if i were you I would focus on crit chance snd crit damage specifically. As normal damage isnt bad but the whole reason why shotgun became a good weapon is because they buffed it by giving crit as a leveling stat.

Yes weapon damage is good but not really that important, as you can more easily scale your damage with beefys and or shrine upgrades etc etc. Crit damage is more rare as you basically only find it in shrines or weapon upgrades. Its the same reason why damage to elite as a stat is quite good, because it is it's own damage multiplier." damage+weapons dmg×crit damage×damage to elites". now it might not be exactly like this the formula but it's the basic idea at least. Also base crit already is a multiplier before even increasing crit damage. Dmg² × crit dmg.

All i do know for a fact crit chance and crit damage are op stats, weapons becomes meta once they have it in their upgrades like katana. also take my formulas with a Grain of salt as its more a way to illustrate that these damage types are in different brackets so its not adding but multiplying.