Cody and Tom are right, damascus is mostly for looks. It does have a serrated effect due to the different steels having a different hardness which allows it to cut a little longer after it is dull. Some of the damascus made from say 1095 and 52100 with no high nickle alloy is better but it's not as attractive without the nickle. Now the clad steel with VG10 and white steel cores, for example, is a different story. These super steels have softer layers of metal (metallurgically bonded) bonded to each side, which has the purpose of protecting the hard core and to look good. A lot of the high end kitchen knives from Japan are made out of clad steel which is hot forged to break up the layer lines and make it look like damascus. There is also a core less clad steel made by cladding one of the super steels with other kinds of metal in multiple layers of precise thicknesses. The supposed purpose of this is for the enhanced strength of the super steel to supplement the weakness of the other steels to sort of create a combined characteristic. To me it is damascus that hasn't been hot forged with a hammer to give it a pattern.
