Consistency is definitely my biggest culprit on dmg fluctuations on anything outside of primals or bosses. I have yet to try any form of stat stacking for dmg output yet, so as Ace stated our compared SW's showed me doing less sometimes. My guess is due to my lower floor, or rather not meeting stat cap.

I do wonder if stacking hp such as I have in the past, if this could in turn raise my floor even though my stats are not capped, or would this just give a bigger potential fluctuation by raising my max potential?

I see now that while my theoretical dps from SW has a higher potential with max hp, it may be out-weighed by a lower average with better consistency since most bosses outside of primals tend to go down faster.

Good food for thought none the less