What are the difference between these stats?

+Stability% (if stab is less than 100)
+Critical Damage (given CR is above 100)
+ Short/Long Range Damage
+ Unsheathe% (given all your attacks are unsheathe)
+Damage to Element

To me, given the criteria matches above, they are all the same to me. However I don't think they are the same. To me, +5 stability will increase my damage by 5%, likewise it is equal to CD +5 which will do the same. +5% Short range, unsheathed, etc., the same.

 

Stability: your stability value is the lower end of damage you can do. So if you have 80% stability your damage will vary between 80 and 100% damage. So your average damage will be 90%. Meaning a 10% stability increase is a 5% dps increase on average. However this is not it: when you graze instead of crit your stability will be divided by 2. So 100% stability turns to 50% stability.

Critcal Damage: damage multiplier for your critical hits. The base cdmg is 150% (so 50% more dmg than on normal hits). So if you get +20 cdmg your damage won't be increased by 20% but 20/150=13%.

LRD/SRD: damage multiplier for skill depending on the range. SRD for <8m and LRD for >7m. The important part here is that those 2 dont apply to placed skills. Placed skills are for example Crossfire, Satellite Arrow, Tempest.

Unsheathe: Damage multiplier for all katana skills besides Garyou. Also applies to enchant blade, charging slash and storm reaper.

Damage to element: Damage multiplier when fighting against the specified element.

Just in general: lets take an example: I use tenryu from the katana tree which is only used short range and is classified as unsheathe. So if I add 10% SRD or 10% unsheathe makes no difference. The important part here is stacking now. Lets say I already stacked up a lot of unsheathe and have 150% unsheathe bonus instead of the base 100%. If I add another 10% unsheathe on top the damage increase is not 10% but 10/150=6.7%. So adding 10%LRD would be more beneficial at that point.

 

Stability is about your damage range, so it definitely not like other damage multiplicators. If you want to use it as a multiplicator, you should rather use average stability.

About their effects, 5 cd doesn't necessarily has same impact as 5 srd or 5 unsheathe, it depends of how much you already have stacked. In cd case, it nevers has same impact if we compare same values, since we have a base of 150 cd.

 

According to the physical skill formula quoted from Tome of Offense, which is:

Final Damage (Physical skills) = (Base Damage [Auto attacks / Physical Skills] - DEF + flat Unsheathe Attack [If it's the attack is Unsheathe] + Skill Constant) * Total crit damage / 100 [If it's crit] * Total Element Boost / 100 * Skill Multiplier * (1 * Unsheathe Attack% / 100) [If Unsheathe] * RNG Stability / 100 * Current Physical Proration / 100 * (1 + Short / Long Range Damage / 100) [Depends on the attack used] * 0.7 [If affected by Lethargy] * (1 + sum of all Last Damage Modifiers) [If affected by these] * (1 + sum of all Combo Multipliers / 100) [If in a combo] * (1 - Base Drop Gem Damage Reducer / 100) [Repeat this for each gem] * 0.25 [If Guard]

The factors you mentioned above act as multiplier (although stability have different nature, particularly for dw).

In my opinion they are options given by the developer. In what factors we choose to invest based on our conditions?

In summary : its all about trade off. Which factors gave the most optimal boost for us? Or our main damage skills?
Lets take a simple example on 2hs stat distribution. (stability & cd). Taking level10 Two-handed skill into account.
A. 300str & 247dex.
B. 297str & 250dex.
If we compare those two, A will have +1 cdmg but 1% less stability (60cdmg & 99% stability, gain from stats+two-handed skill ). B will have - 1 cdmg but 1% more stability (59cdmg & 100% stability, gain from stats+two-handed skill). Only taking these factors into account, most people (including me) would prefer A, since i dont mind about that 1%RNG on stability and graze will occur a lot on high difficulty bossess anyway.

Do noted that similar numbers on different factors doesn't always gave the same results if we compare them.

 

What if ur stab more than 100%, will it increase damage?

 

No