I'm not convinced pure attack mags are the way to go

[Omega-z]

well, the epsilon units are good if your cheap and don't care about Def. But if you can block 0 - 17 (21 for the full amount) damage more (some don't need this and why the "0") than the epsilon/s they then become useless to the other armor's even 3-4* one's too. Since other armor's do have a HP boost of there own and you are getting between -15 to 75 with higher, 45 to 120 with the lower (150 only if it doesn't have one). So it depends on the armor you are using. But if you have the Def to use higher armor's don't use the epsilon's.

[Valymer]

Yeah, I'm going for the Quartz set, I like how it looks and it's fairly common on my Ship in the Player Shops, already affixed and everything.

[MOHFL]

I'm just going to keep it simple with mags once the game gets over here.

50 DEX, 50 ATK and 50 DFP of whatever class I'm using. BAM less than a million meseta spent and only 64 hours to max em tops

[Ceresa]

I'm personally inclined to say fuck both options. What looks like the best compromise seems like it's often overlooked. The ブルー (blue) series. These all require 374 tdef, and they come with 345, 276 rdef, 243 tdef, 75 hp, and 9 pp. That's only 7sdef, 10rdef, 56 tdef, and 25hp short of the "best", and they're far easier to equip. And I think the defensive shortcomings of this series compared to BiS might possibly be negated by the fact that they all have a property called 法撃耐性, which I'm pretty sure roughly translates to Resist Tech Attacks. If that works how it sounds like, and depending on how much resist it gives, it might just be better overall for defense. Though speaking of translation, I'm having trouble with some of this stuff.
ムフェザー
ミィアート
ムヘリオ
Those are the names of the three ブルー armor units. Anyone?

The immediate flaw would be the fact that those bloom units cost a minimum of 1m each without any affixes or grinds and are a super rare emergency trial award.

They also aren't much better than using a 2/1 combination of epsilon stamina/spirit subs for 100hp/5pp or however you want to split them. And seeing as the ability on your mag needed to equip subs also raises your damage somewhat, it's the next best thing to going pure attack, but much faster to raise.

Personally I went back to sub units after I saw the bloom price, when the next level cap hits I'll resell them and buy Quartz which will be equippable with base stats by then, or Fegali if TDef goes high enough. Not going to bind that expensive crap to me with such a short shelf life and minimal gains. I also prefer the TDef on Quartz even though I have no idea what actually counts as enemy techs. I do have a solid guess on what counts as enemy striking attacks and that they rarely hit me enough for me to care though.

Did you want their names in that last bit? Bloom Feather, Bloomy Art, Bloom Helio.

Oh and bloom stuff is super ugly, like a loose tooth on arm/leg. Rear is ok but 95% of the color is a fixed blue...

[Valymer]

The immediate flaw would be the fact that those bloom units cost a minimum of 1m each without any affixes or grinds and are a super rare emergency trial award.

They also aren't much better than using a 2/1 combination of epsilon stamina/spirit subs for 100hp/5pp or however you want to split them. And seeing as the ability on your mag needed to equip subs also raises your damage somewhat, it's the next best thing to going pure attack, but much faster to raise.

Personally I went back to sub units after I saw the bloom price, when the next level cap hits I'll resell them and buy Quartz which will be equippable with base stats by then, or Fegali if TDef goes high enough. Not going to bind that expensive crap to me with such a short shelf life and minimal gains. I also prefer the TDef on Quartz even though I have no idea what actually counts as enemy techs. I do have a solid guess on what counts as enemy striking attacks and that they rarely hit me enough for me to care though.

Did you want their names in that last bit? Bloom Feather, Bloomy Art, Bloom Helio.

Oh and bloom stuff is super ugly, like a loose tooth on arm/leg. Rear is ok but 95% of the color is a fixed blue...

That's what sold me on the Quartz set, the T-Def is nuts and as a Force I generally stay way the hell back during a boss fight. What always seems to hit me though is what I assume are technic attacks like Ragne's directional aoe, Quartz Dragon's lasers, etc. And I really like the looks of the full Quartz set, so that was the clincher for me.

Just hit 56 ranks of T-Def on my new mag, so I can equip the Quartz now finally...which sells for like 600-800k on my Ship (affixed, but usually unground), which is really reasonable for it's quality I think.

[Valymer]

Well, I guess that plan is shit, then. Yeah, I think you might have the right idea. I'll probably use an attack-ability split. I'm going to have to reroll anyway, since I'm restarting on Ship 2.

And the more I see of actual tests with supplied data, the more I think that ability actually adds a significant amount of damage, pretty close to the same as one point of attack. Ability has a bunch of drawbacks, like taking away from your equip requirements and having a cap (min goes no higher than 96% of max), but I don't think damage is one of them.

Ability also has the benefit of lowering the enemy's min hit on you. Might not be as useful to FO as HU, but it's still a nice bonus.

I think I've been convinced now from reading other people's opinions and looking at the data that it's worth it to train some Ability on my mag (the left-over levels after ATK and Def are at equi-req levels), so my final build should look something like:

66 T-Atk
56 T-Def
28 Ability

Seems well-rounded enough and let's me equip Quartz armor and Garland. Can't use the rod from the new area with this build (as male newman) but the difference between the two at +10 is only 28 T-Atk, it's negligible to me.

