DPS numbers that seem to suggest they're useless.

And I'm looking at a ~1000 DPS weapon that takes about .5-1 second to swing and does 250 damage per hit.

This is 250-500 DPS.

Under no circumstance could you conclude this was 1000 dps, is this broken or wtf?

[kermat_]

It should be correct but there may be a couple of weapons where the DPS display is not accurate. It depends on things like the time between attacks and whether or not the weapon has a combo. Which weapon were you testing?
Also, are you sure you weren't looking at the crit DPS?

[Capron Denim]

Flint, and yes.

[kermat_]

Oh in that case you're right.
The Flint has been discussed here a couple of times and to the best of my knowledge, its DPS calculation is bugged. Its normal damage DPS is composed of its hit damage + its trail of fire damage, even though it doesn't apply a trail of fire when you're applying normal hits. The trail of fire only comes up when you're critting with it. So the DPS on its card doesn't correspond to what you see ingame.

I've done some testing on it before and came to that conclusion. If you're interested in the breakdown of the numbers, here's the previous discussion:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/588650/discussions/0/3108015514318185451/

[Capron Denim]

Oh, cool, thanks for that.