Hey guys, I haven't logged on in quite a while for an update, sorry! I tried lowering my squad rank into the thousands and saw absolutely no change to my difficulty. So instead, I decided I was going to beat the crap out of this stupid game the old fashioned way! I still haven't paid a dime into the game (though I wouldn't mind doing it), and I am beating the galactic war nearly every day. I have beaten it 35 times now, and am proud of it! I have a few tips, most of which have already been mentioned here. Say what you want about it, but retreating a match has been crucial to surviving. I know people think it's cheating, or wimping out, but frankly I couldn't care less. The key has been having Old Daka and Darth Sidious on my crew. Sidious will hit people with the anti-heal and the only character that can override that is Barriss Offee. Queen Daka has a 35% chance of reviving defeated allies and has saved my bacon a million times. So I have my top 5 characters with all 7 stars, maxed at level 70, with all their abilities & attacks (left column) maxed out at 6 or 7. Here's who I have in my top 5:
Luminari Unduli - leader (best leader ability in terms of healing)
Jedi Consular
Darth Sidious
Old Daka
Biggs Darklighter
These characters are pretty easy to max out based on how many opportunities they each have to gather their shards. Jedi Consular is great because he heals nearly as well as Luminari. Biggs is great because of his Comrade-in-arms attack that basically gives you an extra attack for free and has a 75% chance of critical hit.
You'll lose characters in the galactic war, I've never beaten in without losing someone. So I also beefed up some other characters, but I haven't been able to completely max them out yet. But there are a few others with lots of opportunities to get shards like; Stormtrooper Han, Captain Phasma, Clone Wars Chewy, Count Dooku, Savage Opress, and more. My current goal is to get 9 light side and 9 dark side characters at level 70 with max abilities before a new update raises the max level. It helps that I play it every day, and I let my secondary account be just for fun. If I don't have time to get on that one, I don't worry about it. I recommend the same strategies, they work for me.
Spend all your galactic war tokens on 1 character until they're maxed out, I recommend Luminari, Biggs, and Phasma. Spend all your Arena tokens the same way, starting with Sidious, Savage Opress, Stormtrooper Han. Cantina credits take more time to obtain, so mine have all been spent on Daka, and she's nearly at her final 100. I recommend getting "Fives" after that for his speed bonus and counter attack.
I hope you all have as much fun at this game as I do. Enjoy!