R8 armor and dragon weapon ftw. I use this combination on my magic classes due to the dependency that mag classes have on channeling, esp on slower chan classes like venomancers. If you can get lucky with your stats, R8 has a huge boost over dragon gears, and as Soaring said, R8 armor already provides a boost due to its Atk and Def level bonuses even if you lose some stats in the process.