[Dextro]

Ability also has the benefit of lowering the enemy's min hit on you. Might not be as useful to FO as HU, but it's still a nice bonus.

I think I've been convinced now from reading other people's opinions and looking at the data that it's worth it to train some Ability on my mag (the left-over levels after ATK and Def are at equi-req levels), so my final build should look something like:

66 T-Atk
56 T-Def
28 Ability

Seems well-rounded enough and let's me equip Quartz armor and Garland. Can't use the rod from the new area with this build (as male newman) but the difference between the two at +10 is only 28 T-Atk, it's negligible to me.

I see this sentence a lot, and i'd just like to point out the flaw:

You're forgetting to calculate the extra T-Atk that a character gearing to equip the new rod would have in the first place.
It's not "just 28 T-Atk" you're lacking - that much is from the rod alone.
It actually 64 T-Atk that you'd be missing out on by going with that mag setup
Sure you might be able to use the new rod anyway after the level cap, rendering the difference back down to only 28, but there'll almost certainly be a new rod to take the place of this one which needs a higher T-Atk investment, so the cycle will continue.

Not that i'm trying to discourage you from your build, i'm just pointing out something to keep in mind before you set anything in stone

[Valymer]

Well that's true, but even 64 T-Atk isn't gonna be a gamebreaker I don't think. I don't even know that I'd notice it unless I actually wrote down the numbers...it's not even 6% of my current T-Atk.

I generally kill stuff fast enough even with the 5* rod I'm using now. I'd like to take less damage, though, so my build is more towards wearing this certain armor set than anything else. I will definitely notice taking less damage.

[Broken_L_button]

Spoiler!

Sp-24 That whole (which, according to other people, only lower received damage by 1 point for every 5 points in defense) almost completely useless. Is utter BS and is coming from PSU day's since the stat was close too that 5 to 1 ratio in that game. But in this one any DEF is much more useful (not a 5 to 1) and you can Tank in Damage easily if done right, And that's if you wish too.

Slightly off topic, but...

Sorry, but that 5 to 1 ratio for defense mitigating damage is true (it's been true for nearly every multiplayer PS game to date). This also holds true for ATK. 5 ATK = 1 dmg, 5 DEF = -1 dmg. It's harder to see it in this game since the damage variance is HOLLYBALLSINSANE, but that can be countered with enough samples. Here's an easy way to test this out: put 1 point into fury stance on a hunter and compare the amount of damage you take from the same enemy's striking attacks -dagans slashing you, rockbear punching you, panthers giving you a free face lift, etc.- with fury stance (-250 S-DEF at that point) and without (nomal S-DEF).

After taking hits a few hundred times, I can say that, on average, I took 40-60 more damage with fury stance on. And you probably won't need to get hit that much to see it. It's even more obvious when you find an enemy whose S-ATK matches your S-DEF (in which case dmg taken w/o fury stance is in the single digits)

The real reason (IMO) why people find DEF less valuable is because you need to invest into 3 types of DEF to nullify everything, while you only need to mindlessly put all you resources into 1 type of ATK and learn how to guard/dodge to be able to both kill everything and nullify almost all damage.

With the way the MAGs are in this game, they're purely for giving you that extra push to equip the weapon and unit you want. Unlike in PSO, all stats transfer over to your character at a 1:1 ratio, so all stats are equally valuable on your MAG (remember how one could get over 300 ATP or MST solely from their MAG, while it was impossible to get that much DEF or ATA). Thus, the real effect your MAG has on your damage does not come directly from the stat bonuses it gives, but from whether or not those bonuses allow you to equip that shiny weapon you wanted to whack things with.

In light of this, IMO, nearly all MAG builds seem viable, as long as the bonuses are enough to let you equip what you want to use.

[Omega-z]

Hmm, It's sad that your having problem's with S-Def Broken_L_button. It is odd that your getting that much tho. I did hear that Guard Stance ( which you mean) is broken and doesn't reflect the amount that it should, that and all the other active skill's in the skill tree's. So far this game is unclear what it is, At least for me it's not a 5 to 1. I added +30 s-def and now taking 18 dmg less then before. And Deband (I'm a force by the way) takes out more dmg then the 250 you get with Guard Stance since it gives for only +88 to s-def but can reduce dmg around 45- 50. Even the Quartz Dragon dmg is reduced to lower dmg and can live thru all of his attack's. The most damaging one is the Tech based Lazer bubble grants attack which is a multi hitting spell that confuses you after the attack. It hits 10 times for 18 - 20 damage per hit for a total of 180 - 200 damage. Now this is with 0 def affixes ( this was before I added the +30 s-def ). Now another Question is I can get 1 dmg like the hunter did with the banther (for me the ice one since the forest one does 30-45 too me) for a 3rd of the time for a lot less s-def then his. The Question do the classes/races have different mod's of point for point value's? ( I don't think they do but your value's are weaksauce to mine and I should be weaker in s-def then you).