Equip cost or rarity?

I have tried to look into this but does anyone know which is the best way to go?

What is best to go for the rarity of a card? Or the equip cost?

For example, is a R weapon with cost of 24 better than a SR weapon with 18 cost? Im guessing you can upgrade the SR more than R, UR more than SR, but when do the equip costs cross over?

Does anyone know? I would do some research into this but Im not wasting cards upgrading a rare that when I use in an augment or sell it will have the same value as if I hadnt upgraded it, thats just a waste of coins and a topic which has been covered already.

Thanks

I have SR cards with equip values in the teens that when upgraded exceed the max upgraded value of R cards with higher equip costs.

UR is better than SR or R (until they start making XR???).

As for upgrading, I've used upgraded R cards to upgrade SR and UR cards once the R card was of no use. The upgraded stats were accounted for in the final value of the upgrade.

The key is, I think, good management of which category you put equip points. In weapons, which has the least number of available slots, I'm putting 20 to 25 points per slot, and equipping the best gear I can into each slot.

The rarity of the card determines its capacity or potential for upgrades. You can upgrade an SR to much higher levels than a R. The equip cost is a deciding factor inside a rarity set to me. Like a R with a 25 equip cost is gonna be better than one with a 17 by a fair amount when fully upgraded, but it won't be anywhere near as good as a fully upgraded (or partially upgraded, maybe 70%) SR with the same equip cost. If this helps explain any haha.