One of the key gameplay elements in Last Cloudia is the ability to heavily customize your Units via the Ark and Skill system.
Of course, with so many options lying in front of them, players might often find themselves wondering which Ark to focus on first, or which skills to equip on each character.
This guide will offer some suggestions about how to build your Magical DPS units, those who stay at the backline and fire off wave after wave of powerful skills and spells at their foes.
Before we start, if you're unsure of how game mechanics work, I recommend you take a look at our Beginner's Guide for Last Cloudia.
When trying to build Magical Units, you'll want to look for passives and equipment that directly increase their INT and MP, or that offer distinctive advantages in casting offensive magic. You should learn a diverse arsenal of elemental spells, in order to effectively deal damage to all kinds of foes.
You'll also want to balance the amount of Unit souls you spend both on Awakening and increasing the SC cap. If you're just starting out, I recommend spending your souls on the first two Awakenings first, which will cost you 30 and 60 souls respectively.
This is because at first you won't have access to that many skills to equip your character with, so 20 SC should be plenty for getting the essentials. As a general rule, you should expand SC only when you need the extra capacity, just be wary that the soul cost increases every five levels.
Before trying to learn any of these skills, make sure your Unit can't already learn them via their Ability Tree. This is an easy way to waste a lot of Blue/Red Souls, since there's no benefit to learning the same skill twice.
Here are a number of Arks that can provide useful skills/spells even early in the game. None of these skills take higher than Ark level 4 to attain, so you can aim for them even before finishing the story.
Lv 1 - Meteorain: Mid-tier Fire spell. Excellent for farming as it will cover the whole area and won't freeze time, so your other units can still do their thing while the animation plays out. (Alternatives: Egg of Remy The Firebird Lv 4)
Lv 1 - Recast: A buff that will increase an ally's casting speed by 30%. Not that good early on, but shines on boss fights once your MP pool gets bigger.
Having some of these on should help you finish out Story and most of the extra Subquests available at launch. Don't fret if you don't have some of these Arks available, you can do without any of these. This is true for all of the next recommendations as well.
You've completed story, cleared some of the subquests and your Orb spots are now on a relatively high level (after a week of play or so). Now you can slowly start aiming for your first level 10 Arks, which will mostly be R or SR rarity, since they cost significantly less to upgrade than SSR ones.
WARNING: Do NOT upgrade this Ark for now if you wish to farm for its Ether Reward. This Ark gives out an accessory that significantly reduces casting time for offensive magic, so you should leave it at Lv 1 to reduce its orb cost while you farm.
(You can get this skill from Radmoon Shrine at level 8 as well, however I must issue a WARNING again. That Ark gives out a very similar accessory as an Ether reward, and thus is recommended to be kept at level 1 in case you want to farm it in the future.)
You've now got all of your Orb Spots maxed and ready to go. Your orb production can't get any higher, and thus your focus will turn towards the more expensive SSR Arks, which usually provide the most powerful (and costly) skills.
Note: You can skip this Ark if you main Zekus, although its passive is great for him if you get it up to Lv 10 (It will boost Ice spell damage by 25%).
The Arks on this list shouldn't be made a priority over the above ones. The skills they have, however, are very useful in the right situations, such as further powering up specific elements.
Note: You may choose to keep this Ark at level 1 instead to farm for its ether reward, a 200 INT staff.