Everything You Need to Know About the Legal arcDPS Meter in Guild Wars 2

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Written by Syrma

Posted on September 10, 2026

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Guild Wars 2

arcDPS is legal in Guild Wars 2, since it only reads combat data your client already generates rather than granting any unfair advantage over other players. This guide covers every configurable window in the combat meter, the extensions built on top of it, and how it behaves across PvE, WvW, and PvP.

I tested each window and extension in this guide against the current arcDPS build to confirm it installs and functions as described below.

Is arcDPS Legal in Guild Wars 2?

Yes. ArenaNet’s official third-party programs policy states that it does not permit any program that gives one player an unintended, unnatural, or unfair advantage over another, and a read-only overlay that only displays combat statistics does not fall into that category.

The policy does not name arcDPS specifically, and ArenaNet states plainly that it does not review, approve, or endorse any third-party program, so every install is made at your own risk. In practice this means full functionality in PvE, most functionality in WvW, and almost nothing in PvP, since ArenaNet disables combat log access there to protect competitive integrity.

How to Install arcDPS

Installing arcDPS means placing a single file next to your game’s executable, nothing more elaborate is required.

Download the current build: Get the newest x64 release from the developer’s own arcdps page rather than a mirror or a reupload elsewhere.
Use the correct filename: The developer’s own instructions call for the file to be named d3d11.dll, or optionally dxgi.dll, with no other renaming needed.
Place it next to your executable: Drop that file directly into your Guild Wars 2 installation folder, the same one that holds gw2-64.exe, usually inside your Steam library or Program Files.
Launch Guild Wars 2 normally: arcDPS loads automatically the next time you start the client, there is no separate installer or launcher.
Update after content or balance patches: Replace the DLL with the newest version whenever a patch breaks it, or delete it entirely to return to a vanilla client that will not crash.

An add-on manager such as Nexus can automate that update step for you, though arcDPS itself never requires one to function.

Basic Keybinds and the Options Menu

Press Alt + Shift + T to open the arcDPS options window, this is where every other setting in this guide gets configured. Press Alt + Shift + H to hide every visible arcdps window at once, then press it again to bring them all back.

Lock windows during combat: Enabling the “moving requires modifiers” option stops you from accidentally dragging a window instead of your camera mid-fight.
Rebind anything: Every key combination in this menu can be changed from its default, so pick something that does not collide with your existing UI or skill binds.

Setting up the DPS Meter Window

The DPS meter is the first window most players configure, and its columns are set by right-clicking the window and choosing which stat fills each slot. Three columns cover most situations without cluttering the display.

Column	Recommended stat	What it shows
1	Target percent of total	Your share of the squad’s damage on the current target
2	Target per second	Your DPS on the target only, excluding damage to other enemies
3	Cleave per second	Your total damage per second across every nearby enemy

Target-per-second is the number worth comparing between attempts on a single-target raid boss, since cleave damage on trash or adds can inflate the total without reflecting your boss DPS. A wide gap between the two, with cleave running noticeably higher, points to a rotation that is spending time on secondary targets rather than the main one, so use that to decide whether to adjust your target priority on the next pull.

You can also customize the window’s title bar to show the current target’s name alongside the whole squad’s target-per-second total. Watch that combined figure during a mechanic-timed check to see whether the group is on pace without adding up every player’s individual number by hand.

Positioning Windows and Grouping them Together

Every arcDPS window can be placed manually or locked to a screen-relative position, and the second option is worth using for anything you want to keep in the same spot across sessions.

Screen-relative position: Anchors a window to a fixed point on your screen regardless of resolution or UI scale changes.
Growth direction: A window placed near the bottom of the screen should be set to grow from the bottom-left or bottom-right, so additional squad members do not get pushed off screen as they join.
Window-relative position: Links a second window, such as damage taken, directly to the DPS meter’s position, so moving one moves both together.

