I was wondering if you can skip rank missions by completing prestige missions and getting the required amount of prestige to rank up. I would like to know due to the fact of the new alchemy system using orbs (I know it's all about luck when it comes to getting orbs in the clock works, but my luck is about 99.99% bad and 0.01% good)... Could someone please tell me? Thanks!
Rank and prestige are totally different things. The rank bar will never fill up with prestige missions.
Also, harder missions would require better gear. You will need the orbs regardless.