The skills Bouncer/Braver/Phantom Mag convert your Mag's Dex stat across multiple Attack stats. Mel/Rng for Braver, Mel/Tec for Bouncer, and all three for Phantom. This makes a Dex mag viable, and my personal preference! But that's not all... These are NOT Main Class only skills. Using a combination of these as your Main/Sub will grant you 400 in your preferred stat, twice what is normally possible from your Mag.

BoBr/BrBo don't actually synergize all that well together, though it'll certainly work well enough until you get into the higher level content.

The true potential of this comes from Phantom sub. Phantom is a Successor Class in JP, though I believe they've been renamed to Scion Classes for NA. You unlock them after getting to 75 in any two normal classes. Phantom works really well as a subclass, providing technique access/buffs, extra PP, and large, consistent multipliers to damage and crit chance. And its Mag skill, as mentioned above, converts Dex into all three attack stats.

For BoPh, this means a maximum of 400 Mel, 200 Rng, and 400 Tec, which in addition to just being a great boost to your damage output, will help you equip basically whatever you want by endgame. It also allows you to use techs to much greater effect than other Bouncer builds can, thanks to the cast speed and PP buffs. Also worth noting is that Mag skills don't actually "convert" your Dex into Attack. You'll still be getting the full 200 Dex from your Mag, in addition to the attack. This means that using BoPh will give you a total of 1200 stat points from a single Mag.

TL;DR: Dex Mag best Mag

yeah; though the problem with subclassing braver to bouncer is that braver has a fair chunk of it's damage locked inside Katana Combat and Rapid Shooting, which only apply to their main class weapons; same goes for bouncer in the case of br/bo, getting that extra 200 Mel pwr doesn't really make up for the damage you lose out from not taking hunter or fighter as your subclass (until phantom is available)

Yeah, there isn't too much point in BoBr/BrBo, but it's there if you really want to.

@Radical-Rat hello. Just a small question since you're talking about dex mags. If I'm running a soaring blades style, should I have a dex mag? Or is bouncer main stat for pysical pysical damage dex or something else?

@UmemeMfalme If you are a Bouncer or Braver, you want to use a DEX Mag becuase you have a default Skill on your Tree that turns that DEX directly into PWR (MEL and RNG for Braver, MEL and TEC for Bouncer). So as a Bouncer, a pure DEX mag gives you 200 DEX, 200 MEL-PWR, and 200 TEC-PWR to your base stats, instead of just 200 MEL-PWR from a pure MEL Mag.

Also, the Scion Class, Phantom, also has a DEX Mag Skill, and it is a great sub for Bouncer not only becuase of its normal Skills, but because, as mentioned above, its Mag skill stacks with Bouncer's, so if you have a DEX Mag as a Bo/Ph, you actually get 400 MEL-PWR from your DEX Mag instead of just 200 if you had a pure-MEL Mag.

@UmemeMfalme Which stat affects damage is based on the weapon type rather than the class type, with some caveats such as Bouncer's ability to toggle between MEL and TEC for Jet Boots. Soaring Blades use MEL, but as AndrlCh clarified, Bouncer adds your Mag's DEX to both MEL and TEC power, making a DEX Mag optimal.

That said, if you think you might want to play as one of the pure Melee classes (Hunter or Fighter) on the same character, you might consider building a MEL Mag instead, as a DEX Mag would be useless on those without keeping Bouncer or Braver as your subclass.

So yeah, either DEX or MEL will do fine, but if you like Bouncer and plan to stick with it, use DEX.

I just want to add that Hero and Etoile also have a MAG skill that utilizes all three attack stats, and will convert them into MEL, RNG, and TEC even if you have just 200 RNG, you get 200 in each stat. Hero and Etoile MAG do not count with DEX, just MEL, RNG, and TEC.. So having at least two MAGs is a good idea if you want to play all of the Scion classes.

Personally, I'm building two MAGs. Pure RNG, and pure DEX. My reasoning is that I can still play Ranger/Gunner/Bow Braver, or switch to TEC or MEL as Phantom or Etoile, or pull out Hero and be a jack of all trades.

Maybe I'll build more in the future, but I'm going to be leveling Bouncer and Braver next in anticipation for the Scions.