Am I kidding myself?

It is very possible to take 1st at payout as F2P. As others have mentioned you need speed to compete at the high end of arena. Using careful crystal management you can prepare for most events that people spend on. Once you have the right comp that's modded well you do not have to spend to get all the premium toons as with a good fleet you will profit 900+ crystals a day.

@Roopehun So what would you suggest I do? I have my Resistance Team that keeps me in the 200s. So what would be considered a “winning team?” Especially since I don’t have any of the Meta toons?

I will be honest I took one look at your Poe and saw a problem you have 2 crit damage set mods on him with no speed secondaries. That needs to be a potency set with speed secondaries with a potency cross. Poe has 2 jobs in a zeta Finn squad go first and land exposes. For a crit damage set you need 4 mods not 2 so you are missing out a lot with your current mod setup on him.

I'm not sure if it's possible to take top 10 with zeta Finn resistance but with good gear and mods they can still break top 100 on my shard

Also running zeta Finn resistance you should really have trooper instead of either pilot or Rey.

@Darthpedro I’ll work on that for sure. I’ll tweak that right away.

"ResidentRecon89;c-1504471" wrote:
@Roopehun So what would you suggest I do? I have my Resistance Team that keeps me in the 200s. So what would be considered a “winning team?” Especially since I don’t have any of the Meta toons?

Your resistance team will not get you to the top (I assume, that's your goal). You could climb quite a bit by building a team around your current empire/sith characters. Palpatine lead, Vader and Sion could form a solid base. Mix in two of Nihilus, Tie Fighter Pilot, Tarkin and Thrawn. Until those last 2 are ready, you might use Savage or Maul (or simply stick to your resistance with mods sorted, until your new team is ready).

You are quite close to being ready to take Thrawn to 7*. I would first and foremost complete Hera and Ezra (farm them in cantina and buy their shards whenever they appear in shops) and gear your Phoenix team. Ezra at g10, Chopper and Hera at g9 and Zeb and Kanan at g8 should do the trick.

Furthermore, you must work on your mods. Understand the importance of speed f.ex. The filtering option on swgoh.gg is a great tool fir this:

https://swgoh.gg/u/residentrecon89/mods/?stat2_5=1

As Pedro mentioned, you need to focus on a few main goals instead of spreading your resources left and right. As F2p player your resources are limited. However, if you do that wisely and consistently you will be able to reach top ranks in the arena.

I used to take first regularly as ftp. Metas change and things get cycled through.

The first step is make sure you're in a guild doing heroic aat and rancor. The gear rewards greatly help in your attempt to build as ftp, and last place at the top level is often better than top place at a non-heroic level.

Second, make sure you have a focus. If you're heavily geared for resistance, they'll do well in the haat raid, but are pretty notoriously bad on defense for arena so you'll need to keep in mind that you'll need an entirely new squad there.

Finally, realize that meta change. It might not be in your best interest chasing the current golden ring. By the time you build it, there's likely going to be something else that's top dog. Don't get discouraged. Don't feel compelled to assign every piece of gear you get. Often, you'll be able to use it for a character that's suddenly very important.

What @Waqui said.

Ep, Vader, Sion, Dn, Thrawn will get you to top 10. It is the squad I use and I cash out top 10 whenever work allows me to play. And I am ftp.

"ResidentRecon89;d-164179" wrote:
I don’t have the Meta’s like CLS and Jedi Training Rey due to not having the requirements...

But you will have, eventually. If you want them. That's the point of the game :smile:

I've been getting rank 1 every single day for over 2 years now and I have spent exactly £0.00 on the game. So yeah, it's not only possible, it's exceptionally easy if you know what you're doing. Focus on the characters you need to build a meta team and whilst doing so make sure you're getting all mods with a speed secondary from the store. You need at the bare minimum +80 to +100 speed on all 5 arena team characters to even stand a chance at breaking top 10.