Self Stats and Self Skills Windows

The self stats window reads your own combat log directly rather than reading other players’ shared memory, which makes it the one arcDPS window that keeps working even when a patch temporarily breaks everything else. It also shows figures that never appear in the standard DPS meter, including your own healing done, barrier generated, and life-steal from mechanics that trigger it.

The self skills window breaks that same data down by individual skill, so you can see exactly which skill produced how much of your total. On a condition build, that view is what tells you whether tracking a specific condition’s uptime, torment being one common example, would do more for your damage than chasing a slightly better raw DPS number.

Reading the Metrics Window

The metrics window tracks three separate values in one place: your frames per second, your connection ping, and a server-side refresh rate. Frames and ping are self-explanatory measures of your own hardware and connection quality, while the refresh rate reflects how frequently the server is sending combat updates to your client.

A refresh rate that holds steady is a sign of a stable connection, while one trending sharply downward often precedes a disconnect. Treat a sudden drop as an early warning rather than a hard threshold, since the exact healthy range can shift with server load.

Adding Extra Stat Windows

Beyond the main DPS meter, you can open additional windows from the same options menu and assign each one a different stat category. This is how most players track boon strips, condition cleanses, crowd control, and incoming damage without cramming everything into a single display.

Strips: Shows the total number of boons you have removed from enemies over the fight.
Cleanses: Tracks how many conditions you have removed from allies.
CC (defiance bar damage): Shows your total contribution to breaking an enemy’s defiance bar, replacing an older per-second-only view.
Damage taken: Useful for spotting when a specific player is repeatedly standing in an area effect they should be avoiding.

You can also use window-relative position, covered above, to snap any of these new windows directly to your existing DPS meter.

Customizing the Display Style

The display options control how dense the windows feel on screen, separate from which stats they show. A handful of toggles account for most of the difference between a cluttered default layout and a compact one.

Index numbers: Can be turned off entirely if you find the leading number in front of each row unnecessary.
Name length: Caps how many characters of a player’s name are shown, useful for keeping long names from stretching the window.
Window width: Can be shrunk to a fixed size instead of expanding to fit every visible character name.
Profession icons and always-on-top: Add a visual profession marker per row, and can pin your own row to the top of the list regardless of your rank.

The Best arcDPS Extensions

arcDPS supports its own ecosystem of extensions that add features the base overlay does not include. These four cover most of what a raid, strike, or fractal group would actually use.

Unofficial Extras: A prerequisite add-on that several of the others depend on, it does not add a visible window of its own.
KillProof add-on: Pulls a squad member’s proof-of-clear counts from their linked killproof.me account directly into the game, so you can check raid or fractal experience without alt-tabbing to a browser.
Healing Stats window: Shows your own healing output, and shares that total with squadmates who also have logging and live stat sharing enabled, though it never shows overhealing.
Boon Table: Tracks uptime on boons such as might, fury, protection, quickness, and alacrity, and can be sorted by subgroup.

Other widely used extensions include scrolling combat text, a clear counter, and a food or utility reminder, though most of these add a small display rather than new functionality.

Example scenario: Say your squad is struggling to sustain through a mechanic-heavy phase of a fight, and you want to find out why before the next attempt. With the Healing Stats log and live stat sharing enabled across the squad, check that window straight after the wipe to see whose output dropped during that phase, rather than guessing from the death log alone.

Logging Fights and Backing up Your Configuration

Save a log after each individual boss kill or wipe rather than enabling the whole-map log option, since a full map log is too large for most parsing tools to handle cleanly. You can also set the log name to include the boss name or your character name, and change the destination folder if you want logs kept somewhere other than the default.

Back up your configuration by copying arcdps.ini and arcdps_igui.ini out of the arcdps folder inside your Guild Wars 2 installation. Those two files hold your entire window layout, so keeping a copy elsewhere means a bad update or a lost config does not force you to rebuild everything from scratch.

If you are new to reading a combat log once it is exported, start with the wider set of raid and fractal content that data feeds into before worrying about advanced parsing tools.

