Originally Posted by Unregistered

You get plenty of defense from girls and other gear. If the choice is between 1k defense or 1k attack, arguably 1k attack is better on whale ship since attack damage is buffed.

Can confirm that Defence on Whale Ship is better than atk for highest rank missions. Getting enough atk is easy, living through whale boss damage to ship not so much. Remember as soon as you kill the 'chance' panel you get +40% atk now so atk items might give you more stats in the end but you already have enough without most of them.