Where to go from here?

FailingCrab

I guess I'm a pretty new player - started in early/mid December but spent the first couple of weeks floating around not really playing with any strategy, which I regret now. Didn't realise I was hooked until the New Year! F2P but I could be tempted to buy a few crystals here and there if necessary

https://swgoh.gg/u/ionastarbound/collection/

Since then I've been using the Adaptive F2P guide, farming Phoenix and expect to have them all 6-star by the end of the current Thrawn event and 7-star in time for the next Palpatine event.

In the time I lost to faffing around I've fallen way behind in the arena - breaking into the top 500 for payout but the highest I've managed to climb was 300 and within an hour I was back at 600. For fleets I don't seem to be able to break into the top 500 - my 29k fleet seems to get crushed by even 23k fleets.

My question is where should I go once I have 7* Phoenix to try and improve my arena/fleet viability? The F2P guide suggests transitioning to a Rebel squad which was my plan but with Thrawn and Palpatine plus Tarkin, Vader and Royal Guard/TFP it looks to me like I'll already have the basis of a decent Empire squad. If I go rebel then I'll have to farm almost all of them from scratch and I'm wary of losing even more ground in the arena while I do so, especially as I'm not getting a great supply of crystals

SorenEngels

the rebels are the best option must the of time, at the moment a very fun and good team are nightsisters, they are very dominant and they are very easy to farm and gear up, nightsisters are always a good option if you want something different the only problem is that they dont have any ships.

Sunnie1978

Part of deciding what to farm depends on what you want to do. Biggs and Wedge are both rebels and ship pilots, with Biggs being the best ship to have. Tie Fighter Pilot, First Order Tie Pilot, Fives and Darth Maul are found in most of the top fleets, even on old fleet shards. As you already have Phoenix, you may want to farm the phoenix ships and 3 more rebel ships so you can unlock Thrawn's capital ship, Chimaera.

The Game Changers have beginner videos suggesting what to farm and why, which may be helpful. https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/154847/new-player-farming-guide-2018#latest

To see what characters and gear level are needed for events, you can look at the list of reoccurring events which also may impact what you are farming.
https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/154696/reoccurring-events-and-characters-required-index#latest