Additional reading: Inventory Cleanup, for sorting through the loot a heavier testing or farming session tends to leave in your bags and bank. Its sorting suggestions are estimates based on general item categories, so treat them as a starting point rather than a guarantee that every item will be handled exactly as you would decide item by item.

Fixing Crashes and Common arcDPS Issues

arcDPS is a third-party DLL, so it is more exposed to instability than the base client, particularly around major updates. Most reported issues trace back to one of the same handful of causes.

Patch-day breakage: Delete the DLL immediately after a big content or balance patch and wait for an updated build, since running a stale version against a changed client is the most common cause of crashes.
Overlay conflicts: The Nvidia in-game overlay is a known trigger for instability when it runs alongside arcdps.
Multiple add-ons at once: Running several unrelated overlays or loaders together increases the chance that two of them conflict.
Antivirus interference: Bitdefender in particular has been reported to block arcDPS from loading correctly; adding an exception for both Guild Wars 2 and the DLL resolves it.

Custom Fonts

You can reskin every arcDPS window by placing a font file named arcdps_font.ttf inside the arcDPS folder. A monospace font, or any font with tabular figures, is worth prioritizing over anything else, since it keeps digits aligned as numbers change several times a second during a fight.

Using arcDPS in WvW and Why It is Limited in PvP

arcDPS behaves differently depending on which game mode you load into, and the table below covers the practical difference at a glance.

Mode	What works	What is restricted
PvE	Full functionality across every window covered in this guide	Nothing
WvW	Most windows function, with defaults built around fighting groups rather than a single target	Damage against NPCs is usually excluded from your default stat setup
PvP	Self stats only	Squad-facing windows are disabled by the client itself to protect competitive integrity

In WvW, cleave total and cleave per second are more useful defaults than target-per-second, since you are typically fighting a group rather than a single boss. It is also worth adding stats for downs contributed and kills contributed, which have no equivalent in a PvE-focused setup.

Turning Your Setup into Better Runs

You can now install arcDPS, configure a DPS meter that reflects your own build rather than a generic default, and rely on the self stats and boon windows on the days a patch breaks the rest of the overlay. Take that setup into your next fractal, strike, or raid encounter.

Save a log from the kill or the wipe, then compare what the numbers say against how the fight actually felt, and use that gap to decide what to adjust before your next pull.

Additional reading: Event Timers, if you want to line that log-and-adjust habit up with the next fractal reset or raid wing rather than waiting for a random pull. Scheduled times shown there are estimates and can shift if ArenaNet adjusts a rotation, so treat them as a planning guide rather than a guarantee.

FAQs

Why are my arcdps windows blank or not showing up after I install it?

Several arcdps windows, including the DPS meter, only populate once you’re in combat, so a blank window at character select or in a city is normal. If windows stay empty during a fight, check that you haven’t toggled the hide-all keybind, or disabled that specific window in the options menu.

Does arcdps work with every profession, build, and mount in Guild Wars 2?

Yes, arcdps reads the same combat log regardless of profession, build, or mount, since it isn’t tied to any specific skill. The self skills window shows different entries depending on what you play, such as condition ticks on a torment build or barrier generation on a support build.

Can I run arcdps on Steam Deck or through Proton on Linux?

Running arcdps on Steam Deck or Linux is possible, but it needs an extra loading step through Proton that a native Windows install doesn’t require. The exact method changes between Proton versions, so check the installation notes on the developer’s own arcdps page before assuming a Windows guide applies unmodified.

Does running arcdps lower my FPS or slow down Guild Wars 2?

Running arcdps has a minimal effect on frame rate, since it only adds a lightweight overlay on top of the existing client. Any drop in the metrics window’s frame counter is more likely to come from your graphics settings, nearby player count, or your hardware than from arcdps itself.

Can other players see my arcdps overlay, or is any of it shared automatically?

No other player can see your arcdps windows or change your settings, since everything you configure stays local to your own client. The only data ever shared with squadmates is what you explicitly opt into, such as your healing total through live stat sharing, and only when they’ve enabled that.