General Shard Farming/Character Gearing Advice

As for gear, you definitely want a g12 team ASAP for raids and squad arena. But having a bunch of toons geared to g9-10 helps too when it comes to events like Smuggler's Run or assault battles. Plus, you can do more missions in TB, put more squads on defense in TW, and it might even give you an edge in GA against people with a top-heavy roster. They only get to use their few zetaed g12 squads once, while you may be able to send in 10 or 12 squads to whittle down their defenses.