When you started last week, then SLKR is not on your agenda for a long time. After Empire and Phoenix you go for Bastila -Jedis and for Bounty Hunters. Bounty Hunters are critical for the Credit Heist event, have an Assault Battle (so do Jedis), do lots of work in GAC and Conquest (so do Jedis) and are an important part of fleets, because Hounds Tooth. That said, the name of the game is focus. Farm only 1 squad at a time actively, while you passively acquire the toons for future squads. At the beginning it will seem like shards are the bottleneck, they are not, gear is the bottleneck.