Time to Kill (TTK) Calculator
Work out how many hits and how many milliseconds a weapon needs to kill a target: damage per shot, rate of fire in RPM, the target's health, shields and armor, the headshot multiplier and how often you land headshots, and your accuracy. Compare weapons in any shooter on the number that decides fights.
Last updated: October 2026
Time to Kill
300 ms
Formula below · 3 sources (dev.to, blueberries.gg, playvalorant.com) · Updated Oct 2026
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About this calculator
Time to kill is the time from the first hit landing to the hit that kills, and it is what decides a duel in a shooter: a weapon with a lower TTK wins an even fight even if its DPS on paper is lower. It is a count of shots, not a rate, which is why it behaves differently from DPS.
The calculation
First the damage per hit: body damage × (1 − armor damage reduction) × (1 + headshot share × (headshot multiplier − 1)), so hits that are all headshots at 2× deal double, and a mix is the weighted average. Then hits to kill = ceiling of (health + shield) ÷ damage per hit, because a target with 100 HP taking 30 per hit needs 4 hits, not 3.33. Shots fired = ceiling of hits ÷ accuracy. Finally TTK = (shots − 1) × 60,000 ÷ RPM milliseconds: the first shot lands at time zero, and only the intervals between shots count, each 60,000 ÷ RPM ms long. A 600 RPM weapon fires every 100 ms, so 4 shots take 300 ms.
Why TTK is a step function
Because hits are counted in whole numbers, a small change in damage can leave the TTK unchanged or drop it by a full interval. 30 damage against 100 HP is 4 hits; 34 damage is still 3 hits (102 ≥ 100), and 33 is 4. These breakpoints are why a damage buff of a few percent can matter enormously or not at all, and why headshots, which usually cross a breakpoint, matter more than raw damage. Always compare the hits-to-kill tile alongside the time.
Armor, shields and headshots
Games model defence in two ways: flat extra health (shields, armor plates: added to the health pool) and percentage damage reduction (armor rating, resistances: applied to each hit). The calculator takes both. Some games cap the headshot bonus against helmets or apply armor only to body shots; enter the net damage per hit from your game's wiki if it differs. Accuracy scales the shots fired, not the hits: at 60% accuracy a 5-hit kill takes 9 shots and the TTK grows accordingly, which is how a slow, accurate weapon can beat a spray weapon in practice.
How to use
Example: an assault rifle does 30 body damage at 600 RPM against a 100 HP target with no armor, headshot multiplier 2, all body shots, 100% accuracy. Hits to kill = ceil(100 ÷ 30) = 4. Time between shots = 60,000 ÷ 600 = 100 ms, so TTK = (4 − 1) × 100 = 300 ms. Those are the defaults. Give the target a 50 HP shield and it takes ceil(150 ÷ 30) = 5 hits, 400 ms; land only headshots and each hit does 60, so 3 hits and 200 ms. Now add 20% armor reduction, 30% headshots and 60% accuracy: damage per hit = 30 × 0.8 × (1 + 0.3 × 1) = 31.2, hits = ceil(150 ÷ 31.2) = 5, shots fired = ceil(5 ÷ 0.6) = 9, TTK = 8 × 100 = 800 ms. A second weapon doing 26 damage at 666 RPM against the shielded target needs 6 hits at 90.1 ms each, 450 ms: slower to kill despite a similar DPS.
Frequently asked questions
How is time to kill calculated?
Hits to kill = ceiling of (health + shield) ÷ damage per hit; shots fired = ceiling of hits ÷ accuracy; TTK = (shots − 1) × 60,000 ÷ RPM in milliseconds. The first hit starts the clock at zero, so only the gaps between shots count. 4 hits at 600 RPM is 3 × 100 ms = 300 ms.
Why does a higher-DPS weapon sometimes have a slower TTK?
Because kills come in whole hits. DPS is an average rate; TTK depends on how many hits it takes to cross the health bar and how long those particular hits take. A 26-damage, 666 RPM gun has 289 DPS against the 300 DPS of a 30-damage, 600 RPM gun, but against 150 HP it needs 6 hits (450 ms) against 5 (400 ms). Compare the hits-to-kill tile as well as the time, and check both against the health pools you actually face.
How do headshots change TTK?
A headshot multiplies that hit's damage, so it usually reduces the number of hits needed and removes whole shot intervals from the time. With a 2× multiplier the 4-hit, 300 ms kill becomes 2 hits and 100 ms if every shot is a headshot. Enter the share of your hits that are headshots to get an expected value in between; the two tiles show the all-body and all-head extremes.
How do I enter armor?
If the game adds armor as extra hit points (plates, shields, overshield), put it in the shield box: it is added to health. If armor reduces each hit by a percentage (an armor rating, resistance, a helmet that cuts headshot damage), put that percentage in the damage reduction box. Games that do both take both. Where armor only applies to part of the body, use the game's net damage figures.
What does accuracy do in this calculator?
It converts hits into shots fired: at 50% accuracy a 4-hit kill takes 8 shots, so the TTK is 7 intervals instead of 3. This is the practical TTK against a moving target and it is where high-RPM weapons with heavy recoil lose ground to slower, more accurate ones. Leave it at 100% for the theoretical minimum used in weapon charts.
Why does my game's wiki show a different TTK?
Conventions differ: some count the first shot's delay, some include a burst delay or a 1-frame fire-rate rounding, and damage often falls off with range. Most published charts assume 100% accuracy, no armor and either all body or all head shots. Match the inputs and this calculator reproduces the standard (shots − 1) × 60,000 ÷ RPM figure.
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