Originally Posted by Zandel

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.

My last response on this: my whale ship(s) have been able to farm the most difficult missions for some time - so this isn't said with no experience in gearing/creating a viable whale ship.

Given the choice between 1k def and 1k atk for my ship, I'd take the 1k atk. As you point out, atk gets a 40% modifier after the chance panel. If you have the correct slash/pierce/hit/magic/nuetral type ship, you get a 50% bonus to atk. So a choice between 1k in def versus a 1k in atk should be thought of as 1k def versus 1k * 1.5 *1.4 = 2.1k atk. I'd take 2.1k in atk stats over 1k in defense stat.

Having your whaleship survive the mission is done in two ways: a) surviving long enough and b) killing the ancient pest faster. Since bonuses apply to atk and not defense, in a 1 for 1 stat debate - take the stat that gives bonuses.