Kitchen skills give two types of boosts: "Food" skills, and Felyne skills. The food skills give health (based on the combined stars, up to 50 max), stamina (50 max as well, based on Freshness), and one other skill (Attack, Defense, Resistance, Tipsy, etc.)
These Food skills will always stack. Without the Felyne Foodie skill, you will also lose them upon death.
The tricky ones are the Felyne Skills. Some are unique, in that they provide a skill that can't be gotten any other way, such as Explorer, or Carver. These don't stack, because there's nothing to stack with. Others are binary buffs, in that they either work or don't, such as Heat Res (Armor Skill), and Firewalker. Both allow you to walk on lava edges with no damage. Getting both does nothing, because there's nothing to improve.
For the rest, they will stack, up to the limits of whatever is being increased; both Gathering and Felyne Gathering up the chances of hitting maximum node gathers, but they can't do anything beyond that. Same with Speed Sharpening and Polisher; one swipe is the minimum, so Polisher adds nothing.
Those that add to numerical values will be tested as I can, but current observations show that as long as the internal limit isn't hit, they do stack. As to what those maximum values are, that differs depending on the skill. There has to be a non-0% chance of things happening (such as Whim and Woodsman combining), or gathering would be trivial, as nothing would break, and you'd never need to replenish your pickaxes or bug nets.
I have tested these, and will add as I test more:
- Firestarter, Waterbearer, and the other elemental skills DO stack.
- Specialist does stack with Status Attack.
Nibelsnarf can be fished out if it is staggered while submerged in the sand. He enters a trapped/staggered state which allows the player to approach and press A (with weapons sheathed) to begin pulling him out.
The easiest way to achieve this is to place a large barrel bomb and then throw a sonic bomb over it while the Nibelsnarf is fully underground. Nibelsnarf will then eat the bomb, which cause the staggered/trapped state when
To succeed at the QTE, you should mash A and rapidly rotate the thumbstick in circles (left thumbstick if you have a Circle Pad Pro). In my experience, just mashing A alone is not fast enough to fish it out before the QTE ends.
Best Answer
The number of times you can increase the level of an armor depends on the armor set. Typically, the number averages to around 7 to 8. As for your second question, it depends on what rank you're at.
Typically, at Low Rank, you are a bit more reliant on the armor's innate defense partially as a buffer for lack of experience in hunting. As you get to higher Hunter Ranks, you'll find that your Defense stat becomes less and less important. While you typically never want to bring Low Rank armor sets to High Rank or G-rank hunts, an armor set with a set of armor skills and coherent playstyle in mind is far more valuable and viable than a mish-mash of the "best" armor you can put together.
Armor skills are always more valuable than cut-and-dry stats simply because they have a bigger multiplier effect to your skill. Anyone can take a hit and survive if they have a high enough Defense stat, but armor skills let you evade attacks more easily so you can continue to deal damage instead of having to wait to get back up.
For that matter, elemental resistances scale the same way. You'll want to avoid bringing thunder-weak armors to Lagiacrus fights when you're Low Rank, but as you get better and better at hunting, you can find yourself hunting those Lagis in full Narga armor with the best of them.