I can only start this a bit, but first off I would set some goals. I use long term, mid term and short term goals to get where I want to be. I watched a ton of YouTube videos to get me going on my 1st account and that helped me immensely.
What teams do you enjoy using? Eventually if you play long enough (everyday) you’ll have all (or portions) of these teams at higher gear levels/relics. Personally, I would focus on an arena team that can get you in the top 200 or higher. If not Squad Arena, perhaps Fleet Arena can work.
What teams do you see in Arena? This definitely affects the quality of advice one can give.
What game mode do you enjoy and hope to succeed? TB, TW, GAC? This preference also affects the quality of advice one can give.
I took a year off on my alt account (almost 2.4M GP) and I struggle to get top 500 with that account now. I’m playing that account f2p so I never buy anything. What I’ve done instead of beating my head against a wall in Squad Arena is focus on my fleet. While I cannot get top 500 very often in Squad Arena, since just unlocking Negotiator I can get top 20 in fleet arena. The crystals I get there help me make further upgrades faster. I use a mashup of ships for that team, but it is my best geared characters for many. I also stretch myself thin as GAC is my character focus (since arena is “impossible” for a good bit yet).
I do agree with your friends: focus on a single team and move on after that team is performing how you would like. I used EP, Vader, Thrawn, Nihilus & CD (sub BSF for CD, she is solid) in Arena for a good while. I started using JKR, GMY, Jolee, JKA & GK in arena and in my shard it did not matter. Neither of those teams is particularly strong vs DR or GAS that I see in the 500-1000 range (though I can beat a few), but if I am facing Padme either team performs well. If I am facing Geos, I wanna use EP squad. My longer term goal for arena is SEE but only after I build up a few more characters for GAC first. I only have 1 character at relic levels that doesn’t go toward SEE.
Well this got much more in depth than I had planned, but I hope it helps. Here is my swgoh.gg for my alt so you can see what I am doing. (My name “Mr Greedy” is an inside joke as I am by far the best at donations in the guild ?) Good luck to you!
https://swgoh.gg/p/323533964/
