Weapon scaling and DPS in Brotato, with real numbers
How one weapon hit is worked out (base damage, scaling, % Damage, crits) and how that turns into damage per second. Includes why a weapon with 3 base damage can beat one with 12.
Weapon data is from the Brotato Wiki as of 28 Oct 2026. Not checked in-game. DPS here is damage per hit divided by cooldown, so it ignores special effects, and for 12 weapons it doesn't match the wiki's own DPS column (see below).
The weapon list in Brotato shows you base damage, and base damage is misleading. A weapon's number on the shop screen is a starting point. What it actually does depends on the stats you're carrying, and some weapons barely care about their base number at all.
How a hit is worked out
In order, using the wiki's rules:
- Start with the weapon's base damage.
- Add its scaling. Each weapon lists percentages against one or more stats, like "80% Melee". A weapon with 80% Melee gains 0.8 damage for every point of Melee Damage you have.
- Multiply the total by (1 + % Damage ÷ 100). Your % Damage stat applies last, to everything above.
- Minimum damage is 1, however negative your stats are.
hit = (base + scaling% × stat) × (1 + %Damage ÷ 100)
Then crits, then speed. Crit chance is the weapon's own chance plus your Crit Chance stat (capped at 100%), and each weapon has its own crit multiplier. Averaged out:
average hit = hit × (1 + crit chance × (multiplier − 1))
DPS = average hit × projectiles ÷ cooldown
cooldown = base cooldown ÷ (1 + Attack Speed ÷ 100)
A worked example: the Knife
A tier 1 Knife has 9 base damage, 80% Melee scaling, a 1.01 second cooldown and a 20% chance to crit for 2.5×. Give it 10 Melee Damage and 20% Damage:
- Scaling adds 0.8 × 10 = 8, so 17 before % Damage.
- Times 1.2 for the % Damage: 20.4 per hit.
- A crit does 51. Averaged at 20%, you get about 26.5 per hit.
- Divide by the 1.01 second cooldown: about 26 DPS.
Now see what each stat is worth. Five more Melee Damage takes the hit from 20.4 to 25.2, up 23%. Ten more % Damage takes it to 22.1, up 8%. On this build, one point of Melee Damage is worth about 5.6 points of % Damage. Fifty percent more Attack Speed multiplies the DPS by 1.5, to about 39. So which stat is best depends on what you already have, and it's worth checking against the numbers rather than guessing.
Why base damage misleads you: SMG against Pistol
At tier 1, the Pistol has 12 base damage, scales 100% with Ranged Damage and fires every 1.2 seconds. The SMG has 3 base damage, scales 50% with Ranged Damage and fires every 0.17 seconds. On a naked character the Pistol hits four times harder. Add Ranged Damage and watch:
- SMG (tier 1)
- Pistol (tier 1)
| Ranged Damage | SMG hit | SMG DPS | Pistol hit | Pistol DPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 3 | 17.7 | 12 | 11.0 |
| 10 | 8 | 47.3 | 22 | 20.2 |
| 20 | 13 | 76.9 | 32 | 29.3 |
| 40 | 23 | 136.0 | 52 | 47.7 |
The Pistol has the bigger hit at every row. The SMG wins on DPS from the first one, because it swings about seven times as often. That's the pattern to watch for: the weapons with tiny hits and tiny cooldowns are the ones that make use of flat stats and attack speed best. The catch is that a fast weapon runs into the 12-attacks-per-second cap, covered in the caps guide.
Melee at tier 1, same stats
Here are a few tier 1 melee weapons with 10 Melee Damage and nothing else:
| Weapon | Base | Scaling | Cooldown | Average hit | DPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fist | 8 | 100% Melee | 0.78 s | 18.1 | 23.2 |
| Knife | 9 | 80% Melee | 1.01 s | 22.1 | 21.9 |
| Rock | 20 | 100% Melee | 1.68 s | 31.5 | 18.8 |
| Spear | 15 | 100% Melee | 1.52 s | 25.8 | 16.9 |
| Stick | 8 | 100% Melee | 1.29 s | 18.3 | 14.2 |
| Wrench | 12 | 100% Melee | 1.70 s | 22.7 | 13.3 |
The Rock has the biggest hit in that list and the Fist has the highest DPS. Range, knockback and special effects aren't in these numbers, which matters for something like the Spear (350 range).
Check the scaling stat first
Not every weapon scales with just one stat. Plank scales 60% with Melee, Elemental and Engineering at once. Torch scales 50% Melee and 50% Elemental. Chainsaw takes 75% Melee, 75% Engineering and 75% Life Steal. Anchor takes Melee and Curse. Before you buy something, look at what it scales with and ask whether you're already stacking it. A cheap weapon that uses your main stat is often better than a pricey one that doesn't.
Where these numbers are shaky
I'm using damage ÷ cooldown, which is simple but optimistic for some weapons. For 12 of them, including the Knife, Revolver, Grenade Launcher, Hammer and Excalibur, the wiki's own DPS column comes out lower than that. A tier 1 Knife is 8.9 by my sum and 5.9 on the wiki. I haven't worked out why. Swing or reload time is the obvious guess, but it's only a guess. The planner shows both numbers and flags the weapons where they differ, so use it for comparing builds and don't treat any single DPS number as gospel.
Where the numbers come from
Weapon stats, scaling and formulas: Brotato Wiki, Weapons and Stats, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 28 Oct 2026. Every table and the chart are computed with the Spudlab maths. Written in my own words. Unofficial, not affiliated with Blobfish.