You need to be finishing off 7 starring characters. I guess you bought the hdb to be level 85 with that roster?
I started a new account on 20th December to see what the new player experience was like. I spent money (US$10?) to get some crystals to get a 7 star character immediately, but that turned out to be Bhodi Rook, and really only jumped me ahead by 2 weeks of being able to get raid rewards from the guild I was able to join (80M gp guild, no heroic sith, no cpit). So at the rate they were gaining tickets, only a few raids. Wish I'd kept my money.
I'm level 80 now on day 70. I had CLS unlocked on day 57 at level 70ish. I aimed for CLS because that was the first journey guide character I unlocked on my main 5 years ago, which took me a year to do. So I'd also completed the R2-D2 journey and Palp (to get R2) journey at that point.
I have Palp, R2, OG rebels, a bunch of troopers, and a few others at 7 stars. I think the big problem for hdb players is they also skip learning how to play and manage resources. When you get all that gear in a giant lump, it is really easy to squander it.
Aim for completing journey guide stuff. With some focus you can start to get more key characters. And you can only complete journeys with 7 star characters.
Actually, I got there with 6 months of hard work. I do have a lot of characters that I could get to 7-stars if I had the Credits for them. Unfortunately, a lot of that is spent on leveling (for instance, I spent 3mil from today's Credit Heist's 5mil to level characters for Conquest).
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sell some 1-3 dot mods to get more credits